Sales teams are at the heart of a business and having well designed sales processes, the right tech and clear goals can provide a first-rate working culture, ensuring businesses grow. What’s more, a fully remote Sales Team can provide even greater results than their office counterparts.
It’s all because going to work is no longer about working from an office. It’s about getting the job done from wherever you are. This can be helped or hindered by the tools you use.
Remote working has increased dramatically since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, Gartner reported that 48% of employees will likely work remotely at least at least partly after COVID-19 vs 30% before the pandemic.
Not only is a fully mobile sales team possible; it can provide great results. In a digital age we can be constantly connected with our colleagues via multiple channels, and companies who use a mobile workforce have a competitive advantage, and here’s why:
5 reasons why you need a remote sales team:
1. Increase sales
Remote working has shown to improve productivity. So much so that one study found remote working employees worked 1.4 more days per month. This equals more than 3 additional weeks of work a year. This increase in efficiency and the use of tools such as a CRM integration (like CloudCall), means remote sales teams can increase their sales performance significantly compared to office-based teams.
2. Access important information
Sales teams can access all the information they can in the office from anywhere. All they need is an internet connection. With a CRM integration you can store all conversations with customers and keep their details up to date. By capturing all customer conversations directly in a CRM, agents get an overview of the customers full contact history. CloudCall features, such as screen pops and call recordings mean salespeople can have access to all the data they need to close a deal, no matter where they are.
3. Shorter response times
Having access to customer details allows mobile sales teams to respond to customers straightaway. A shorter response time is not only great for customer satisfaction levels but also increases sales.
A study found that “salespeople had 100 times greater chance of making a successful contact with a lead within five minutes of an inquiry, as opposed to 30 minutes. That same lead was 21 times more likely to enter the sales process if contacted within 5 minutes.”
4. Track important insights
Having real time dashboards and supervisor panels allows managers to keep up with the output and success of their mobile sales teams. Features such as call recordings can help with training too. Neville James, UK Sales Director at CloudCall said “CloudCall allows me to go into all our systems in detail. I can see the calls that have been made, who’s making them, frequency of calls and how long people are on their calls for. But most importantly for me, I can randomly listen to the calls.”
5. Collaboration on the go
Being able to record all valuable data directly into a CRM means that everyone in a sales team can access up to date information from anywhere. Tools such as SMS messaging allow teams to collaborate in real time, making interactions with customers a positive experience for everyone.
We spoke to CloudCall’s UK Sales Director, Neville James about managing a remote sales team. Neville shares his thoughts on how the move to home working has allowed him to manage his team effectively from a distance and increase performance using CloudCall’s call recording and analytics features.
We know how important it is for you to keep track of your team’s activities and doing this remotely can be tricky. Our solution offers you a seamless experience as a supervisor; to be able to monitor, manage and train your team during real-time calls.
Here are just a couple of the ways CloudCall lets you interact with your team’s calls.
Monitor
Monitor allows you as a supervisor to listen in on a call without either party knowing. This allows you to keep track of your team’s calls and conversations, without being too obtrusive. Think of this as you simply walking past a room and listening in on the conversation taking place inside, just a bit less creepy.
Whisper
Whisper allows you to speak to your agent without the caller knowing. Your voice is at 50% volume, so your colleague will still be able to hear their original caller. This is useful if they need guidance or reassurance. Or even just for you to let them know that they’re doing great. This is a bit like a secret MI5 earpiece, you and your agent both know it’s there if needed but the outside party will not.
Barge
Our Barge feature lets you as a supervisor, take over the call from your colleague, if they are struggling or need assistance. You probably won’t be using it as much as Whisper or Monitor but still a useful tool to have. Think of Barge as you politely substituting yourself into a game whilst removing your team member at the same time.
Call Recording
With the Call Recording feature, you can assess the quality of customer interactions. By recording every call, good or bad, you can create a back catalogue of conversations, for training and monitoring in the future. This one is self-explanatory, just imagine an endless digital library, where each book is a past conversation.
Call Reports
Call Reports are a great way for you to track the number and duration of calls made by individuals on your team. You can also access real-time information on the number and type of activities that resulted from each call. Think of this as an extensive car dashboard, which shows each team member and how well they are running.
CloudCall can’t manage your team for you, but we can provide you with the tools to ensure your staff are being productive and help you check in on them.
It is important, now more than ever, for leaders to check up on their staff. Our features allow you to give your support at any time, no matter where you, or your team, are based.
Having a remote sales team is the future. Is your company prepared? Contact a member of the CloudCall team to find out more, or book a demo.
