Salesforce, the specialist in e-commerce and customer relationship management (CRM) systems, has introduced several new sales aids in the world of Covid-19. Building on the company's Sales Cloud CRM offering, the new tools will focus on producing a 360-degree view of customer technology. The revised Salesforce system will feature aggregated views of meeting attendees, complete with customer histories, open service requests, and the bios of the people they will be selling to. Virtual meeting notes can be automatically saved for internal collaboration using Salesforce Anywhere. The company also revealed Einstein video call training, which will allow sales teams to analyze video conversations, using artificial intelligence to produce a more personalized approach moving forward. The Salesforce Maps Field Safety Kit adds to the Covid-19 approach, which focuses on key data stored in the CRM to determine how salespeople can safely move around the field. To top it off, an enhanced high-velocity sales function allows salespeople to immerse themselves in dynamic CRM data. This will help employees sell even if they are working remotely. It's even more critical now that many sales teams are working from home.
Sales status
Salesforce has also released its annual Sales Status Report, which shows how sales teams have performed over the past twelve months. Covid-19 understandably figures high in the results, and companies must radically adapt to new trading methods. The research highlights how hard salespeople have to work to get sales. For example, about 67% said activity log enforcement is stricter than last year. Also for 2020, 63% of respondents said they recorded more details about customer interactions than in 2019. However, sales reps also reported positive changes with the help of digital transformation. 84% of sales reps said digital activity has accelerated since last year and many are now using technology tools to help them make sales. These include video conferencing, artificial intelligence and mobile sales applications, as well as a customer relationship management (CRM) system. The report highlights the growing importance of AI to the workforce, with its adoption by sales teams increasing 76% since 2018. The changing face of commerce is also reflected in the amount of retraining underway. 70% of managers now retrain their sales teams to sell from home. Also, instead of hiring new people, many existing salespeople have been retrained to take on other roles.