SaaS is relatively new and is a direct result of the internet and online selling. Unlike traditional sales, where clients can see what they’re buying in real-time and only have to purchase the product once, software requires a few more steps and long-term commitment.
Out of this need, processes like guided selling were born – modern selling processes that utilize data, AI, and software.
But the guided selling experience can be a tad confusing.
This article aims to shed light on guided selling and what it is. We’ll also discuss some of the awesome benefits of guided selling and the best practices you can implement to make the most of your guided selling experience.
What Is A Guided Selling Experience?
Guided selling is selling that uses data to create customer-centric experiences. It’s mostly used in e-commerce but can also be used to boost SaaS sales conversion rates.
Guided selling combines current trends, historic customer data, and AI. This data is then used to create a guided sales tool that optimizes the customer experience and the SaaS sales cycle. Customers enjoy curated recommendations and sales experiences.
While guided selling is gaining more traction recently, it’s not a new process. It’s been around for years, helping companies tailor their e-commerce sales to the new online markets. It’s for this reason that it also works so well with SaaS.
What Does Guided Selling Look Like?
Let’s do a practical example of what guided selling can look like.
Let’s say you own a shoe company, with a large catalog of male, female, and kids shoes. You sell everything from boots to slides.
A customer approaches your website, where a popup asks for their gender. You also ask them to pick two or three of their favorite shoes from a small but diverse selection of options.
This data is then combined with historical data, current trend cycles, best sellers, and guided selling software to suggest shoes your customer is statistically more likely to purchase.
While this is a bit of an oversimplification, it highlights the goal of the guided selling experience: the ability to guide customers to products or services they won’t be able to say no to.
The Benefits of a Guided Selling Experience
It’s not an exaggeration to say that companies need guided selling to turn leads into sales – 90% of top-performing companies use a guided sales process.
Just in case you’re still not convinced, let’s look at all the benefits you’ll enjoy from implementing guided sales into your sales process.
Higher Conversion Rates
Modern product catalogs, whether SaaS or e-commerce, overwhelm consumers with choice. With guided selling, you provide customers with curated options that meet their needs. This increases the conversion rates, creates positive experiences with your brand, and increases profits.
Better Customer Experience
As mentioned above, customers are often overwhelmed with choices. Customers only have so much time to browse catalogs.
Even if you do have products or services they would like, if it’s overwhelmed by a host of other options, you’re lowering the chances of them seeing something they want to purchase. If they don’t immediately see products they want, they’ll look elsewhere.
The opposite is true with guided selling. Guided selling curates their feed to display products and services they want – creating a positive customer experience that encourages them to come back for more.
Data-Driven Business
Guided selling lets you take control of and removes the guesswork from the sales process. Guided selling overhauls not just how you present your catalog but also many of the other processes along the sales pipeline.
It’s a data-driven approach that helps you target, attract, and guide leads to the products and services you know they need. It provides more consistent sales experiences that increase business performance, revenue, and brand reach.
Guided Selling Best Practices
Start implementing guided selling into your sales experience with these simple but effective best practices.
Create Customer Profiles
Effective marketing and guided sales rely on you knowing your customer. If you don’t know who your ideal customer is, you won’t understand how to sell it effectively. The same rule applies to guided selling.
So, create in-depth customer profiles. Gather key markers like age, gender, industry, income, etc. You can also use CRM software and social and website analytics to flesh out the profiles.
Also, gather data on your products or services, the people that usually purchase them, and other customer–product data that can help you guide leads to the right services.
Utilize Guided Selling Software
Guided selling software is a huge help. There are many options to choose from, and the right option for you depends on your industry. For example, interactive and data-driven sales demo software like Saleo is a great way to utilize guided selling in the SaaS sector.
Whichever you choose, ensure the software can learn and adapt as your customer base grows. This usually means the software has AI or some other machine-learning systems that change with your customer’s needs.
It Should Be Fast And Simple
Whether it be a pop-up questionnaire, quick product recommendations, or educational SaaS content, the guided selling experience needs to be fast and simple.
Introduce customers to the guided selling experience right as they enter your brand space, like your website. Whichever guided sales tools you use need to be simple – don’t overwhelm your customers with a pages-long questionnaire or complicated SaaS jargon.
The sales tool should also display results, recommendations, or next steps quickly. If customers have to wait for guidance, they’ll get frustrated and you’ll lose leads.
Conclusion
As the world of e-commerce and SaaS continues to grow, so do the sales processes that come with the online industry. Unlike traditional in-person sales, online selling requires a more curated approach, which is why guided selling is so effective.
Guided selling utilizes historic customer data, current trends, and algorithms to learn about customers and guide them to the right products. It increases conversion rates, makes for a better sales experience, and takes the guesswork out of the sales experience.
Implement smart, data-driven sales into your SaaS sales cycle with Saleo. We are the first live demo experience platform to deliver interactive and engaged software demos. Enjoy more software sales and request a Saleo demo today!
