5 Best Inside Sales Tools for Faster Close Speed

Did you know that, on average, an inside sales team pays 40-90% less to acquire new customers than an outside sales team? Did you also know that 75% of buyers would rather not meet face-to-face with a salesperson?

Your job as an inside sales rep is crucial to your company's bottom line. But your job is made 10x harder when you don't have the technology to back you up. You may be the best salesperson in the industry, but if you can't return a lead inquiry within 5 minutes, you’re automatically at a disadvantage.

Customers expect a seamless, convenient, and friendly purchase experience. Your most important inside sales tools are the systems you use that allow your team to offer that experience by focusing on what they do best: selling.

What Are Inside Sales?

We may be preaching to the choir here, but it helps to make sure everyone is on the same page. The term “inside sales" describes sales activities that happen remotely, such as over the internet, via phone, and via email. Inside sales are the opposite of outside sales activities, which happen when a representative meets with clients and prospects in person. 

You’re doing inside sales if you are a business development rep who does cold calling and account-based sales, or a sales development rep who fields inbound leads generated by marketing.

You can think of inside sales as the sales equivalent of digital marketing. Inside sales depend on technology, including the internet, phone, and software, to connect with prospective clients, nurture the sales relationship, and close deals virtually without ever meeting in person.

Inside sales helps companies save budget on event and equipment costs, travel, and other expenses, in addition to being convenient for buyers. However, while the expenses are lower, capital investments are still necessary for digital selling tools that support performance. These tools set your best inside sales reps up for even more success.

 The Best Inside Sales Reps Know How Tech Can Help

How would you describe the most successful inside sales reps on your team? We find that the best inside sales reps are:

• Action-oriented
• Friendly
• Knowledgeable
• Metrics-driven
• Tech-savvy

That last one is important. The most successful inside sales reps understand that the right inside sales tools will support and enhance their innate abilities to sell ice to Eskimos. Why? Because an average salesperson spends only about 33% of their time actually selling. They spend the balance of their time on tasks like data entry, prospecting, and scheduling. Inside sales tools streamline or even automate those functions so that reps can focus on selling.

 5 Best Software Tools for Inside Sales Reps

Aside from the digital communication tools we all need to function in today's society, like a phone and an email address, powerful inside sales tools exist. You may find individual inside sales tools that address one essential function, or a more comprehensive tool that offers a variety of applications. Here are five examples of inside sales tools your team needs to be more effective.

1.  Customer Relationship Management System (CRM):

A CRM is a database that stores and organizes your interactions, conversations, and data about your prospects and customers. Each customer record contains information on every call, email, chat, sales team note, purchase, payment, and more in one place. This data is accessible to your team and anyone in your company who may need this information. But a CRM is more than just a database. It is also a working dashboard that gives you a real-time snapshot of the status of your sales funnel and your sales team's performance.

It also provides insights into which sales and marketing functions and messaging are working and which need to be improved. In addition, a good CRM can allow you to work collaboratively with other teams, like the marketing and product teams, to streamline enterprise processes and foster innovation.

2.  Speed to Lead Software:

Rapid lead response is the process of contacting prospects as quickly as possible once an inquiry is received.

Speed-to-lead software like Calldrip sends prospects an instant response and then follows up by connecting a salesperson within minutes. No need to rely on a salesperson to pick up voice messages or monitor a phone line during business hours. With rapid lead response tools, your inside sales team demonstrates to leads that your business is responsive and dedicated to customer service. 

Establishing trust and providing a positive experience helps your team nurture successful customer relationships. This is critical to building your bottom line.

3.  Call Tracking and Call Analytics:

Call tracking software measures how and where lead inquiries are generated, and assigns source attribution for each call. By identifying and recording the source of each call in real time, this powerful software reveals the campaigns, messages, and channels that produce the best leads. It also enables sales and marketing teams to measure ROI for each initiative. This makes call tracking software one of the most important inside sales tools for any performance-focused team.

Cutting-edge call tracking software also records and analyzes conversation transcripts. This feature allows inside sales leaders to search calls by keyword, pull out comments for training purposes, and spot trends in sales and customer sentiment. Call tracking and analytics offer sales leaders valuable insights into a prospect's experience within the sales funnel and the performance of their inside sales team.

Calldrip’s call tracking tool records, transcribes, and gathers data about your prospects and their needs, conflicts, priorities, and demographic information.

4.  Scheduling Tool:

Playing phone or email tag to schedule a meeting or demo with a prospect is one of the most time-consuming parts of any inside sales rep's job. Prospects are annoyed by it too. 

That’s why an online scheduling tool is becoming a must-have for any successful sales team. With it, each sales rep sets their availability or integrates it with their work calendar. They send the calendar link with the first lead response connection, and the lead can choose a day and time that works for them. The meeting is scheduled with less time and hassle for either party. When scheduling an appointment is as easy as clicking a link, you can keep the deal moving forward, and reduce opportunities for competitors to enter the conversation

As an added benefit, an integrated scheduling tool can coordinate your sales team's calendars to optimize availability for team meetings and other important group functions.

5.  Sales Coaching:

Coaching and training are critical to every sales team's success. Statistics show that companies that provide quality inside sales coaching can reach 7% greater annual revenue growth. Also, sales reps that receive 30 minutes or less of sales coaching per week have win rates of 43%, and those that receive at least 2 hours of coaching per week have an average win rate of 56%. 

Sales coaching software can provide the insight and analytics to help you coach your team on their sales conversations. 

Call coaching is one type of sales coaching that provides realistic, honest, and constructive feedback on actual sales calls and offers your team best practices to improve their results. 

Calldrip's sales coaching software includes customizable coaching scorecards, key performance indicators, and purpose-built playbooks for call and text conversations. Our award-winning sales coaching tools allow your team to take success into their own hands.

In an ideal world, each tool would integrate with the others, so that your team is not duplicating work or working in functional silos.

Text Messaging is Today’s Big Thing

More consumers prefer texting to other forms of communication, even when communicating with businesses. For example, SMS text marketing boasts an amazing 98% open rate. Also, consumers are 4.5 times more likely to reply to a marketing text from a brand than an email. Even more importantly, 90% of sales leads would rather receive a text response than a phone call. So, if you have the budget, layering in business text messaging is a good investment in your company's future.

Calldrip’s all-in-one conversational sales enablement software includes text messaging in rapid lead response and call tracking - without an upcharge. See our text messaging solution in action - no demo required.

Details to Consider When Investing in Inside Sales Tools

Every tool will offer features and benefits your business needs. However, don't forget to consider other vital elements, such as:

•     Cost of implementation and use
•     Integration with your tech stack
•     Ability to customize your sales processes
•     User experience/ease of use
•     Reporting and analysis features
•     Structured or customizable visibility for management
•     Help desk or troubleshooting services
•     Customer reviews and testimonials
•     Flexibility to add new features/innovations

Sales technology will help your sales team stay ahead of the competition. If you want to optimize your inside sales function, the investment in powerful sales technology can pay for itself exponentially in increased sales and decreased lost productivity.

Let us show you how Calldrip's multifaceted sales solution can set your sales team on the path to success by streamlining your sales process and providing your team with the tools they need to nurture better and convert their leads. Contact us for a personalized demo today.