Written by Allie Delos Santos
Contents
Generating revenue is the primary responsibility of sales representatives. But most of them waste time doing non-revenue-generating activities. Part of the problem is the quantity of administrative tasks they handle.
How can medical sales representatives improve their workflow and focus on selling? The answer lies in automating with a healthcare BPO.
This quick guide tells you all you need to know about sales automation for medical sales. It discusses the advantages and uses of automation for medical sales and provides tips for its implementation.
What Is Sales Automation for Medical Sales?
Medical sales automation uses technology to limit repetitive and manual tasks in your workflow. Moving these recurring tasks to automated systems lets you reduce your employees’ workload. This, in turn, allows them to concentrate on closing deals and generating more revenue.
Sales automation tools are software-based solutions that simplify your team’s processes, making them more consistent, efficient, and successful. These tools involve various systems that allow sales agents to computerize tasks. One example is software that sends automated emails reminding clients to sign sales agreements within 24 hours of receiving them.
Scheduling software is another example of a sales automation tool. This technology reminds agents to follow up on leads at set times after the first contact. Many customer relationship management (CRM) systems have built-in sales automation to increase consistency and save time.
Which processes should you hand off to medical BPO services for automation?
- Pipeline updates: Sales pipelines are complicated but essential. Automating updates lets, you keep an eye on where your leads are, conduct accurate forecasts, and keep each team member updated on developments.
- Follow-ups: Failure to promptly follow up on leads can mean losing potential sales. Automating this process reminds your sales team when it’s time to reach out to prospects.
- Training: Automation can also help with onboarding new sales agents. Spending time on each new hire is challenging when onboarding 15 or 20 agents simultaneously. Leave it to sales automation to provide new hires with the right resources and training.
Ways To Use Sales Automation To Enhance Medical Sales Processes
Medical sales are intensely competitive. In this lucrative market, partnering with healthcare BPO services can prove vital to edging out your rivals.
Sales automation for medical sales is one way to gain a competitive advantage. Below are ways healthcare providers can use automation to improve medical sales.
Run Regulatory Compliance Checks
Medical sales representatives consider many regulatory requirements while promoting products to leads. Regulations apply to:
- Interaction between representatives and prospects
- Gifts and perks provided by medical sales
- Specific promises of sales agents
For instance, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 strictly controls pre-recorded messages and robo-dialers in marketing calls. In addition, individual states have different regulations on whether agents and leads can record a call.
Remembering all these rules is overwhelming, especially for sales agents working across various states. This is where sales automation helps. Automation reduces the risk of costly blunders and noncompliance across multiple sales processes.
Using software that tracks important contact data (such as the lead’s address) streamlines work for sales agents. An automation tool can send compliance reminders such as, “Don’t market product X to this prospect” or “Ask for permission before recording the interaction.”
Track Sales Tasks To Improve Accountability
Accountability is crucial in any business process. Even the best sales agents can slip over time without clear goals and a process for tracking progress. Sales automation for medical sales can provide a solution.
Tracking tools for automated sales tasks record specific activities such as logging on to the system, sending emails, and making phone calls. These tools help medical sales teams identify which agents are meeting desired goals.
Leverage Automation Tools To Determine Best Practices
Comparing actual results, such as an agent’s number of closed sales, to activity data correlates best practices and outcomes. Relevant activity data includes the number of calls placed by agents or the average time they spend on a call.
Knowing and aggregating information on what your top agents are doing lets you determine best practices. You can adjust your sales team training to follow their lead, leading to a higher close rate over time as you identify what works and what does not.
Set Automated Reminders and Follow-ups
How many times have you closed a deal on the initial contact? It’s a rare experience, especially for major sales. Only 2% of sales happen on the first point of interaction, which means one out of every 50 interactions yields a closed deal on the first try.
The numbers improve massively on repeated interaction. According to a Small Business Trends article, 3% of leads buy on the second try, while 5% purchase on the third. Most sales pitches convince 80% of prospects after the fifth or twelfth interaction.
Thus, following up is key to achieving sales success. Some sales tools can automatically send reminder messages and emails to leads after the initial contact. This persuades the prospect to take action or keep your brand in mind.
Automation software can also remind sales agents to follow up on leads and attempt to close the deal. Reminders are invaluable for improving close rates, especially for customers who need more convincing.
Improve the Hand-off to the Product or Service Team
Business relationships in medical sales do not end after closing a deal. The product or service team’s responsibility is to deliver on any promises the agent makes to keep clients happy and ensure they return.
A clumsy hand-off process can injure the customer relationship. It is vital to optimize the sales process to guarantee that the product or service team has all the necessary information about the client and their needs.
Medical sales automation can help by forwarding the client’s information to the product team after closing a deal. Tags such as “Closed” or “Won” can mark the deal on the sales software. This lets the product team know the service-level agreements they must fulfill.
Communication is key in every organization. Automation technology improves communication so that everyone achieves success.
Streamline Sales Paperwork To Save Time
Medical sales representatives spend significant time on administrative tasks such as checking inboxes for reminders, communicating with other business units, and filing paperwork for orders.
More than 80% of business leaders use automation to speed up processes. Sales automation systems streamline paperwork and communication. They free up time so that agents can concentrate on more important activities such as closing deals and reaching out to leads.
The major benefits of sales automation include eliminating obstacles and meeting productivity goals. By helping agents save time, you are increasing their work satisfaction and directly impacting performance.
Benefits of Automating Medical Sales
One of the specializations of the healthcare BPO industry is medical sales automation. Partnering with a reliable provider to automate processes offers many benefits. Let’s look at each one.
Save Time for Medical Sales Agents
The most obvious benefit of medical sales automation is work optimization. Agents can leave recurring tasks, such as manually and repetitively inputting information, to automation tools and focus on other matters.
Suppose it takes sales agents five minutes to send a follow-up email. That’s an hour of lost time if you have 12 prospects. Automating this process lets you save five minutes per contact. Representatives can regain significant hours by automating this task alone.
Enhance Communication With Prospects
Prompt follow-ups with prospects after the initial meeting or call keep your brand top of mind.
As noted by Small Business Trends, 80% of customers purchase after the fifth or twelfth contact. Sales automation makes it easy for medical sales agents to maintain consistent communication with leads and conduct regular follow-ups. This drives sales growth and converts contacts into paying customers.
Improve Traceability of Agent Activity
How many calls did it take an agent to reach the goal? How much time did they spend on successful deals versus unsuccessful ones? Do follow-up emails increase the agent’s close rate?
One of the advantages of healthcare BPO and automation is better visibility of agent activity. Automation systems enable companies to record sales events, giving them insights to track performance and adjust their processes.
Tips for Implementing Sales Automation
Sales automation is only as effective as your deployment strategy. Hence, properly implementing the system is important. Follow the steps below to ensure a successful deployment.
- Define your goals: Setting goals helps determine the best type of automation to use.
- Map customers’ buying journey: Match your automation strategy to the steps customers take when buying to improve their experience.
- Make opting out of automated communication easy: Give prospects a chance to opt out of automated sales messages. This is crucial for certain federal rules.
- Assess how agents use automation: Usage data lets you track how well your representatives use automation tools.
The Bottom Line
Medical sales automation involves streamlining the selling process so that agents can concentrate less on administrative activities and more on connecting with leads. It ensures the sales process is uniform and streamlined. Sales automation for medical sales is the key to improving agent productivity, increasing close rates, and generating higher revenue.
Unity Communications is here to help if you want to automate medical sales. We have more than ten years of experience delivering automation solutions, increasing efficiency, and saving weekly hours. With our tools, you can spend more time closing deals and less time worrying about paperwork.
Get in touch with us now to find out more!
