Inevitably the adoption of automation and digital technologies have been affecting each stage of the sales funnel. The sales funnel most adopted by companies of any size has seven stages (Dubinsky, 1981):
1.           Locating and prospecting for customers
2.           Pre approach
3.           Approach
4.           Sales presentation
5.           Overcoming objections
6.           Close; and
7.           Follow-up Â
In this short article, I invite the readers to think about their sales activities, strategies and role as a sales professional in a hyperconnected and digital world, where customers are connected most of the time. Â Regardless of the sales model, business to business (B2B), business to customers (B2C), direct customer selling (DC), or business to business to customers (B2B2C), sales professionals (from sales representatives to sales directors) have to engage with each part of this process, using different technologies.
Rusthollkarhu et al., 2021 suggest that the field of sales has become digitalized over the past decades, therefore, digital tools and new technologies have come to play a pivotal role in today’s ecosystemic sales processes. Here are some examples: Firstly, advanced technologies shape how B2B customers interact in the business environment in which buying and selling processes take place (Marcos Cuevas, 2018; Moncrief, 2017; Singh & Gaur, 2021).
There are conceptual suggestions that Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be adopted in and change each stage of the sales funnel. In the prospecting phase AI can add value through predictive lead qualification (Järvinen & Taiminen, 2016). Secondly, technologies, like social media (Agnihotri et al., 2016; Rodriguez et al., 2016) and artificial intelligence (Syam & Sharma, 2018), affect interactions within the sales process. This presents challenges to understanding value creation throughout the sales process because buying processes are not limited to the dyadic relationship between buyer and seller, but instead include different interactions with multiple entities (Lemon & Verhoef, 2016).
The sales process and technology CRM, Advanced Voice over internet protocol (VOIP) and video conference networks, technology helps transition the traditional sales process to a new business reality. Artificial Intelligence and machine learning rule the current conversation, along with one-to-one video, chatbots, and SMS texting. Metaverse brings a new opportunity for companies to interact with customers and capture data about customer behaviour and attitudes, in real time, with instantaneous data analytics. Road shows, fairs, product demonstrations, new product trials, marketing research can be enhanced by the usage of virtual and augmented reality.
Sales organisations and professionals need to embrace digital technologies. Artificial Intelligence and sales analytics enable automation of manual sales tasks. Empowered buyers are also increasingly relying on digital resources and their buying processes or ‘purchasing journeys’ increasingly involve the use of social media (Ancillai et al., 2019). From my experience, in many occasions the professional buyer knew more about my products and competitors than my sales team. Therefore, it is suggested that technology is impacting value creation, by changing human activities and resources (Paschen et al., 2021). For example, findings from empirical research (Paschen et al., 2021) suggest that an artificial intelligence robot applied in the prospect stage of the sales funnel requires cooperation of a human curator (making sense of the automated data and information gathering) to provide feedback to the robot which helps to improve the machine learning process. Therefore, the sales representative must know extremely well their potential customers profile, and the likelihood of closing a sales.
Inbound marketing actions, such as content marketing is a mature field of research and widely used by practitioners to increase the quality of leads/prospects and facilitate the flow of new prospects into the sales funnel, as it is suggested the conversion rate of content marketing prospects is higher than conventional methods of selecting prospects (Paschen et al., 2021). Therefore, the usage of digital technologies can facilitate the selection of prospects (Eggert et al., 2019; Moncrief, 2017).
However, the nature of online prospects and their expectations, make the conversion rate a significant challenge for companies, as research demonstrates that online leads demand swift responses and interactions from firms (Paschen et al., 2021), at the same recent surveys show that only 30% of companies answer to customers’ queries in less than 72 hours.  Therefore, it is suggested that automation can improve sales conversion rates, and it is estimated that automation will become part of the sales and marketing digital strategy (Aioma and IMM, 2021).
Fraccastoro et al., 2021 explored the usage of social media in the three stages of the sales process (prospecting, persuading and relationship management) by B2B SMEs located in Europe, Brazil and USA. Findings suggest SMEs are in the initial stages of implementing and using digital communication tool. Strategic use of social media tools can reduce the costs involved in identifying new business opportunities, however, the adoption of social media is mainly for promotional purposes. This month a big retailer in Brazil named DIA SUPERMERCADOS, have launched selling through Whatsapp with a 2-hours delivery service in Minas Gerais and Sao Paulo city.
Social media can be strategically used in combination with digital and traditional sales communication tools (e.g., emails, cold-calling and face-to-face interaction at trade fairs). Additionally, the intensity of digital media tools is dependent on the geographic distance and strategic significance of customers. This means that for customers far away from the SME, and less strategic, greater is the adoption of digital media tools, instead of face to face interactions with the sales team.
Some examples of softwares and system that can support actions in each stage of the sales funnel are: Social CRM Systems (SalesForce, Netsuit, SAP, Nimble). Social media management software (Hootsuite, Sprout, Buffer, Cision). Sales enablement software (Brainshark, Octiv, Blomfire, Clearslide, Showpad). Sales Force automation CRM systems (Pipedrive, salesforce). Business intelligence systems (Oracle BI, Tableau, Gooddata, LiveHive). Marketing automation systems (Hubspot, Marketo, Oracle Eloqua, Mindmatrix). However, the different tools also have the potential to overwhelm salespeople and reduce the required customer focus in social selling (Ancillai et al., 2019).Moreover, most of the business schools are failing to equip graduate students with skills and knowledge of some of these software packages. Which is extremely sought after by employers.
Our new research project in Henley Business School aims to understand how digital technologies are impacting the activities in the sales funnel. We are interviewing CEOs of European companies to learn about their perspectives and expectations from investments in digital technologies applied to the sales process. Particularly, we want to review the value creation (tangible and intangible) that the adoption of digital technologies in the sales process offer. If you think you can contribute with the study, please, reach me out.
Dr Fabio Oliveira is a lecturer and researcher in Henley Business School of the University of Reading in UK. His research interests are in the fields of digitalisation impacts on board of directors, management and company's processes (Sales, Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Marketing).
References
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