It’s no secret that sales reps can waste valuable time by manually logging emails and every bit of client information in Salesforce. But is there a more tried-and-true way to ensure accuracy when logging emails and other customer interactions? Yes—and it looks like automation.
Salesforce recognized the beauty of automation when it introduced Service Cloud in 2009. Under that new umbrella was the concept of email logging, or connecting emails to Lead, Opportunity, and Account records in Salesforce.
These connections have opened new opportunities for sales teams and leaders to improve their sales strategies and communicate more effectively with customers and prospects. Having email data in Salesforce enabled revenue teams to determine what email sequences were working and which weren't. They could even learn whether accounts were getting the level of attention they needed.
As email logging evolved, proprietary software emerged that improved logging capabilities with advanced features that took the manual requirements out of the process. These automatic email logging capabilities save time and increase productivity while enabling sales reps to have more informed and effective conversations with customers and prospects at every point in the communication cycle.
Why email logging improves sales efficiency
When distilled down, sales is really just a conversation between a seller and a potential customer. Still, to have a fruitful conversation, context is needed. Email logging provides that essential context. With the ability to log emails to Salesforce, reps have immediate access to the historical scope of discussion between the customer and their organization. This reference gives your sales team members a better understanding of where a customer is on their journey and improves overall sales efficiency within an organization.
The immediate benefits of email logging are similar to email tracking in that sales teams can view which emails receive the most engagement. But whereas email tracking gives sales teams visibility into the performance of one email in terms of opens, clicks, and forwards, email logging provides a 10,000-foot view in the context of a campaign or funnel.
By logging emails to leads and contacts, sales teams can note the engagement of specific emails throughout the funnel and pivot or adjust messaging, tactics, or overall strategy accordingly. This dramatically improves reaction times for communications such as strategic outreach to check in on customers who may have stalled in their journey through the funnel.
Additionally, leaders can use email logging information to pinpoint where specific campaigns or reps are falling short in the sales process. If there's a clear drop-off trend along the funnel, sales managers can recalibrate the campaign or work one-on-one with their sales reps to determine what part of the equation is missing.
For organizations that have embraced email flows, automatic follow-ups can ensure a reliable and rapid response to a customer's request for additional information.
There are multiple methods of logging emails, from manual to automated. Understanding the benefits—or drawbacks—of each will help sales teams better utilize their email flow to improve sales efficiency.
Manual email logging
The simplest out-of-the-box Salesforce email logging solution is a manual process that supports Outlook and Gmail.
Manual email logging works, but it has a major shortcoming: remembering to do it. To manually log emails to Salesforce, a sales representative needs to press a button during each email send for the function to work.
While manual email logging can get the job done (when reps remember to do it), the trick is maintaining consistency.
BCC email logging
BCC email logging is another way to log emails to Salesforce, but this method is a little more niche than manual email logging. Setting up BCC email logging is straightforward as users are asked to create the related email in the BCC email setting, and then they simply add that email to the BCC field of every outbound email they send.
Remembering to log the emails within Salesforce still relies on the user adding the BCC to the email. If the user forgets that manual step, the email goes un-logged.
Automatic email logging
The best way to get impactful results from email logging is through the automatic email logging functionality commonly offered with a sales engagement platform. Automatic logging removes the necessity for human action, which is usually the first step toward increasing efficiency, particularly in sales.
Setting up automatic email logging for Salesforce is relatively easy and immediately impactful. Automatic email logging matches the email to relevant leads, contacts, accounts, and opportunities in Salesforce. The automation happens in the background, so sales reps can forgo data entry and better utilize their time elsewhere. Refinements in the preference settings can filter out personal or internal emails and even provide the ability to log emails retroactively.
Automatic email logging saves valuable time and energy by eliminating the need for sales reps to actively remember and click a button or BCC each email to Salesforce. Sales leaders also benefit from time savings, as they can see communications in real-time and pivot or adjust sales campaigns—or individual sales rep tactics—accordingly.
Among the two most critical benefits of this type of automatic logging are increased productivity—which is a direct result of improved sales efficiency—and the assurance of not missing essential messages. This helps create a complete picture of every email interaction, not just those the rep remembered to log.
In this case, time is saved from the elimination of manual logging emails, as well as the time saved from not correcting mistakes. Teams can also view and analyze email log data collectively, which improves collaboration by seeing what is and isn't working.
Because of the improved productivity, communication, and strategy, which is also combined with invaluable insight into the customer journey, automatic email logging becomes a must-have for businesses interested in elevating their funnel game.
Automatic activity tracking with Groove
Automatic activity tracking is one of the many useful tools that come with implementing a sales engagement platform like Groove. A collaborative workspace that displays key account notes and high-performing message flows is just one aspect of Groove that helps provide complete transparency between reps and sales management. With the most advanced activity capture in the industry, Groove is able to help organizations maximize the ROI of their Salesforce investment by increasing adoption and boosting the productivity of their sales team.
Interested in getting Groove-y? Request a demo.