Utilizing Analysis to Improve Guided Selling

Guided selling tools assist sales professionals respond to customers needs effectively and follow best practice guidelines. They guide the user through the sales process. The most basic form of a guided sales tool is the sales script. Scripts alone do not adequately address the changing relationship between the customer and the sales professional. Competitive sales people need a richer set of information delivered in real-time to meet the changing needs of the customer and ensure a continued positive relationship. The alternative can result in customer dissatisfaction and opportunity losses.

Pointing to Profits, an article recently published in CRM magazine discusses the natural benefits of integrating CRM and guided selling tools. Tim Sullivan, vice president of product development at consultancy Sales Performance International talks about the value of analytics alongside guided selling tools.

"Now, with analytics, guided selling is more dynamic, and can be tailored more to situations." And like analytics, according to Schneider, guided selling tools have been gaining traction in both point solution form and as part of an end-to-end CRM suite.

CRM systems allow key metrics from each sales interaction to be recorded. Analysis of these metrics can identify successful sales patterns and behaviors. Guided selling tools deliver these insights to the sales force be applied in day to day. These insights can impact the performance of individual sales professionals by identifying key steps in the sales process and recommending specific actions such as pitching up-sale opportunities or offering added incentives to close the sale. Automated analysis is able to continually track changing sales patterns and customer behaviors, allowing integrated guided selling tools to meet the needs of non-static customers and products.

As Schneider states, modern guided selling tools rely on analytics to continually deliver the goods.

To maximize their value to the sales staff, guided selling tools should provide assistance on a real-time basis. Insights should be accessed easily and adjust promptly and appropriately according to changes in the customer. The CRM system and guided selling tools should work smoothly alongside the sales professional enhancing their own experience and skill set.

"The process must be conversational. There are rule-based wizard solutions, but they always feel like wizards--very artificial." The goal, Fordham says, is to support the salesperson, not try to replace her. "You don't want to lose the sense that there's an interaction going on."

When guided selling tools and CRM are well integrated with the way the sales professional operates, the process becomes a closed loop. New sales data entered into CRM continually affects the analysis results, feeding guided sales tools with dynamic insights for the sales staff.

With good metrics and analysis, every sales interaction works for you, even if you don't make the sale.