LinkedIn has announced three enhancements to its Sales Navigator platform which has been designed to help sales professionals access and find the information. In a Sales blog, LinkedIn made these updates public. The platform includes improved integrations with Salesforce and its Customer Relationship Management (CRM) suite and Gmail accounts as well as upgraded mobile functionality with new discovery features on the Sales Navigator app.
Sales navigator for sales personnel which was launched in 2014, is built on an algorithm that surfaces recommendations to find the right prospects. It is based on the criteria each user specifies and works its way to keep users informed regarding customer data updates such as job changes or news mentions.
Earlier it took manual tagging and importing or transferring of potential accounts from the Salesforce CRM systems. But with improved integration, LinkedIn claims that the most relevant account information reaches across as ‘Suggested Leads’ where the navigator can identify them. Stressing on only the most important accounts, it hopes the sale reps don’t have to go through and identify the accounts, manually.
While the feature is currently available on Salesforce only, Mike Derezin, Vice President, Sales Solutions, LinkedIn told VentureBeat,
We are already investigating in other CRMs that we want to work with. We did this as Sales Navigator and Salesforce share a lot of customers and to pull more relevant records back into Sales Navigator to save users’ time. Our goal is to integrate Sales Navigator in more places the sales professional needs to be, and obviously CRM data is a crucial tool that all use.
Gmail extension however could mean access to users’ LinkedIn profile details and social contact information like social media handles and company history alongside Gmail inbox, without actually exiting the Gmail interface. In addition, users can build rapport and find warm introductions by using the Icebreakers and TeamLink sections. It can be downloaded from the Google Chrome Web Store.
Chris Kieff, Security and Sales Operations Director, Sprinklr, said:
The move towards improved automation is critical for a business growing. Keeping leads and accounts automatically updated helps our sales team stay productive and maintain relevant, positive relationships with prospects and accounts.
The last update has come to its mobile app by adding Discovery features to find new accounts and leads. According to LinkedIn 25 percent of users solely use the Sales Navigator app on the go and the addition will only help optimize its service. The offering will provide up to 10 fresh account recommendations per day based upon preferences defined by the user, claims the company.
The features had previously been available only in the desktop client and are now available on Sales Navigator iOS app and Android app.
Tom Lee from LinkedIn wrote, “Our goal for Sales Navigator is to be an important part of the daily lives of sales professionals, and we believe these enhancements will get us that much closer. Ultimately, we want to help sales professionals build deeper relationships by working smarter, not harder, and this reinforces our commitment to make them more efficient and effective every day.”