Embracing Change - How Technology is Fuelling the New Normal

I think we can safely say that the last 18 months have been a whirlwind for all aspects of business, particularly sales. Working as a?Corporate Sales Specialist for Elite Group, I can name many challenges that have had to be overcome in order for me to effectively complete my duties and support my customers during the course of the pandemic. From adapting to the transition of being out on the road to working from home to helping businesses improve their technology in order to survive– it’s been a lot to deal with. ?However, one thing has been recognised during this turbulent time – the value of technology. It’s not only kept us connected with each other in a time where we have been forced apart, it has been vital for many businesses to continue. Working in sales, there is always that worry that the financial hit of a crisis,?such as the pandemic, will cause a loss of business. Furthermore, it is a role that involves a lot of face to face contact and prior to the pandemic I was spending many hours on the road visiting customers. When the pandemic hit, wondering how I could keep the same rapport and support the professional relationship with my customers was a concern. However, the pandemic has definitely brought about digital progression within my role and in the way my customers view technology. In this article, I’m going to cover how embracing technology due to the effects of the pandemic has benefitted both my role in sales and the customers I support.

Carving a Career

Before I delve into the main topic of this article, I’ll just provide a little background into my current role. As previously mentioned, I am a Corporate Sales Specialist for Elite Group and my job involves bringing more value to my customers through identifying areas that can be improved and cross-selling/upselling solutions to help them to achieve success. The career path I’ve followed has definitely been a fulfilling and rewarding one. After a year of studying for my A levels, I decided that this wasn’t for me and I was very keen to get into the world of work and start creating a career. Although I didn’t have a clear idea of what I wanted to do, I was pretty sure I wanted to work in sales, as my family have a successful history in business. ?However, when it came to figuring out which industry I would like to work in, I wasn’t sure, so the time came to scouting around for jobs and finding a sales role within an industry I found interesting.

I was very fortunate to find a role at 17 within the technology sector with a big communications provider, called Daisy Communications (or Daisy Group, as they were known as at the time). Working for a well-established company was a great environment for me to cut my teeth, not only within a sales role, but within a sector I found really engaging. I started off as an internal desk-based account manager, which enabled me to gain a wealth of knowledge when it comes to working with customers and helping them to get the most value from their solutions. The role also provided me with a lot of experience in creating effective customer relationships, solving problems and gaining confidence speaking to customers – all at a very young age. If I had stayed in college, I may never have found this career path and I certainly wouldn’t have gained such a wide amount of skills whilst so young. It was definitely a great starting point in my career. ?

After a year of working at the company, I moved from being a desk-based account manager to a field-based account manager, which was a step into the unknown as no-one had made this transition before within the company. This was a really exciting opportunity to try something different, learn a new set of skills and have more responsibility. This role enabled me to gain a firm understanding in finding the right products for customers, whilst taking the time to really get to know them and their business in order to provide more value that was of mutual benefit. My time as a field-based account manager ?highlighted the importance of face-to-face communication when it comes to creating an effective working partnership and relationship with a customer.

?After a successful period in this role, I then moved into the Commercial Sales Team, which again, placed a lot more responsibility on my shoulders and allowed me to work with a really diverse range of businesses. Towards the end of my time working with Daisy Communications, I had worked my way up to becoming an Account Director which allowed me to work with some of their most prestigious clients. Not only was this a great achievement and testament to the skills I had built up and learned within my roles, it also enabled me to take that next step in my career, which was joining the Elite Group team.

Obviously, having worked at the same company since I was a teenager, moving somewhere else was a big leap of faith. However, I could see that Elite was an exciting company with a tonne of opportunities and a place where I could really thrive and progress my career. In January this year, the exciting journey working as a Corporate Sales Specialist for Elite began and it has been an incredible journey so far, although it has definitely come with its challenges – starting a new role in the middle of a pandemic was far from ideal, especially when you work in sales!

Obviously, one of the main reasons I love my job is that I do have a passion for all things tech and I do have a keen interest in the products Elite Group sell, but the other main reason I love my role is working with customers, getting to know them, their business and their needs. Having been used to travelling around and meeting customers face to face, learning to build this relationship virtually, due to Covid, was a challenge, but having spent months learning to adapt to the ‘new normal’ I have seen a range of benefits for both my role and my clients. So, with this in mind, let’s go headlong into the main topic of this article, which is how technology has helped my sales approach and my customers’ businesses to thrive within the ‘new normal’ situation we live in today.

Rising to the Challenge

In-person meetings are great for building customer relationships, as you’re not hiding behind the screen and you can take the time to get to know each other. However, I have a lot of customers to look after as part of my role, and unfortunately there is only one of me. If they ever invent a cloning machine this would be incredibly useful to my role, as I could schedule as many in-person meetings as I would like and just send my army of sales clones to conduct those meetings. Sadly, we’ve not quite got there with technology and prior to the pandemic, I was lucky to be able to attend more than a couple of meetings per day. As great as in-person meetings are, the time it takes to travel to a meeting venue, conduct the meeting then travel back to the office to complete the required admin took up a lot of time.

This is where the first benefit of using technology due to the pandemic comes into play. With virtual meetings via platforms, such as Microsoft Teams, I am able to schedule far more meetings into my week, which means more time speaking to customers and helping them with their needs and less time travelling around. Furthermore, I have more time to sort out the administration side of my role which makes the whole sales process more efficient. Paper work is sorted quicker, follow-up correspondence can be sorted and overall, the process is so much faster, which means we can deliver our services to our customers in a much quicker time frame than what was previously possible.

When it comes to in-person meetings, availability can also be an issue, both for myself with having so many customers to look after and also for my customers. Having to find time for a meeting within a busy schedule when running a business can be pretty tricky and this can cause delays which, again, slows the process down. For me, it means I can fit in multiple customers within my working day, as I’m not having to block out hours for travel to meet customers in person. For customers it means that they are only having to assign a small amount of time within their day and they can conduct their meeting from wherever is convenient for them. ?Thanks to this technology, I have the ability to book-in and take part in twice as many meetings compared to before the pandemic, which means I’m able to provide more time and value for my customers and generate more business for my department.

As the world is opening up again, due to the relaxing of restrictions, I’m enjoying visiting customers again and having face to face discussions. However, the option for virtual meetings is still one I can offer clients and due to having conducted virtual meetings for a while now, the process is very effective and everything that needs to be achieved within in-person meetings can be achieved just as successfully virtually.

Using communication technology, such as Microsoft Teams, also means I can communicate more effectively internally within the company. I can effectively collaborate with my peers, across lots of different departments, quickly, thanks to this technology. There’s no need to hit that barrier of sending an email to someone in my team and waiting for a reply. I can jump on a quick call or send them an instant message and receive the information I need rapidly, which means I can move my sales processes along much more efficiently.

The Importance of Staying Up to Date

Now I’ve covered the benefits technology has provided for me during the pandemic and this transition into the ‘new normal’, let’s take a look at the benefits it has provided businesses. Prior to the pandemic, for many businesses when it came to technology, the attitude was ‘if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it’. When you think about it with a pre-pandemic mindset, this way of looking at technology does make sense. If your solutions are serving your needs at the moment, why change them? However, one thing this pandemic has highlighted is the importance of staying ahead of the curve when it comes to technology and ensuring that your solutions are future-proof in order to prevent disruption to your business, should disaster strike.

Prior to the pandemic, working from home was a luxury, therefore many businesses hadn’t invested in technology that facilitates remote working. When lockdown hit and all businesses (except essential) were told to work from home, this is where many ran into trouble. As they hadn’t invested in task-managing software, communication platforms and cloud technology that would enable them to stay in contact and collaborate remotely, productivity, naturally, took a hit. Furthermore, when it came to roles similar to mine, businesses who had invested in effective communication solutions that enabled Salespeople to continue to build successful relationships with customers fared better than those who didn’t.

Furthermore, when teams can’t effectively communicate with each other this can lead to serious consequences. Processes start to become slower, mistakes are made due to miscommunication and service standards start to slip, which can have knock-on effects for both customer experience and employee wellbeing. Employees can end up feeling more stressed due to being unable to complete their duties effectively, due to the lack of technology and also feel isolated due to a lack of interaction with colleagues.

We have proven, that home-working can be just as effective as working in the office and, in many cases, it can bring many benefits to both businesses and their team. Employees can have a better work/life balance and work in a way that best suits them. We have more options to work with customers. Without the pandemic, we wouldn’t have had this progression in the workplace and this is down to taking full-advantage of modern technology and not waiting for a crisis to occur before investing in up-to-date technology.

Taking my experience working for Elite into account, I know the true value of this technology first-hand, as if we hadn’t invested in effective technology, the pandemic would have had a catastrophic impact on how we do business. In my role, customer experience would have definitely taken a hit, as without the communication technology Elite invested in, trying to maintain my relationships and communication with my customers would have been extremely difficult. Thanks to the technology Elite have implemented within their business, I’ve not only been able to continue with my day-to-day duties, but I’ve also been able to improve them and find new ways to support my customers.

At the end of the day, the technology we have used during the pandemic and continue to use now, isn’t necessarily new. Communication platforms, such as Microsoft Teams, cloud storage, security measures to protect company data when used away from the office, VoIP phone technology have all be around for a while. I suppose, until the pandemic hit, many businesses didn’t see the value in this technology until it was urgently required. My advice would always be to stay ahead of the curve and future-proof your communications now, to prevent disruption later on.

What Does the ‘New Normal’ Mean for Business?

So we’ve looked at the importance of technology during the pandemic and now, as we move into a new way of working, what does the future hold for business technology? In my opinion the future is unified communications – consolidating your communication across a range of devices to enable your team to effectively communicate and collaborate with each other and customers from wherever. Desk-phones still have their place in some businesses, but the reliance on this technology is going to decrease. Having the ability to communicate from a mobile, a tablet and a laptop or computer is a game-changer and provides so much flexibility within the workplace.

When it comes to sales roles specifically within business, the ‘new normal’, in my opinion, means taking advantage of virtual communication permanently. The use of digital communication is capable of shortening the sales cycle and making it more efficient. More meetings, means more new business can be generated. Furthermore, being able to simply jump on a video call with a customer, means I can have more chances to communicate effectively with them without wasting time travelling. I can schedule multiple calls to go through proposals, demos and other meetings during the sales process, without taking time up for other clients.

Overall, the pandemic posed many a challenge to businesses, but it has shown that investing in future-proof technology is not only beneficial, but vital. My advice to ensure your business thrives in the ‘new normal’, would be to assess the solutions you are already using and whether they are fit for the future, not just for now. Get in touch with a communication solutions provider, like Elite and speak to a specialist who will be able to look at your current solutions and advise on any gaps in your current solutions that need to be improved. The pandemic brought about a change in the way we view technology and I think for businesses to thrive they need to embrace this change and take full advantage of the variety solutions to future-proof their business.?