5 Guaranteed Benefits of Contact Center Automation for Sales Teams

Sales teams are under immense pressure to meet quotas and hit targets. In order to stay competitive and successful in uncertain economic times, many sales organizations have turned to automation in the contact center, instead of hiring more staff.

Some call center processes can (and should be) completely automated, while others require input from a sales professional and can only be 80-90% automated in order to work effectively. Other sales tasks like pitching to a potential client, or personalizing a follow-up phone call based on a previous conversation, are mostly driven by sales agents and cannot benefit from a lot of AI or automation intervention. Nevertheless, by capitalizing on those processes that can be completely (or mostly) automated, individual sales reps can save hours every day and your entire sales team can significantly up their productivity.

Here are 5 benefits of automating your contact center that are guaranteed to improve sales performance. We’ll cover each of these benefits in more detail below.

• Higher productivity
• Better customer service
• Reduced staff turnover
• Increased sales
• Better data

Many sales teams are hesitant to transition to new technology. They worry that it will be too difficult to learn, or that it will somehow hinder their ability to sell. However, this is not always the case. In fact, there are several benefits of transitioning your contact center onto new automation technology which can help them become more productive and successful.

1. Increased Productivity

Automating repetitive tasks in the contact center allows sales reps to focus on more important tasks, like developing relationships with customers and closing deals. Studies show that employees can waste up to 40% of their time on administrative tasks. Automating the contact center can help reduce this wasted time and make employees more productive.

2. Improved Customer Service

When customers call a company, they expect to speak to a live person who can help them with their inquiry. However, many times they are instead greeted by an automated voice message. This can lead to frustration and ultimately result in the customer hanging up or taking their business elsewhere. By using automations such as ring groups, call queues, and interactive voice response (IVR) in the contact center, businesses can ensure that customers always speak to a live person who can help them, leading to improved customer service.

3. Reduced Staff Turnover

Hiring and training new employees is a costly endeavor. Automating the contact center can help businesses save money by reducing the need to hire new staff. With an efficient sales process that focuses on maximizing the conversations that sales reps can have with new customers, employees are less likely to feel burnt out and unmotivated. Sales dialer automation features such as parallel dialers, local presence dialing, and voicemail drop can all maximize the amount of time reps spend talking to actual prospects, and reduce busy work.

4. Increased Sales

Studies have shown that businesses that automate their contact center see an increase in sales. This is likely due to the increased productivity and improved customer service that automating the contact center can provide. Your bottom line can be improved by as much as 10% according to McKinsey & Company if you are one of the early adopters of sales automation technology.

5. Better Data in the CRM

By automatically tracking call outcomes, logging new incoming or outgoing calls, and updating contact information as soon as there’s a change, the prospect and customer data you hold in the CRM will be cleaner and more reliable. Nothing is more valuable than reliable data. With better information at your finger tips, you’ll be able to make more informed decisions about when to follow-up, what channel to reach people on, and how to open a conversation for the best possible outcome.

Automating the contact center can provide many benefits for sales teams. By increasing productivity, improving customer service, and reducing costs, implementing automated processes in your contact center are well worth the time and energy it takes to set them up. Looking for a place to start? Kixie offers all of the automation features detailed above – sign up for a free trial of Kixie’s sales engagement software and start automating!