By Mark Thomas, Head of Sales, Merlin Software for Vacation Ownership

Sales teams have often been at the forefront of ‘agile’ responsive working, especially for off-site or outside sales teams. Requirements for information on-the-go have grown as sales staff travel to meet with customers, and as sales leaders manage their remote teams.

The recent changes to the ways of working due to Covid-19 lockdowns across the world have led to easy acceptance, in the main, of remote working by sales teams. However, has the technology been available for all sales teams to succeed?

Digital transformation is the use of new, fast, and frequently changing digital technology to solve problems. It is about transforming processes that were non-digital or manual to digital methods. One example of digital transformation is cloud computing.

It is a digital transformation in the sales arena that is critical for successful sales today. It allows the teams to function, to be managed, monitored and present solutions remotely without the need to operate from an office.

Collecting paper-based printed brochures, paper quotations and contracts, even training materials and company policies are now far easier to distribute amongst teams through digital copies. Companies are now able to centralise this data and resources to ensure the information is both up to date and follows any policies.

Customer Relationship Management, pipeline management, quotations, contracts and invoices are generally managed through a central hosted (private, hybrid or public/shared) cloud environment. This removes any information blockers to the sales flow and provides an easily managed environment for data collaboration and to monitor individuals progress through the sales cycle.

Monitoring sales employees is generally easier than other teams as the all-important ‘number’ is scrutinised. But this data can easily be viewed without context. Communication with all sales staff is therefore inherently meaningful, and remote management of performance is critical for the sales team’s success.

With personal face to face meetings eradicated the move to video conference through Skype, Google Meet, Go To Meeting, Zoom and so on has been the go-to technology to discuss solutions with customers.

Due to the near-global dependency on these technologies sales teams have needed to increase their contact with clients to guide them through the sales process, follow up with detailed next steps and ensure all information is available to the client to make an informed decision.

This requires the right IT services to be delivered to these sales teams – nothing is more annoying than a failing IT system to dampen a sales team’s motivation.

Home office environments need to be supported, training in the new systems being used, bandwidth availability for video calls and access to company information, and mobile voice solutions considered.

Integration into a Voice over IP network allows for sales teams to be visibly part of the office with remote wallboards of incoming calls, a ‘desk phone’ with an internal extension and other benefits which allow for affordable remote integration.

While customer ‘visits’ by video conference can increase due to reduced travel time, the key is the customer relationship.

Although more can be done in volume, the importance of quality customer time is evident – the quality of quantity, particularly in consultative selling environments.  

Providing confidence to clients remotely is inherently more challenging to achieve, especially with new clients. So the sales teams will need to have quality materials in the sales toolkit – more marketing information, datasheets, website updates, remote demonstrations, access to internal teams for pricing, lead times, project management and so on all increase the pressure on the sales process.

Even though the technology can be deployed to form process and workflows, often the personal engagement with internal teams is vital in delivering results.

Working remotely can, of course, dampen team spirit. Sales teams are generally motivated through achieving results, and this will rely on the rest of the company being able to deliver what has been sold – or more accurately, the sales teams selling solutions that can be provided by the team!

Celebrating success is often carried out face to face, so sales leaders will have to be creative in motivating their teams remotely.

Again, as with clients, clear and frequent communication will assist in ensuring the teams are motivated, as well as ensuring they have the tools to carry out their role.

Introducing the agile Merlin Software Sales Module

Do your sales teams have all the right tools to carry out their role? If not, then it might be an excellent opportunity to check out Merlin Software’s cloud-based sales module. This wide-ranging module allows you to take control of the entire process – whatever the product and wherever you sell – on-site, off-site or through third-party agents.

More importantly, in the time of remote working, it ticks many of the boxes needed for today’s agile and responsive sales teams, including:

• A full CRM system with case tracking
• Sales pipelines
• Sales recording and tracking with full financial and ownership audit
• Contract processing for all types of timeshare and fractional sales
• Sales team monitoring
• Customised sales reports
• Finance integration with mortgage support
• Correspondence storage
• Manage re-sales, cessions, conversions, trade-ins, upgrades
• Set up prices lists in multiple currencies
• Links directly to Merlin’s accounting and marketing modules

To find out more about how Merlin’s agile sales module can support you as your resort business adapts to a new way of selling, call me, Mark Thomas, on UK: +44 870 803 4418, USA: +1 646 233 3503 or email me at markt@quickmerlin.com to arrange an online demo.