For a sales organization to be successful with a CRM system, you need to capture sales activities consistently and automate the process as much as possible. Ideally, you should be able to rely on each salesperson within your organization to track their outbound sales activity in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, capturing all interactions with your prospects and customers with a few clicks.
“If the process for tracking outbound sales activity process isn’t easy, no one will do it. It’s always easier not to do it.”
From the salesperson’s perspective, they want to focus on selling. No one is interested in repetitive, tedious admin work that gets in the way of that. On the other hand, sales management wants clear visibility into the call volume and types of outbound touches being made across the sales organization. These are key performance metrics that provide great insight into prospect and client engagement. But those metrics can only be realized if the information is in a consistent format aligned with the company’s methodology and sales qualification parameters. Only then will your CRM solution reveal its full value by providing actionable insights.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales can help your organization track outbound sales activity.
Let’s follow one of your inside sales reps through a day of prospecting.
They start their day reviewing their call list. They are focused on nurturing existing customers and finding new ones. Their goal is to qualify or disqualify potential business opportunities. So, they pick up the phone and start calling. Then they record the results of the call and move to the next prospect call. Scheduling reminders and recording customer data in daily planners and spreadsheets is time-consuming. The right CRM system automates these processes and provides a scalable system everyone can work from.
Here’s where Dynamics 365 Sales comes in.
Suppose one salesperson only tracks his activities with comments such as ‘good conversation’, while another salesperson tracks outbound touches in an entirely different way. In that case, management will never have visibility into the total outbound effort across the organization. Consistency is vital if a sales organization wants to measure sales activity and proactively manage how sales efforts are translating to new business opportunities.
At ForgeXRM, we work with sales organizations to implement tools and methodologies that make the prospecting more efficient and your team more successful. Our goal is to make CRM entry and tracking outbound sales activity in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales streamlined and easy. And with a focus on removing administrative barriers so everyone will use it consistently.
“With prospecting, it’s essential to track all outbound contacts methodically. After all, outbound touches take time, and you want to be able to quantify your investment.”
How does your sales organization answer the following questions?
If a salesperson leaves a prospect a voice mail, can they easily rack it and schedule a follow-up activity?
If a prospect refers a salesperson to a more appropriate contact in the organization, is this information easily recorded?
Can a salesperson easily schedule a follow-up activity after they engage with a prospect?
Is there a standard schedule for follow-up activities?
Can a salesperson cycle through and nurture a list of prospects based on their last outbound sales activity?
How do you measure marketing’s influence on the sales pipeline?
Do you disqualify prospects or reposition your approach based on inactivity?
These are all important questions for any business engaged in outbound sales activities. Tracking outbound sales activity in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales can help answer these questions. And most importantly, streamline the process so it’s not an administrative burden on the salesperson.
At ForgeXRM, we provide tools and methodologies that make the sales prospecting process more efficient and the data more useful. We streamline your sales team’s administrative efforts by reducing the number of clicks for tracking and recording outbound touches. ForgeXRM and Microsoft Dynamics 365 can give your organization the needed visibility into customer and prospecting activities.
Would you like to know more about tracking outbound sales activities in Dynamics 365 Sales or within Power Apps?
We create tailored CRM and XRM solutions that help you better engage with your customers and prospects, optimize operations, and empower your employees. To learn more, contact our CRM experts at ForgeXRM.
By Ryan Plourde, ForgeXRM, www.forgexrm.com
