Why Customer Tracking is the Future (and Present) of Sales

Are you old enough to remember what sales was like before databases? Wait. Don’t answer that. Rude question.

Well, we’re old enough, and it wasn’t pretty. Before CRMs, everyone had their own way to remember the whos, whats, wheres, whens, and whys of their sales contacts. These methods frequently involved post-it notes.

CRMs changed all that… for the most part. Unfortunately, however, while CRMs are great for internal info, they never quite cracked how to sync up external info. Even if we have our own data all sorted, most of us still run around between six or seven log-ins just to access the customer info we worked so hard to collect. Either that or we’re back to the post-its.

Tech-assisted customer tracking is solving that problem, and it’s already granting a huge advantage to its adoptees. Think about it: sales teams have more data about their customers than ever. Using that data to make quick and informed decisions is what sales is all about moving forward. To use that data fast, however, you need to have it even faster.

So, how do you get it? Here’s what you need to know:

What is customer tracking?

First, let’s talk about what customer tracking isn’t—or, at least, isn’t just. Customer tracking isn’t just keeping track of your prospect’s contact information or details. It isn’t just keeping an updated recording of all the times they interacted with you or your sales material, either. 

In fact, it isn’t even the tracking analytics information that helps you better understand your audience and their interaction style.

Okay, so what IS it? Well, first, it’s all of those things put together, organized across platforms onto your CRM, along with customer metrics and analysis derived from comparing all of that cross-platform data. Even more crucially, it’s all of this data associated with individual contacts and consistently updated as your platforms pull in new information. The right customer tracking doesn’t just generate the customer info; it puts it together, presents it to you, and even suggests next steps. 

How does customer tracking work?

Customer tracking tools integrate your social media, email, and website tracking platforms to gather all information associated with a customer. Then, it populates that information straight to your CRM where you can see it all, compare it, and use it in your planning and forecasting.

Advanced customer tracking tools can even derive insights from the information they populate, like what’s working and what isn’t. Instead of wasting time gathering the info and then piecing it together, the tools can do all of that for you and more—so you can get straight to the fun part.

Why is customer tracking the future of sales?

In the world of digital-first sales, forecasting and “instinct” are out. Data-driven insights are in. You don’t guess at how and where to approach a prospect anymore — you look at the data you’ve collected and put together your plan from there. 

In fact, if you’ve been working in sales for the past few years you’ve no doubt experienced the data “arms race” first-hand as all the big players scramble to provide more tracking data than the next.

But what you also know, even if you don’t think about it, is that all that data isn’t actually what’s valuable. It’s just the ingredients; the actionable insight you derive from it is the cake. Before you can use your data, you have to find out what it’s telling you to do. That takes a lot of time and boring data entry — especially if you’re loaded down with more data than you know what to do with.

Customer tracking is the future of sales because it solves that problem. Not only can customer tracking tools organize all of your data into a single place for easy review, but it can even take the first steps toward baking the cake for you. 

Customer tracking tools show you what’s working across platforms and what isn’t, and even point out opportunities based on the data. Instead of methodically tracking down your data, plugging it into your spreadsheets, poring over it, and writing up reports all before you execute… you jump right to the action. Which also means you can get to the next action that much faster.

How can I get customer tracking?

The most effective customer tracking tools available right now are CRM extensions that connect your database to third party sources. People.ai’s PeopleGlass, for example, turns your Salesforce into a dashboard displaying pipeline, account health, analytics, and even next steps. 

Other customer tracking tools can take these benefits even further, by presenting the data they pull in the most convenient way possible. People.ai’s sales solution is a CRM tool that not only connects your CRM to your third-party data, but also presents that data in the form of customer-by-customer “scorecards” based on your existing sales methodology or GTM motion. These scorecards display your account health and engagement right alongside your prospect’s contact information and all third party platform analytics related to them, so you always know what’s working and what to do next. 

What to know more about how to be a part of the future of sales? We’d love to talk to you about all the possibilities of customer tracking. Want to try our customer tracking solutions first hand? Schedule a demo right now.