An app can ensure that your sales personnel in the field always have access to current, relevant and attractive sales material when they go to visit clients. The app serves as a tool which helps the sellers make the case for investment more easily and more clearly. The result is a professional client meeting, shorter sales cycles and less administration ahead of meetings and trade fairs.
I spent 18 months developing a data-driven sales tool for an international company. The tool is used to make it easier to close business deals and communicate messages in documents. The tool allows you to track how the recipient interacts with your document and find out what aspects of it they consider important. Another good thing about the app is that you can use it to personalise your documents by adding a video greeting or an automatic chat message addressed to the recipient.
As is always the case with development work, we learned a lot along the way, and that’s precisely what I want to share with you now. I want to start with what I believe are the three most important functions of the sales tool that I developed.
Send agreements and track the user’s interaction with your document
By tracking what the user looks at in a document, you can quickly find out what interests them. Let’s take an employment agreement as an example. If you notice that the recipient has spent half the time looking at page 3, which deals with salary, you know to prepare to discuss exactly that and will have the advantage of being ready when those questions come up.
Video greeting to introduce your document
We noticed that personalising your document was very effective when it came to getting contracts signed. We implemented a video greeting that appears when you open the document, along the lines of: “Hey Kalle, behind me here is the employment agreement we talked about today. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to get in touch using the chat box on the right-hand side. Have a great day!” When we tested this function, we found that those who used a video greeting were 45% more likely to get their document signed.
Chat in the document
One thing that we considered a major success was the addition of a chat function within the documents that makes it easy to create a discussion forum. It should be made as easy as possible for the recipient to sign the document. It should not be a hassle.
These key functions turned out to be an excellent basis for a sales tool. There are other minor functions worth mentioning too:
– Verification when the e-mail has been received. An automated confirmation that the document has been received saves everyone time. There is no need for you to worry, and the recipient does not have to reply to messages asking if they have received the document.
– Notification to the sender when the recipient opens the document. This function lets you know when your recipient is “fresh” on your document and available to discuss it. For example, if you receive a notification stating that your recipient has opened your document, you know to call the person, say, an hour later.
– Easy to forward your signature to another recipient. This function makes it much easier to make sure that the document reaches the right person.
– Notification at a certain time before signed documents expire. This function prompts you to resume contact with an existing customer in order to renew your contract.
Sign on device
The sign on device function also adds significant value for people who are trying to get work signed off as approved, and for those who want to get a contract signed instantly, during a meeting, by creating it directly in the app.
One good example of how the function can be used is the pest control industry. Let’s say someone comes to your home to set traps. Sign on device allows the person who performed the work to complete a template in the app stating that they have set three traps, create a document instantly and ask the customer to sign that document right there and then.
Another example is the leasing industry. Imagine yourself standing in a room full of machinery. Instead of going into an office to sign three different documents, you have an app which contains a lease agreement template that you can simply bring up when a customer comes in wanting to lease a machine. You add the customer’s details and they sign in the app.
About the author:
Martin Malmgren, Software Developer at Avalon Innovation