Account planning tools (APTs) help B2B sales organizations improve sales outcomes such as revenue growth and customer retention throughout the customer life cycle. APTs help sales organizations in two unique and complementary ways. First, they improve seller precision and effectiveness by synthesizing information to provide a consistent, enhanced analysis of large, complex, multifaceted accounts. Second, they improve seller scale and efficiency by aggregating data from multiple accounts, enabling sellers to identify and prioritize expansion, upsell and cross-sell opportunities as well as risks to customer retention.
Gartner defines sales force automation platforms as AI-augmented tools supporting automation and capture of sales activities, processes and administrative tasks, facilitating initiation, engagement and documentation of buyer-seller interactions through multiexperience and channel-agnostic approaches and devices. They leverage advanced analytics to support actionable insights, tracking and monitoring sales contact, pipeline and opportunity management; guided selling; and forecasting process execution. Optimal UX for sales managers or leadership extends beyond internal use cases, and is scalable to support buyer-seller intermediation and shared prospect/customer experiences. These platforms incorporate AI features beyond add-on products in predictive and prescriptive analytics, ML and NLP, enhancing processes and customer interactions. Sales force automation (SFA) is a foundational sales technology implemented to automate and augment an organization’s core sales processes. Leveraging AI and advanced analytics, it enhances the seller’s ability to engage with customers across various interaction touchpoints and devices. It not only streamlines administrative tasks, but also provides actionable insights for improved sales contact, pipeline and opportunity management.