Your company has armed the sales team to the teeth with every selling tool in the market. From a CRM platform to a dialer to a library of content pieces from the marketing team. However, there is one piece of software that may be missing. It is a piece of software that fits seamlessly into a B2B selling tool suite: online appointment scheduling.
The B2B sales cycle is a sales process with little variance in most industries. The steps in the process all tend to be the same and it is usually the length of the cycle that can vary the most.
A B2B sales cycle can be outlined in 6 stages:
- Prospecting
- First Contact
- Qualification
- Presentation
- Evaluation
- Closing
Incorporating online appointment scheduling during some of the key stages of the sales cycle not only lightens a sales rep’s daily task load during the process, it can also help facilitate the sale.
Prospecting
Filling up the top of the sales funnel is hard work. Whether your company has a dedicated SDR team or your salespeople do their own hustling to fill their pipeline, prospecting can be time-consuming.
Besides cold calls and emails, your company can support your sales team’s prospecting efforts by implementing self-scheduling across several online channels. Embedding scheduling CTAs on your company’s website, microsites or landing pages that showcase important features, offer interesting content or pricing pages can compel a visitor to click for more information.
First Contact
Sales teams can expend a lot of time and energy researching prospects. Not only is there research to be done, but they may also need to compose the perfect email and phone script. These first touches are most often a soft pitch, an introduction rather than a hard sell. Your team may be sending an email and following up with a phone call or vice versa. If the sales team has done their research, the information that is provided is highly relevant to the prospect’s industry and particular needs. Once the first contact is made, the last thing a sales rep wants is to make it difficult for their prospects to connect with them again.
Adding a self-scheduling link to an email signature or to the marketing collateral included in the email presents a prospect with the opportunity to schedule a short meeting with an SDR or sales rep to learn more about your company, its product or services.
Qualification
A sales cycle may include more than one discovery call. A sales rep’s first meeting with a prospective client may not have been with the decision-maker but rather a gatekeeper. In this case, your sales rep will need to organize another call. A sales rep providing a scheduling link to the new contact removes the hassle of email and phone tag that normally occurs to get such an important call booked.
Evaluation
In this critical stage of the sales process, your sales rep can be partnering with several other internal departments. This stage can be quite lengthy depending on the size of the prospective client organization and the number of departments that may be using your company’s product or service. Your sales rep could be facilitating anything from reviewing redlines in a contract, overseeing a technical scope with your engineering team or perhaps they are asked to do a third demo.
Online scheduling helps a great deal in responding to proposals from prospects as well as returning customers. It also helps avoid those dreaded “no-decision” losses.
An Extra Helping Hand
The role of appointment scheduling throughout the sales process can be a valuable tool. It can not only support a sales team during every stage of the sales process, it can also help guide prospects through the customer journey and help reduce the length of the sales cycle.
Salespeople benefit from not having to chase after a prospect for a meeting date and time, prospects can enjoy the convenience of the scheduling experience. Online appointment scheduling software also connects with your company’s CRM platform, recording a prospect’s contact information, saving your sales reps time on such manual tasks. Improving the “last mile” of selling and customer interaction, online scheduling gives your sales team an edge over those sales teams that do not have it.
