When it comes to the digital side of your business, you may have heard through the grapevine that sales automation is one of the trends that is helping small and medium-sized businesses to expand their audiences and increase their revenue.
Sales automation is the process of using cutting-edge technology and specific software platforms to engage your audience, generate and follow through on leads, and improve your business’s customer service systems.
There are a few misperceptions around automation that might be holding you back from featuring it in your business, and that’s a shame! Neglecting to automate certain aspects of your business can have a direct impact on your bottom line, which is why we want to share the truth about automation and how it can have a positive effect on your sales.
Misperception #1: Automation Means the Robots Win
We’ve all felt the rising levels of frustration that come with trying to reach customer service via an automated phone system that takes you through endless numerical menus and responds with insincere apologies when the bot can’t understand your selection or repeated requests to speak to an actual, live person.
Is relying on that kind of poorly designed automation the first acquiescence in a series of increasingly alarming battles between humans and robots that end with humans at the pleading mercy of their computerized counterparts?
Although, as the Doris Day song goes, “the futures’ not ours to see,” one thing is for certain: your marketing and sales automation processes do not need to look anything like the aloof and impersonal automation methods that you’ve had to struggle through in the past.
Technology is constantly improving, and the newest automation techniques work smarter and more intuitively in order to create an enhanced customer service experience.
Misperception #2: Small Businesses Don’t Need Automation
One of the things that many small businesses fail to do (and one of the things that keeps small businesses….well, small) is taking the steps necessary to grow their following. We get it, the idea of growth, no matter how strongly desired, can be scary!
After all, growing your business means having to hire and train (and consistently make the sales to pay) new staff, making sure that your products and services are readily available and updated as needed, and ensuring that the legal side of things is on the up and up.
Staying small might seem like it means staying safe, but the truth is, nothing in this world is promised, and big risks can bring big rewards.
It can be easy to tell yourself that you will invest in an automation process once your business meets a certain financial goalpost, when in fact investing in automation is the very act that can spur your business to success.
The misquote from Field of Dreams “build it, and they will come” applies here. When you have the systems in place to support exponential growth, you attract the clientele and sales that contribute to that growth.
Misperception #3: Automation Is Only About Sales and Marketing
While automation obviously helps you to streamline your sales and marketing processes, it’s about more than just increasing numbers.
Automation can help you communicate with and train employees, save you time and energy needlessly spent delegating tasks, improve customer service, resolve payments, create personalized interactions with your audience based on their needs, and so much more.
If you’re interested in learning about all of the ways that sales and marketing automation can help you to build your business, then look no further. Here at Don Creative Group we love creating customized automation plans for our clients, and are ready to help you to implement automation in your business today!
