How Our Sales Team Got Started With Voice

This article is contributed by One Call, a Salesforce customer and beta user of Einstein Voice Assistant. A workers’ compensation services leader for nearly 30 years, One Call is using voice technology to help their employees be more productive, and in turn, deliver a better customer experience.

The data entry struggle is real. Anyone who’s been in sales can relate: it’s difficult to get salespeople to enter data about their customer interactions, let alone do it right away.

Managers are always calling to say: what’s going on in the field? If it’s not in the CRM (customer relationship management) system, then it didn’t happen. How else can we track your activity if it’s not in the system?

I talk to sales and IT peers across different industries and everyone in the field struggles with making time to do data entry. There are even memes about it!

Managers have tried to give us new tools, or offered incentives to motivate us to enter data, but nothing has led to lasting change. As someone in the field, I’ve seen lots of efforts to make data entry work, with no results — until we started using voice technology.

Voice technology: The tipping point for change

We’ve heard the promise of how voice technology can improve productivity in an enterprise setting, especially when it comes to sales. But what’s the reality for a sales rep using voice as part of their daily routine?

Like many people, I already use voice technology in my personal life with Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa. And I had already tried using a speech-to-text app to enter customer notes into the CRM. So when One Call signed on as a beta user for Einstein Voice Assistant, I was eager to try it. 

I now use the voice assistant to log all my field activities, like office visits, presentations, seminars, partnership reviews, or any follow-ups — whatever my day entails. I’ve also been using it to log detailed meeting notes about who I met and what was discussed, tying it to accounts and records in our CRM. This has been helpful because the meeting details are still fresh in my mind.

3 tips to ease the transition to voice

Not everyone was eager to change the way they work. Old habits die hard, and many colleagues were reluctant to get started. But over time, as they saw how voice technology made it easy to enter accurate data into Salesforce, the conversation started to change. Here are some tips that helped my colleagues.

1. Allot time to train the voice technology

The nature of the world today is that we want access to everything right away. But don’t rush the process. Just like any other voice technology, it will take time to train your voice assistant to learn how you speak. 

Allow time for a “personal training period” where the technology can learn your language style (dialects and tones), and the kind of commands you’ll be using.

2. Develop a new habit with incremental steps

To break the cycle of your old data entry process and make room for a new habit, plan for incremental change. 

Don’t try to start something new when you’re in a groove in the field. Instead, introduce voice technology when you sit down to handle administrative tasks. For example, if you have to make five updates, use the voice assistant instead of opening your computer. This will give you adequate time and space to practice.

Then bit by bit, start to add voice entries at a certain time of day. Try this: When you pull into your driveway, before you head into your house, speak two updates, such as:

• “Manager meeting with Bob Smith at Company X in San Francisco to discuss new program and outcomes.”
• “Cost Savings Report reviewed with Nurse Jane at Company Y on files submitted YTD to One Call”

Once you feel comfortable with the technology, then make it a standard part of your routine in the field. Do you have 15 minutes between customers? Are you walking down the sidewalk on your way to lunch? Use your voice to make updates throughout your day. Be consistent and go easy on yourself. It’s something new and it’s going to be fine.

3. Use a contest as an incentive

Positive incentives work far better than scare tactics. One Call made a smart move by using a contest, complete with prizes, to encourage friendly competition among the sales team.

It was just the carrot we needed and got people more comfortable with the new tool. The contest significantly accelerated adoption of voice technology and increased data entry.

Moving forward with voice technology

Adoption of voice technology is high and continues to increase, because employees are seeing how well it works. More encouraging, according to our recent national sales meeting, we’ve significantly improved pipeline accuracy. For the first time, our opportunity pipeline numbers were based on analysis of real data.

The verdict? Voice technology makes it easier for sales teams to work efficiently and accurately. It’s a win for everyone: Sales reps build reliable habits for entering data into a CRM system, and management is happy having visibility into what’s happening in the field.

Einstein Voice makes it easy and fast to enter data into your Salesforce. Read more about why we’re bringing voice to CRM.