Using the right sales intelligence software is an important part of the sales department as this is the one that helps generate sales and reach your goals.
A sales intelligence software is a great tool for creating your sales strategy in a targeted and relevant way and also helps in creating productivity. They also allow you to gather knowledge of securing leads, current market trends and point you to take the right sales actions.
Of course, it’s necessary to see that sales intelligence software is not a one-size-fits all solution for all. Every B2B company has unique needs, budget, and other factors that make it important to choose your perfect software.
However, whatever your needs are, there are some essential questions that you should consider while buying sales intelligence software.
Question 1: how regularly do you want to update your sales data?
About an average of 35% of data available in a CRM is obsolete at the end of the year. This is a good reason to consider to ensure that the tool you choose has a continuous or regular update system to keep your data up-to-date.
Frequently updating your data is an important aspect of any sales tool. Now, it’s up to you to decide how frequently you want to update your data – a week, in a month, or two or three months.
If you don’t update your data regularly, there’s a risk of coming across incorrect or missing data.
Question 2: how do you want to avoid duplicate data?
Finding repeated data in your database is another thing that you want to avoid. While buying a sales intelligence tool, ask your seller if their tool has a feature of filtering your database to figure out duplicate data. The feature should have been already installed in the tool as it’s not easy to do it manually as it provides detailed insights into the customer journey by providing call tracking metrics and other analytics to show what is working and what’s not.
Question 3: how compatible is the software with your CRM?
Having compatible software with your CRM is another thing that you want to consider. There is numerous sales software available here, and most of them offer two types of solutions.
The first solution is known as ‘Stand Alone,’ which is the tool’s interface and is accessible in SaaS through a web connection not connected to the CRM.
The second solution is making your tool available to the CRM through a dedicated connector. This gives you the advantage of connecting it directly to the CRM and accessing its different functions in the CRM interface through tabs and specific fields.
The second option is the most practical as it keeps your data organized within your CRM system in one place. It also saves time and avoids the loss of data.
Not every sales software provides the second option. Hence, while buying the tool, make sure it offers the second option.
Question 4: how does the sales software collect data and information?
The sales intelligence software uses different ways to collect information, and the methods used to collect information may not always prove reliable. Sometimes the method uses a lot of different sources like social networking sites, manual selection stage, and crowdsourcing just to fill up the database with unwanted information.
However, the ideal sales intelligence software should analyze, choose, filter, and classify the information into different categories and later separate them company-wise to make it easy to access the data. The goal is to enrich the database with contextual information that can easily and quickly be accessed through a notifications system. This allows you to understand better what is happening around you and better evaluate the potential of the leads and which are ready to move further into the sales funnel.
Now, not all sales intelligence software offers such advanced features. The type of technology used in the software results from hard work that has taken a lot of time and effort, which becomes a real entry barrier in terms of investment. Most companies only use social and web networks with basic search terms to find out the relevant info. But along with the required information, it also pulls out other data related to the search term, which may not prove necessary.
Therefore, ask the seller about the scope of the sources used and what kind of technology is used to gather the information.
Question 5: who should you reach out to if you have any questions related to the software?
Good sales intelligence software should be easy to use. Though, there may be some instances where you will need help from the support department, which are unavoidable. Hence, it’s important to check the after customer service of the company. Make sure to check; if you have a question, problem, or need arises, you should know who you should reach out to, at what days and times, and whether they offer the services in your native language.
Conclusion
Before buying sales intelligence software, do your research first and note everything you want in your product. If you don’t know where to start, you can start by understanding different products, functions, and advantages and disadvantages. You can book some sales demos and understand the importance of sales acceleration tools; this will help you get started.
