Data entry can be a real pain for salespeople. The time spent on this and other administrative tasks is time away from customer interactions. But capturing sales data is vital.
It’s important to capture customer orders, quotes, needs, and more. Lead and sales reporting help sales managers know where to direct their attention. Analysing that information helps drive more efficient ways of closing the deal.
Microsoft has taken on this often challenging exercise with a new digital experience for sales teams: Microsoft Viva Sales. Part of the “Viva” line of applications such as Viva Insights for improved staff wellbeing and Viva Learning for staff development.
The Viva apps natively integrate with MS Teams and the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. They include automation designed to eliminate mundane tasks and enable more work engagement.
Viva Sales is a “CRM helper” application. We’ll go through some of the most asked questions about the app, its features, and when you can get it.
What Is Microsoft Viva Sales?
Viva Sales is an app that will provide sales and lead insights. These insights populate throughout Office 365 and Microsoft Teams. The focus of the app is cutting unnecessary manual entry to give sellers more time to sell.
How Does Viva Sales Work? Is It a CRM?
Viva Sales is NOT going to replace your normal CRM platform. Instead, it connects to your CRM and other sales-related apps and leverages the data from these connections. This makes it easier for salespeople to get the prospect data they need to enable their work.
Salespeople spend approximately 34% of their time on administrative tasks.
Viva Sales Basics
Some of the core advantages of Viva Sales are:
- Eliminate Forms: Data entry for sales professionals is greatly reduced. This frees them up for more customer relationship building.
- Powerful Data Leveraging: Viva Sales connects to several platforms. including non-Microsoft programs and CRMs. The integration allows salespeople to cross-reference data points and gain valuable insights.
- AI-Driven Help: Salespeople will get prompts that are AI-driven. These suggestions and reminders help them along in the sales process with a lead.
Interconnected Interface
Microsoft Viva Sales provides sales-specific insights throughout the various M365 applications. Salespeople natively see important customer details from within whichever app they’re in, including in their Outlook Calendar or their Microsoft or non-Microsoft CRM.
Image courtesy of Microsoft
Viva Sales Features
Tag to Capture Sales Interactions
Tagging is also known as using someone’s “@name” to get their attention. Tagging is a popular software integration used throughout many cloud-based apps. It’s also used within Microsoft 365.
Salespeople can use the familiar tagging function. They can use it to capture data from another M365 app for a prospect or customer. This includes adding someone to a list of customers by using a tag for their Viva Sales name. The system will capture the contextual information on the lead or customer.
Collaborate
Viva Sales makes it easier than ever to collaborate with your team on a sales prospect or customer. You don’t have to chase down information to copy/paste into a message. Use that tagging function to populate lead information from Viva Sales in seconds.
Image courtesy of Microsoft
You can also easily edit or open a lead/customer record without the need to look for and open another app. The process gets you where you need to go in as few clicks as possible.
Call Summaries & Integrated Data
One thing that customers and salespeople hate is a lack of understanding. For example, when a salesperson doesn’t know about a recent customer interaction.
This can happen when company communication systems store data from different sources separately. Such as phone call messages being in one place and a customer’s website chat session being in another.
Viva Sales brings all that customer engagement data together into a single view. This allows the salesperson to see call summaries and capture call action items.
Download & Customise
Salespeople that prefer an Excel view of their contact list can get this from Viva Sales. Download lead and customer lists. Customise the application per the organisation’s needs.
When Will Viva Sales Be Available?
It’s available now! For AU$54.90 per user/month.
For a brief overview of Viva Sales, watch a video explaining the application on Microsoft’s site here.
Take Advantage of Microsoft Viva Automation
Microsoft built the Viva suite of digital experience apps for productivity. These apps help employees find information faster, feel more connected, and work more productively.
Now is the perfect time to explore those that have already launched and get ready for Viva Sales.
Contact BIZC IT today to find out more about how to improve your team’s digital experience.
Article used with permission from The Technology Press.