What is Sales Engagement and Why Does It Matter?

Just like how you want customers to visit your website and click on your ads, sales engagement involves that same kind of interaction. Sales engagement platforms (SEPs) are designed to track the relationship between buyers and sellers, and over time, that data can be used to better understand the overall process—determining rates of engagement and conversions that help lead to building a better sales force in the future. On the other hand, lots of sales reps may think of sales engagement as simply trying to keep your lead “on the hook” for as long as possible. Sadly, this kind of mindset doesn’t lead to better selling. In fact, it only hurts your sales team in the long run and positions you further behind competitors who are using SEPs to crush their quotas.

But don’t worry—knowing the details behind sales engagement tools doesn’t have to be complicated. Here’s what you need to know to get ahead of the sales game:

What is Sales Engagement, Anyway?

As mentioned above, sales engagement represents understanding the interactions between customers and your sales team.

For example, when your sales rep is on the phone with a lead or running someone through a demo, how engaged is the customer throughout the presentation? How often do they ask questions or click on links to learn more or sign up further? Sales engagement means the tracking and processing of data, and then studying that data to help make better sales decisions for future sales processes.

And not only do SEPs create an in-depth blend of analytics, communication tools, and sales enablement training, but they also incorporate CRM integrations alongside many CRM platforms, such as Hubspot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, and Zoho.

Think of an SEP as your main system for learning and understanding your sales process and customer data, whereas your CRM is merely a place to record it and access it.

So, Why Does Sales Engagement Matter?

Well, the sales world doesn’t revolve around old-fashioned instincts and selling techniques like it used to. Instead, data is the ultimate indicator of how qualified a lead is, and whose even worth a salesperson’s time in the first place.

Sales engagement software serves as your one-stop shop for customer analytics and customer behaviors. It allows sales reps to find selling patterns among different types of customers, but even more importantly, it shows what habits or techniques that your sales reps are following throughout their customer interactions. SEPs are mainly built for understanding, but truly intuitive sales engagement tools also use sales enablement strategies to educate sales reps and increase conversion rates over time.

Sales Engagement vs. Sales Enablement: What’s the Difference?

So if sales engagement is the processing and understanding of data, what’s left to actually apply what you learn from that data towards improving sales? This is where sales enablement make a tremendous impact.

Quite often, sales teams confuse these two terms as the same thing, however, sales enablement includes sales tools, such as…

• Using analytics to create reports for product demos, won and lost deals, and lead generation
• Learning more about the demo process and seeing why customers don’t close
• Using lead scoring systems to better qualify leads
• Running content audits to compile sales resources (whitepapers, case studies, demo decks, and pricing info) that sales reps can easily access and learn from
• Hosting training sessions and call coaching for sales reps
• Using call whispers to guide sales reps through the demo and sales process

Harnessing data and understanding it is only one part of the sales process for a team—they need an active strategy that implements that knowledge into better workflows and improved sales. When sales engagement tools work with sales enablement resources, that’s when meaningful change starts to take hold.

Kixie offers a Sales Engagement Platform to Improve Your Sales Force

Now that you know the difference between sales engagement platforms vs. sales enablement tools, you’re much better suited to choose an SEP that improves your sales force over time.

Kixie is a sales engagement software with CRM integrations that work with the top brands in sales automation. Not only do you get an autodialer with a wide range of sales engagement tools built in, but you also have sales coaching resources that your reps can use to increase their conversions and beat their quotas month after month.

Scheduling a free trial is simple— click here to get started and learn more about what Kixie can do for your success.