When it comes to sales, nothing tops the effectiveness and impact of a good old face-to-face interaction. That’s why, traditionally, salespeople have been known to go from door to door, to travel long distances to have meaningful interactions that create lifelong customer relationships.
However, as the business environment grows more competitive, physical meetings are becoming increasingly impractical. The cost and time involved just doesn’t make sense when we consider the technological tools present at our disposal.
Add the current pandemic to this equation and you will realise that physical sales interactions are not only impractical, they are currently impossible.
In other words, virtual meetings are the only viable alternative.
However, even when there isn’t a pandemic, video sales calls make a lot of sense.
Here are a few advantages of video calls:
Efficient Presentation
Many of the products that are being sold today are digital. For such products, a digital presentation is the ideal channel to communicate benefits and utility.
Even if your product is not a digital product, the best video conferencing software offer a variety of features that can make your online sales presentation more immersive, engaging, and ultimately, more convincing.
Features like screencasting, virtual whiteboards, and multi-device support can be used to create meaningful sales experiences by resourceful salespeople.
Shorten Sales Cycle
When you don’t have to travel for appointments, you can utilise that time for more productive things.
Conducting sales calls in a virtual environment doesn’t just enable you to take more calls every day, it also frees up time that you can dedicate to generating more leads and scheduling more sales calls.
Besides shortening the sales cycle, virtual sales meetings also makes it more efficient.
How?
Simply by eliminating the cost involved in attending physical meetings. The cost of travelling, lodging, and miscellaneous expenses during the trip can all add up to influence your bottom line.
A shorter, more efficient sales cycle is bound to convert into more revenue and more profits.
Meet Multiple Decision Makers In One Meeting
Many times, when a sales rep travels for a physical sales meeting, they are not able to meet all the people involved in the decision making process. As a result, the decision is delayed and so is the sale.
This can be due to many reasons, but the most common one is that one or more decision makers are present in a different geographical location.
With a video conferencing tool, you can have participants join the sales call from anywhere in the world, as long as they have access to the internet.
Expand Without Boundaries
Another advantage of video conferences is that you can have them with clients sitting in any part of the world (as long as there is not a language barrier).
This means, with video conferencing, businesses that aren’t necessarily local in nature can expand to previously unexplored areas.
The sheer amount of opportunities this opens up for various businesses is very difficult to comprehend.
However, there is no doubt in the fact that being able to expand your sales territory without having to worry about geographical boundations can usher in an era of unprecedented growth for many businesses.
Conclusion
The advantages of conducting your sales interactions in a virtual environment are simply too significant to be ignored. However, it is important to keep in mind that such interactions are quite different from physical meetings. Your sales team may require some training in order to be able to persuade customers in a virtual environment.