Benefits of Sales Apps & 4 Best Sales Apps

What Are Sales Apps Used For?

Apart from the cost of producing a product or service, a company has many other expenses. Broadly speaking, we can call these marketing expenses. They are spent on announcing products or services and convincing potential or existing customers to buy or buy again: campaigns, promotions, marketing and sales staff costs, and so on. Sales apps help companies save a lot of these costs by digitising sales, because the apps take over many of the tasks that a salesperson or sales team would otherwise do.

Once sales apps reach a certain volume of sales, they start promoting themselves. This is because search engines and app stores highlight the most visited and best-selling items. When you search for a product or service, it appears higher or lower in the results accordingly. The more a product or service sells, the more people discover it, and the more people visit it, the more it is highlighted. The result is a self-reinforcing marketing and advertising cycle.

When a customer makes a purchase, the app needs some information to complete the sale. Sales apps ask customers to create a free account to provide this information, and customers consent to sharing certain personal details. In this way, companies build their own customer data and can use their CRM systems more effectively. This makes it easier to define target groups and to create long- or short-term strategic marketing plans based on data.

Sales apps can also show which products or services customers are looking at and identify what they need. These analyses can be passed on to the R&D department so that products or services can be improved, or new products can be introduced according to market needs.

Through like and dislike buttons, companies can learn customers’ personal preferences. They can also define customer personas from the feedback they receive in comments. This makes customisation and personalisation easier, and companies can offer unique campaigns to their customers.

Benefits of Using Sales Apps

Tracking Everything

Today, the digital world provides an instant and accurate flow of information whenever and wherever companies want it. With sales apps, companies can directly review their existing data as well as new data as it comes in. Whenever they want to check on something, they can track everything. At the same time, no data is missed, so they are less likely to draw false conclusions.

Companies also need to archive all their documents, and paper documents are hard to find when needed. Over time, old documents can be lost and are difficult to copy. Apps, however, convert documents into data. Data takes up no physical space and is much easier to store and copy. In addition, the risk of data loss is very low. You can track everything whenever you want without wasting time.

Saving Time

Imagine you have just come home after an awful, exhausting day. You don’t feel like going shopping after work; you would probably rather spend the time relaxing. This is where sales apps are very useful. Just by doing some research online, you can decide what to buy. You don’t need to go to the shops, which saves a huge amount of time you would otherwise spend shopping in person.

This is an advantage not only for customers but for companies too. For example, sales figures, profit, and turnover can be analysed across all stores. You can sell from one place to specific locations and segment your market geographically. These analyses can be done daily, as quickly as possible. With sales apps, you only need an online store, and from it you can sell to many places. In addition, you can follow and analyse factors such as sales, turnover, and profit moment by moment. So you do not have to wait for a set period, and no time is wasted.

To sum up, with sales apps companies can view all the activity of their business, not just its financial and sales status, without waiting for the end of the day or the week. Another advantage is that geography no longer limits you; what matters is where you want to sell. Customers can also buy without shopping in person, which is much more effortless and convenient.

Keeping in Touch With Your Team

Sales apps make it easier to work with different departments and teams. They can collect a wide variety of data: customer preferences, which products or services customers prefer (new trends), customers’ purchasing criteria, total sales, revenue, shipping costs, what customers feel is missing and expect you to improve, the areas where you stand out, and so on. This data enables more realistic analyses and makes it easier to share information between departments and teams. As a result, teams stay in constant communication and work together more effectively.

Sales apps transfer data continuously, so short-term changes are spotted quickly. Teams can therefore notice changes as they happen. If there is a problem that needs to be prevented, they can act in time. This helps teams work collectively and dynamically and stay in touch with other teams.

To sum up, a company is a whole. Even a small change can affect every department. From IT to HR, or from Marketing to Finance, everything is connected. Sales apps keep the flow of information lively and effective. That is why teams and departments need to build a good communication network and keep in touch with one another.

The 4 Best Sales Apps to Increase Sales

HubSpot’s Products and Services

HubSpot is a software company founded in 2006 by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah. HubSpot’s products and services are designed for businesses. They are used by companies’ marketing, sales, management, and customer service or customer support departments. HubSpot also offers integrations with PieSync, Salesforce.com, SugarCRM, NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and more. All products come in two options: Free and Premium.

CRM – Customer Relationship Management

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is a software system that helps a business communicate with its customers. Companies communicate with customers through many different channels, and a CRM brings these channels together in one place. This way, many different channels and areas can be managed easily from a single tool. It also creates and stores the company’s customer database.

Marketing Hub

Marketing Hub is marketing automation software for managing your company’s marketing department, running your marketing campaigns and promotions, and analysing customer data. Features:

• Live Chat
• Social Media Management
• SEO
• Form or Survey Builder
• Marketing Automation
• Email Marketing
• Account-Based Marketing
• Lead Tracking & Management
• Marketing Analytics
• Salesforce Integration

Sales Hub

Sales Hub is a CRM system that helps companies communicate more effectively and improve customer engagement. It also supports the sales process. Features:

• Email Tracking & Notifications
• Email Templates & Scheduling
• Document Management & Tracking
• Call Tracking & Recording
• Contact Management & Customer Profiles
• Appointment & Meeting Scheduler
• Sales Automation
• Sales Analytics and Reporting
• Pipeline Management
• Contact, Deal & Task Management
• eSignatures

CMS Hub (Content Management System)

CMS Hub is a software product that helps you build a website and create different content and designs, backed by the CRM. It ensures websites are optimised for every device and allows the website to be personalised for each customer. CMS Hub also provides an enterprise-class web application firewall and supports SSL, a private CDN, SSO, and more.

• SEO recommendations
• Website themes
• Fully integrated CRM
• Drag-and-drop editor
• Adaptive testing
• Contact attribution reporting
• Local website development
• Serverless functions
• Developer docs & community
• Dynamic content, code alerts, and 24/7 security monitoring & threat detection
• Content delivery network & custom CDN configuration
• Standard SSL certificate
• Activity logging & partitioning
• Site performance monitoring
• Reverse proxy configuration

Service Hub

Service Hub is a CRM-integrated product that supports the customer service function. It lets you manage all customer service communication channels. Communication with customers is recorded in written or audio form and converted into data, which is then stored securely.

• Measuring and helping improve employee performance
• Customer feedback surveys
• Customer feedback analysis
• Forecasting
• Shared inbox
• Integrated CRM platform
• Reporting dashboards
• Automated customer service
• Team email
• Live chat
• Ticket creation bots
• Meeting scheduling
• Creating FAQs, articles, videos, and documentation
• Customer service automation
• Knowledge base
• Multiple ticket pipelines
• Video creation
• Custom support form fields

Operations Hub

Operations Hub is software that synchronises customer data and automates business processes. The data is integrated with the CRM system, so it is available 24/7 and can be checked and processed at any time. It can be used within individual departments as well as for cross-departmental management, and it connects the company’s software systems and sales apps. For example, it offers two-way synchronisation, custom field mappings, filtering, and historical sync to keep all your teams organised. Features:

• Data Sync
• Data Quality Automation
• Custom Properties
• Programmable Automation
• Workflow Extensions
• Team Management and Permissions
• Expanded operational capacity

Zendesk

Zendesk was founded in San Francisco. It is CRM-powered cloud software that lets you connect with customers through any channel. When a problem arises, Zendesk offers a customisable front-end portal, live chat features, and integrations with sales apps such as Salesforce and Google Analytics. It is also integrated with CRM. Customer communication by phone, chat, email, social media, or any other channel is recorded, converted into data, and stored securely. By bringing communication channels and the resulting data together on a single platform, Zendesk helps customer service teams work more effectively. Zendesk is used by small and large companies in a wide variety of vertical markets, including technology, government, media, and retail.

Salesforce’s Services and Products

Salesforce.com, Inc. is an American cloud-based software company headquartered in San Francisco. IBM, Accenture, and Saggezza work with Salesforce to integrate its cloud-based services into their businesses. Salesforce is a task and issue management tool. It provides case-tracking capabilities and conversation features for social networking websites, along with analytical tools and functions such as email alerts and Google search. It also provides CRM (Customer Relationship Management) services. There are many products:

• IoT
• Work.com
• Commerce Cloud
• Sales Cloud
• Service Cloud
• Data Cloud (including Jigsaw)
• Marketing Cloud
• Community Cloud (including Chatter)
• Manufacturing Cloud
• Analytics Cloud
• App Cloud
• Vaccine Cloud

Force.com

One feature that sets Salesforce apart from some competitors is its PaaS offering. Force.com is a platform as a service that allows developers to build add-on applications that integrate with the main Salesforce.com application. These third-party applications are hosted on Salesforce’s infrastructure. Force.com platform updates are usually released as full versions every three years. Because the platform is delivered to developers as a service, every development instance receives all of these updates.

Experience Cloud

With Experience Cloud (formerly Community Cloud), Salesforce lets customers create online web properties for external collaboration, customer service, channel sales, and other custom portals for their products or services. Experience Cloud integrates with Sales Cloud and sales apps, which makes customisation easy.

Work.com

Work.com, previously known as Rypple, is a social performance management platform that helps managers and employees improve business performance. Rypple partnered with Facebook to create “Loops”, short for Feedback Loops. Work.com lets employees collect feedback from co-workers, track progress toward goals, and get coaching from supervisors for performance reviews.

Rypple also developed a more formal management methodology based on OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) for Spotify in 2011. Salesforce.com acquired Rypple in 2012 and renamed it Work.com.

myTrailhead

myTrailhead is an online training platform that can be customised for each customer. It provides tailored learning content for Salesforce users and also allows them to create and publish their own educational content and programmes.

Salesflare

Salesflare is a CRM system used by small and medium-sized B2B businesses. When users sign up somewhere, there is usually a permission checkbox at the bottom of the form. If the user ticks it, Salesflare collects the data, automating the data entry the user would normally have to do in a CRM. Integrated with the CRM, Salesflare offers sales tracking and automation, integrations with your website or sales apps, ways to measure whether a product is trending, and more. It also has email tracking, extensive personalised emailing capabilities, A/B testing, social integrations, sales analytics, and an automated address book. It can be used on all devices. Features:

• Contact & Account Management
• Opportunity & Pipeline Management
• Task / Activity Management
• Territory & Quota Management
• Desktop Integration
• Quote & Order Management
• Customer Contract Management
• Marketing Automation
• Email Marketing
• Lead Management
• Social Collaboration Features
• Social Network Integration
• Mobile User Support
• Reporting
• Dashboards

Conclusion

Sales apps are tools that allow customers to shop on a digital platform. There are many reasons why companies use them:

• Sales apps provide more effective and cheaper advertising in the digital environment.
• Customers need an account to perform certain operations in sales apps. With the customer’s permission, this makes it possible to collect customer data.
• They help determine market and customer needs.
• Feedback can be gathered from customers through scoring or rating systems and comments, which makes customisation and personalisation easier.
• Sales apps keep information flowing, so you can notice and solve problems in your departments.
• They provide resources for the company’s own development.

Benefits of Using Sales Apps

Tracking Everything

Thanks to digitalisation, people can now access the right information faster, whenever they want, without waiting. With sales apps, companies can directly review existing data as well as new data as it comes in. Put simply, you can track everything whenever you want without wasting time.

Saving Time

Customers who use sales apps save the time they would spend travelling to shops, researching products, and waiting in line to pay. Companies that use sales apps can view all their transactions without waiting for the end of the day or the week. They no longer have to wait for data to be collected, which saves them time.

Keeping in Touch With Your Team

Sales apps can collect a wide variety of data. This data allows more realistic analysis and makes it easier to share information between departments and teams. As a result, teams stay in constant communication and work more effectively.

Sales App Examples

• HubSpot is a software company whose products are integrated with its CRM. They are used by companies’ marketing, sales, management, and customer service or customer support departments.
• Zendesk is CRM-powered cloud software that allows you to connect with customers through any channel. When a problem arises, Zendesk offers solutions through a customisable front-end portal integrated with sales apps. Zendesk is used by small and large companies in a wide variety of vertical markets, including technology, government, media, and retail.
• Salesforce.com, Inc. is a cloud-based software company that also offers a PaaS. Salesforce is a task and issue management tool. It provides case-tracking capabilities and conversation features for social networking websites, along with analytical tools and functions such as email alerts, CRM, and Google search.
• Salesflare is a CRM system used by small and medium-sized B2B businesses. Its features include sales tracking and automation, integrations with your website or sales apps, and measuring whether a product is trending.

If you are interested in sales, take a look at our other blog posts on the topic.

Resources:

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HubSpot
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salesforce