A desktop computer and full keyboard are still the best option for driving B2B sales. Photo courtesy of Pixabay.
It’s 2015 and it isn’t sexy to sit behind a desk making sales anymore. Instead, you should be at the beach looking out at the surf. Then, just before diving into the water with your board in tow, whip out your mobile device and casually close that big deal you’ve been working on for weeks. Now that’s sales in 2015! If you aren’t making the big sale while in the backseat of an Uber or waiting for your flight in the airport lounge, you must not be doing it right. Well, at least that’s the image being projected as the world goes mobile.
It’s an image venture capitalists and mobile sales software providers are happy to perpetuate, but the reality is that closing sales via mobile is the exception rather than the rule in today’s selling environment (and often it’s a rare exception). Sales technology has come a long way, but to take advantage of these sophisticated new tools, a salesperson is still more often best served working from the comfort of their desk chair. Here’s why:
- You are missing the patterns on your mobile device. When you’re looking to close a sale, it goes without saying that all information about the customer’s needs and behaviors will help. Did they attend the last webinar? Are they still using the trial version? Are they responding to your emails? All of this data is available today, but it cannot be accessed easily on your mobile device and seeing the patterns that develop as a result of this data is key to making a sale.
- Throughput is often much higher when you work from your desk. If you’re calling hundreds of contacts a week from the office, updating lead information and taking notes—processing that level of volume is going to give you an excellent chance to both close more sales and keep your customer acquisition costs low. With a tool that dials for you, a full keyboard to take notes and minimal distractions or background noise, you are better positioned for optimal performance working from your desk.
- You have a limited overview of the customer. If you’re on a call with a customer and they ask why there was no response to a tweet they sent your company two weeks ago, what the status is of their customer support ticket, and what day their new product delivery will arrive, you’re going to struggle to provide answers in real time. You won’t stack up favorably against a salesperson in the office with two monitors if you’re forced to jump between apps on a small screen and unable to view multiple files at once. Maintaining a comprehensive view of your customer is still important.
With many amazing and potentially transformative mobile technologies in store for us in the coming years, having access to essential tools outside of a desktop is possible. But in today’s current business environment, mobile is a tool mostly aligned with casual mobile browsing. At the end of the day, we input faster on our keyboards and have better visibility to see patterns on a larger monitor.
The bottom line is that inside sales teams still have the ability to aggregate data more seamlessly than their counterparts who are attempting to make sales via mobile. In the world of B2B sales in 2015, mobile platforms don’t yet provide comparable advantages to those inherent to the salesperson in the office with a full computer and keyboard at her fingertips while connecting with a customer.
This article was syndicated from Business 2 Community: Three Reasons to Avoid Going Mobile with Your SaaS Sales Team
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