The last year and a half has been challenging for almost every industry, but sales teams around the world adapted and many thrived. In fact, according to Pipedrive’s recent State of Sales 2020-2021 report, (which you can download for free), 59% of salespeople believe they became more successful in 2020.
One industry that actually bucked the trend in 2020 was the tablet and PC industry, which grew 13.6%, after showing a slow decline in previous years—a growth that experts have attributed to the increase in working and learning from home.
“Unprecedented demand in the consumer and education segments due to work from home and online learning has undoubtedly led to the resurgence in tablet demand,” observed IDC research analyst Anuroopa Nataraj.
In 2014, the last year that the tablet industry saw growth before 2020, 42% of sales professionals were using iPad or tablets as sales tools. Now that percentage looks set to grow again.
Turning to technology during a year like no other
As remote and at-home working becomes the norm, it’s now more important than ever for you and your sales team to have the right tools and sales technology to stay connected and productive.
According to our State of Sales report, sales professionals who are happy with the tools at their disposal are 12 percentage points more likely to consider themselves successful than those who are not.
All salespeople, not just the half who work on the road (5%) or from home (41%), can benefit from having the right devices when talking to prospects, managing their activities or completing sales.
So, how can salespeople benefit from using tablets or iPads specifically? Here are seven ways tablets and iPads can help you and your sales team to stay productive and sell more this summer.
1. Take advantage of downtime
Many countries are seeing restrictions being lifted, which means salespeople can start scheduling face-to-face meetings again.
It also means that you’re likely to be spending time traveling to meetings or sitting in waiting rooms and company lobbies.
With a tablet, you can utilize this downtime to access your software, answer emails or even prepare. Although you could do the same with a laptop, a tablet is much less cumbersome and easier to pull out on the go.
This is especially true if you’re unable to sit down (in a busy underground train, for example), at a cafe or restaurant with limited space on the table, or standing somewhere waiting for the person you’re meeting to arrive.
2. Show off your sales collateral
Tablets can be useful tools at meetings for another reason: to show off your sales collateral, whether that’s a brochure or documents supporting your sales presentation.
Rather than printing off and carrying around a load of documents, you can just pack your tablet device.
This also has the added benefit of making you seem more professional, as well as providing you with immediate access to other documents should you need them during your presentation.
A realtor could use an iPad during an open house to display different views of the house and surrounding amenities to potential buyers, and then access their real estate CRM to make notes after each viewing. A sales engineer, meanwhile, could use a tablet to show their products’ schematics and technical details while visiting a manufacturing client or prospect.
3. Appear knowledgeable on the shop floor
As mentioned earlier, it’s not just remote workers that can benefit from using a tablet.
When they conducted research into the retail industry, EKN discovered that 4 in 10 Millennial shoppers were influenced by knowledgeable staff, but less than a third of retailers allowed their staff to access inventory or price information from mobile devices.
If you have a shop on the high street or in a mall, providing your sales associates with a tablet can help them engage with shoppers and make a stronger case for them making a purchase.
4. Take notes during a call that instantly go into your CRM
With the right CRM, you can take notes during or after a call that will be added to the profile of the contact you are talking to.
However, even with a headset, it can be challenging to type out accurate notes while also focusing on your sales call. If you’re away from your desktop and holding your phone in one hand, it’s especially difficult.
With Pipedrive, you can now take notes with the Apple Pencil while using Pipedrive’s iPad app. This leaves you with a hand free if you need to hold your phone or give a colleague a quick hand signal, and helps those who prefer to take notes by hand keep everything they write down in one central location.
Writing information down by hand can help you remember it, while it could also save you from having to take notes after a call and potentially forgetting an important detail.
Thanks to our iPad and mobile apps, wherever you are this summer, Pipedrive can be there with you.
5. Stay connected at events
There were almost no physical business events last year, but that looks set to change in 2021.
Having a tablet or iPad handy for these events, or even if you’re just managing a pop-up booth, can help you stay connected and get ahead of the competition.
Tablet devices can access the internet remotely very easily through 4G (or even 5G, if it’s available), making them perfect for events where WiFi access could be patchy.
They also have much larger screens than mobile devices, so you can use them to display collateral that supports your presence at the event.
Here are just a few ways you can use a tablet at an event booth:
Set them up with web forms so visitors can enter contact information quickly
Use them to provide access to the software you’re showing off
Display useful information about the event, in general, to attract people to your stall
6. Set up tablets as POS terminals
Many companies are now using tablets as point of sale (POS) devices.
They’re not just great for pop-up stores, food vans and market vendors; they can also be used by brick and mortar stores to provide customers with an automated service and reduce the pressure on sales staff.
You can use tablets instead of tills to save space around customer service areas or encourage customers to use self-service kiosks.
Alternatively, set up tablets in your store to act as a brochure, where customers can find what they’re looking for and discover deals.
7. Get documents signed on the go
We’ve already mentioned the Apple Pencil as a useful note-taking tool, but it actually has many other uses.
You can take your iPad to sales negotiations and get prospective customers to sign documents using the Apple Pencil, meaning you don’t need to print or scan anything.
You can also sign documents yourself if they get sent through to your device and don’t need a ‘wet’ signature.
Apple Pencil isn’t the only bit of technology that can accelerate the signing process: Pipedrive Smart Docs syncs your sales documents with your CRM, so you can track where they are in the process and strike while the deal is hot. Users can sign documents on Smart Docs with a simple click of a button, meaning there’s no need to even write your signature.
Want to go mobile with your CRM? You can download the Pipedrive app on Apple or Android devices through the Apple App Store or Play Store.
