RevOps (Revenue Operations) is an increasingly important sector of running a modern business. RevOps is a set of principles and practices that share the goal of aligning all your revenue teams in order to maximize revenue growth and scalability.
RevOps gives a bird’s-eye view into the sectors of your business that are focused on generating pipeline and increasing Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR). These are most commonly Sales, Marketing, and Customer Success teams. With the length and complexity of the modern customer lifecycle, it is easy for these and other teams to operate independently from each other, and by doing so fail to execute a generalized strategy for maximizing revenue growth. These department silos are a common barrier to success for new and mature businesses alike. By implementing a RevOps Strategy and unifying all of the departments within your business, your teams can support each other throughout the lifecycle and increase KPIs across the board. At its core, effective RevOps is what carries a business through the early stages of business growth and into a household name.
Especially in the current market, not prioritizing RevOps will directly affect your customers’ experience with your business. With so many advances in business technologies like AI integrations and CRM improvements, both internal operations and customer service standards have increased tenfold.
For example, if customers frequently have to repeat themselves to different reps or have to wait long periods of time to hear back about their inquiries, they may jump ship. That’s why in this blog, we’ll cover 5 important RevOps practices that businesses should focus on in order to maximize revenue growth in 2024.
AI is taking the world by storm, and many are falling further and further behind. If you’ve read any business blogs in the past two years, you have likely seen mention of AI at least once in every single post.
We see an increased appetite for AI solutions across our client base as well as the B2B SaaS industry as a whole. The amount that AI can assist in streamlining is really only limited by budget restrictions and technological limitations, but as time goes on, more and more of our daily tasks, like fielding basic questions from customers, taking meeting notes, and inputting or migrating data, will be replaceable. Waiting too long to implement technology will mean that even the most effective employees will be left behind by those with more time on their hands.
Additionally, AI can be leveraged on the customer support side to create a more personalized and streamlined experience for customers. Recent advancements like ChatGPT Enterprise allow for quick, effective, and human-like customer service without the need for a human rep. While Enterprise won’t be able to answer some of the more complex questions, it will handle most if not all of the simple inquiries from customers, allowing customer service representatives to focus on high-priority tasks.
AI integration can take many forms for businesses, and effective RevOps strategies should identify and tackle a business’s pain points that can be solved by these integrations to ensure a consistent and effective sales pipeline.
Another major contributor to department silos is having too many systems for data storage. This is where data unification can make a huge difference. It is common for teams to have multiple platforms they use for different purposes, but without unifying all customer and sales data under a single location (such as CRM), key information can get lost and cause service friction and frustration for customers.
For businesses that use Salesforce, making sure that all other platforms connect back to your Salesforce instance is crucial. Currently, Salesforce has many integrations and automation that allow data to be funneled into Salesforce from other platforms (like Slack, Monday.com, Google Drive, and more).
Most recently, a client of ours was struggling with unifying and validating data coming in from Monday.com. With so many different opportunities and types of tasks being separately logged, it was easy for information and important tasks to fall through the cracks. Leveraging automation, the client was able to funnel all task information and data entry back into Salesforce from across all their platforms, creating a centralized source of truth that all teams could access at any time.
Unifying data can also help with customer service needs, as multiple reps having access to information about a customer and their previous conversations with your business will create a more seamless and personalized experience for the customer.
Overall, unifying all business data into Salesforce is an easy way to upgrade your RevOps strategy to improve your business operations.
Account-Based Marketing (ABM) should be the core of every RevOps program. ABM is a highly targeted method of marketing, branding each individual account as its own market, and is typically centered around high-value accounts. This process requires highly personalized and customized marketing efforts, tailored toward each specific account, as well as a very close alignment between sales and marketing teams.
These highly specific campaigns require the guidance of your RevOps strategy to achieve the desired holistic approach between sales and marketing. ABM requires that marketing performs intense research of current market trends alongside research at the account level and a prospect’s pain points, organizational hierarchy, and more to best market to their specific needs.
Say for example, a prospective customer recently launched a press release discussing a leak in data. A salesperson might see that and take the opportunity to inform the marketing team to create data-security-focused promotions for more personalized, strategic marketing.
RevOps allows for such collaborative tactics that can make the difference between simply shouting into the wind, or actually grabbing the attention of your prospects.
From a RevOps perspective, the ability to think ahead and forecast company revenue is just as important as understanding current financial standings. This practice is called Predictive Analysis, and it is an essential part of every successful RevOps strategy.
Your revenue teams should continually monitor the different sources of recurring revenue and the status of current accounts to accurate predictions. While some changes in the pipeline can be unpredictable, analyzing the revenue landscape ahead allows teams to create more informed long-term strategies and act on them with confidence.
Predictive Analytics of external factors such as industry news and developments can also provide invaluable insight for the future. For example, changes in industry regulations lead to both customer needs and business strategies to adapt.
Overall, predicting internal and external developments can lead to additional opportunity and revenue growth. RevOps strategies should prioritize Predictive Analysis to see massive benefits across the entire business.
It can be easy to overlook continuous training and development of your teams. Employers like to bring on talent that are experienced and self-sufficient, as with all the commotion and chaos of working with a small team, allocating time and resources to training is often difficult.
Even the most experienced workers need process and skills training. Without continual training, employees may deviate from company practices or goals.
Additionally, bringing on new talent and fresh ideas comes with a variety of benefits. While the knowledge from more experienced employees is a valuable asset, newer employees often contribute illuminating perspectives and a desire to learn and grow. Nurturing this opportunity for team development and training early on can lead to a more effective, passionate workforce..
Effective RevOps strategies are invaluable assets for any company at any stage of development. In fact, companies that implement a robust RevOps program will simply outpace those who do not.
We understand that not every team is equipped with the tools or means to implement a RevOps strategy, but we are available to help. With a breadth of experience working with Salesforce and other technology solutions, Strong CRM can provide teams with the necessary tools for continued success and improvement of their RevOps program.