Helpful Summary
- Overview: We explain what virtual selling is and outline its use cases, benefits, and best practices.
- Why Trust Us: We’ve been in the industry for years and have built a successful allbound (outbound + inbound) platform used by businesses around the world.
- Why It Matters: Virtual selling removes geographical barriers, saves resources, and drives revenue growth way faster than in-person sales ever could. Learning how to sell virtually effectively may be the missing piece in your sales puzzle.
- Action Points: Improve your sales team's efficiency by requesting a demo and trying our AI-assisted dialing tool. It lets you call up to nine prospects at once, chat with them, or drop pre-recorded voice notes as needed.
- Further Research: Check out our blog for more actionable sales tips and best practices.
Virtual Selling—the Key to Faster, Cost-Effective Sales
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, professionals—including salespeople—were already exploring ways to get business done without the confinement of offices and physical meetups. Post-pandemic, this virtual selling trend has only become more common.
In this ServiceBell guide, we'll give you the lowdown on remote sales and how it can help you expand your global business without burning a hole in your wallet.
Read on to understand and navigate the ocean of virtual selling with confidence.
Why Listen to Us?
At ServiceBell, our motivation is selling. We are experts at equipping businesses with the necessary tools and resources to book meetings with qualified leads and sell more effectively. Businesses like Sila and DemandJump testify to our expertise; see for yourself…
What is Virtual Selling?
Virtual selling is the practice of selling services or products remotely via communication tools and technology. This approach helps sales reps connect with prospects without setting up physical meetings. Instead, they use live video conferencing, emails, social media, audio calls, and even chatbots to aid sales negotiations.
Virtual selling has become more popular recently as sales teams are embracing it due to its efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and lack of location restriction.
One of the best virtual selling tools on the market is ServiceBell Outbound, an AI-assisted dialer. Our tool increases sales team efficiency by automating administrative and operational prospecting tasks. With features like real-time analytics, and intelligent call routing, ServiceBell Outbound also helps sales times optimize their outreach efforts and increase conversions.
Benefits of Virtual Selling
While no sales technique is without limitations, virtual selling is great for many reasons.
- Cost Efficiency: Trying to manage overhead expenses? Then virtual selling might just be your best bet. Reduce business costs like travel expenses and hotel fees for conferences, sales meetings, and in-person events. This would help you allocate scarce resources to other inevitable business activities.
- Wider Reach and Flexibility: Sales teams are no longer limited by geographic location. By adopting a virtual selling approach, you can expand your market potential and gain more opportunities for business growth.
- Improved Collaboration and Productivity: You no longer need to wait until you get to the office to have those important conversations that move the sales needle. Today, scheduling video, audio, or async meetings can be done with just one click. Teams can collaborate seamlessly while saving time and increasing overall productivity.
- Data-Driven Insights and Adaptability: Data will always be important for improving processes. You can optimize your sales process by monitoring customer interaction and engagement feedback, enabling you to make more informed and data-driven decisions.
Virtual Selling Use Cases
You might opt for virtual selling instead of in-person sales for many reasons. Here are 10 top virtual selling use cases:
- Remote Sales: Virtual selling enables teams to build rapport and connect with prospects worldwide through virtual face-to-face interactions. You can also conduct sales demos and presentations via conferencing tools like Microsoft Teams, Zoom, or Google Meet. This eliminates the hassle of in-person meetings to close deals while maintaining the face-to-face interactions needed to nurture business relationships.
- Lead Generation and Engagement: Lead generation is a big part of any sales process. You can use AI-assisted tools like ServiceBell to automate sales outreach and engagement. You can also generate leads virtually through social media outreach, virtual webinars and events, search engine optimization, and chatbots on your website.
- Lead Nurturing: There are one too many ways virtual selling platforms can help nurture and maintain relationships with prospects until they are ready to make a buying decision. Practical use cases of virtually nurturing leads are automated reminders and follow-ups.
- Social Selling: One exciting method to boost virtual sales is harnessing the power of social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and more. Connect with prospects, build trust, and nurture leads by sharing valuable content and engaging in meaningful conversations to foster strong relationships.
- E-Commerce and Online Transactions: Facilitate online purchases by using e-commerce transactions. By integrating digital solutions into your sales process, you can provide secure and seamless online transactions.
- Virtual Consultations and Advisory Services: With virtual selling, you can easily provide one-on-one consultations, learn more about prospects’ pain points, and channel your sales and marketing efforts there for better results. No more stressful commuting to offer consultation or advisory services.
- Prospect Engagement: Sales teams can use virtual selling platforms to deliver product demos via screen sharing or pre-recorded videos, creating tangible experiences that capture the prospects' interests.
- Customer Relationship Management: Imagine having all your customer-facing systems in one place. Virtual selling platforms like ServiceBell integrate with popular CRM systems to manage customer relations and track sales activities.
- Virtual Sales Team Collaboration: Collaborate easily with team members through shared digital workspaces, virtual meeting platforms, and real-time collaboration tools to foster a more cohesive and productive virtual work environment.
For instance, ServiceBell Outbound offers a virtual salesfloor feature that supports training, coaching, and collaboration. With this, team members can listen in on live sales calls, offer feedback, and share resources from one virtual room.
- Customer Support and After-sales Services: You can use virtual selling to enhance your customer experience, close tickets faster, and offer a host of virtual support services, such as video support, self-service portals, and live chat.
How To Implement Virtual Selling
Conduct effective virtual selling with these proven strategies and best practices—all while keeping the human touch in your sales process and helping your prospects feel comfortable.
1. Through Conversational AI Dialling
Conversation AI-dialing takes repetitive work off your shoulders so you can focus on prospect engagement rather than spending time on manual dialing. With AI-assisted dialing, you can dial more prospects with less time, and prioritize leads.
For example, ServiceBell offers an AI-parallel dialer that lets you prospect smarter by dialing up to 9 lines at once. With this tool, you can increase the efficiency of your sales teams, engage five times more prospects, and improve overall conversion rates.
2. With Live Chats and Video Calls
Live chats and video calls are game-changers for any business. They allow real-time communication that improves interaction with prospects. Sales teams can use this feature to provide demos, answer questions, and build relationships with intending customers.
For instance, ServiceBell offers a live chat feature that allows sales teams to connect with prospects at their peak interest points, sharing pricing information or conducting product demos.
3. Using Chatbots
Chatbots imitate human conversations and provide timely responses to customer feedback or inquiries. You do not have to worry about being short-staffed as they can handle multiple interactions at once, ensuring that no prospect slips through the cracks.
With ServiceBell’s AI chat, you can automatically engage and convert site visitors to leads by proactively suggesting meeting scheduling even when no sales rep is on seat.
4. By Connecting Your Website to Your CRM System
You can sell virtually by connecting your website to a CRM system. This allows you to monitor, track, and manage all lead information and interactions effectively. By integrating your website with a CRM, you can access valuable insight into customer behavior, history, and preferences and optimize your sales process for better results.
ServiceBell seamlessly connects your website to your existing CRM, helping you manage your sales pipeline more effectively.
5. Via Email Campaigns
People have been selling virtually for ages through email campaigns, and you can too. Create email campaigns by using personalized messaging, discount or promotional offers, and automating follow-up emails.
While ServiceBell does not directly offer email campaign features, it easily integrates with stellar email outreach software like Hubspot, Salesloft, and Apollo. These integrations allow you to add email campaigns to your existing sales strategy which might include cold calling, social selling, video prospecting, and more.
Supercharge Your Virtual Selling Strategy With ServiceBell
Virtual selling is here to stay, and businesses must learn to build an effective strategy to stand out amongst competitors and compete globally.
ServiceBell enhances customer engagement, and communication through live chat and chatbots. It also provides real-time analytics that makes virtual selling easy.
Request a ServiceBell demo and explore exactly how we can help up your virtual selling game!