I recently met with a manufacturer on a mission to digitise their operations. They’re making great strides, but I noticed that they still have a manual sales process. Customers can browse products online and request a quote, but it’s all manual from there.

When I asked why customers couldn’t buy online, they said that they couldn’t because customers have special pricing and costs vary wildly based on delivery location.

While valid concerns, these are solvable problems with modern eCommerce platforms or a custom solution. Especially when integrated with their ERP system.

This is a pretty common story I come across. The industries vary, but people often feel their particular sales process just can’t be automated. But it’s worth determining if this is really true. Because digitising your sales process is one of the best ways to unlock growth.

Not only does it increase sales and retention, it makes it so much easier to digitise operations. If everything starts as an email or phone call, then it’s much harder to automate the next steps. But if the customer has ordered online, they can check their order status online, request support, manage refunds, or any number of things that are usually handled manually.

Here are some ideas to digitise all or part of your sales process:

• Launch an online store for products
• Launch a customer portal for services (e.g. book a delivery or pickup)
• Accept online bookings (e.g. via Calendly)
• Collect key information for new clients with digital forms (e.g. via Typeform)
• Accept maintenance requests via an app or form
• Issue digital proposals with integrated payments and upsells (e.g. via PandaDoc)

Not sure how to digitise your specific sales process? Hit me up and we can brainstorm.

Until next time!