A 5 minute conversation is more impactful than 5 hours of cold calling. I mean that’s the whole point, right? Cold call until you get someone interested enough to have a conversation with you. Why not turn your focus to an audience that is already interested in the product or service you are selling?
The average online lead conversion rate is about 2.4% globally. Businesses with a lead generation landing page are able to get that lead conversion rate up to around 4%. Hardly anything to be proud of.
When a good conversion rate is 4%, you know a change in processes is due. Nothing against cold calling, or passive lead gen forms. But it’s time to look at a new channel; one that many competitors have not taken advantage of yet, adding conversations directly to your website.
According to McKinsey, post COVID-19 “digital interactions are twice as important” as they were before. Customer behavior reflects this shift in the importance of digital interactions; since 2019 customers' preference for digitally enabled sales interactions has increased significantly when researching products. This is relevant to both inside and outside sales teams.
Inside sales has got a focus of generating leads, nurturing relationships and closing deals. As in-person interactions became limited and companies continued a remote work adoption, inside sales have had to rely more heavily on technology for communication. This includes tools such as video conferences, customer relationship management (CRM) software, and remote presentation tools. Specifically, companies have had to adapt to virtual selling, using video conferencing and other online tools to interact with customers and close deals.
This is where real-time video chat comes in. If you’ve got an inside sales team, utilizing real time video chat for your website is a no brainer.
Personalized Demos: Sales reps can use video chat to provide personalized demos to prospects, allowing them to see the product or service in action and answer questions in real-time.
One-on-one meetings: Inside sales reps can use video chat to hold one-on-one meetings with leads directly on their own website. This helps to guide potential customers, allowing them to build personal connections and ask important questions directly with a sales rep.
Lead Qualification: Video Chat can be used to quickly and efficiently qualify leads, allowing sales reps to focus their efforts on the most promising prospects.
Unlike inside sales, outside sales are sales activities that take place outside of the office. A day filled with visiting potential customers, attending trade shows and industry events. It is all about building relationships with customers face-to-face. Prior to COVID-19 52.8 percent of sales— were made by Outside Sales teams. During COVID this number decreased substantially and almost 90 percent of sales moved to the Inside Sales model. According to McKinsey, moving past COVID-19 “almost 90% of sales have movies to a video conferencing/phone/web sales model” and this is “equally or more effective than sales models used before COVID-19”.
The technology needs to match the in person experience now that outside sales is decreasing. This is not just because there are less outside sales reps but because business may not have as much capacity to accommodate an office visit. The technology must have the same ability as outside sales reps had.
Increased Efficiency: Video chat allows sales reps to connect with leads in real-time, reducing the time and effort required to schedule and attend in-person meetings. This can help teams generate more leads and close deals more quickly.
Better Qualification: Video chat provides sales reps with a better understanding of potential customers, allowing them to more effectively qualify leads and focus their efforts on the most promising prospects.
Increased Flexibility: Video chat provides greater flexibility for sales teams, allowing them to connect with leads from anywhere, at any time. This makes it easier to reach leads in different time zones and to accommodate busy schedules.
With the post COVID evolution with both inside and outside sales, it is clear that how sales works as a whole is evolving and relying heavily on technology. There needs to be an innovation shift to get the same amount of leads in and the technology needs to match the in-person experience.
