Are your sales reps struggling to engage leads? They aren’t alone. In a Chief Marketer survey, 57% of B2B marketers reported struggling to engage targeted prospects.

Simplify how you engage with prospects by taking advantage of these seven powerful customer engagement tools; empower your sales team to share relevant, engaging information that converts leads to customers.

1. Customer surveys

Sales reps aren't mind-readers: even the most seasoned pro can use help fine-tuning their approach. Help your team learn what works straight from their prospects by requesting feedback from potential and existing customers. Use these questionnaires to see if your leads find meetings with sales reps helpful and engaging.

Survey software is built to give you all the resources you need to create surveys that deliver actionable insights. Create and send surveys via email or post them on your social media channels or website to expand your reach.

While you could manually submit these surveys and organize responses, we recommend automating the process. A great survey software feature, for example, is the automation of post-sales-interaction surveys. This automation means every lead interaction with your sales team triggers a survey email for feedback, so you can start using feedback right away. Armed with knowledge, sales teams can adjust their approach to be more compelling with leads and prospects.

Survey software is able to integrate with CRMs (such as Zendesk) for extra benefits. This combination of tools organizes questionnaire data pulled from the survey software and gives you access to dashboards in the CRM that reflect all data collected from surveys across your organization. Analytics tools show you exactly where you should be focusing future efforts for the best sales results.

Stuck on what feedback to ask for? Tools such as SurveyMonkey help you create survey templates. These tools are easy to set up and provide customizable templates without any guesswork. Select from a library of sample questions written by survey pros, or access full templates for surveys that speak directly to your target audience.

Survey software puts you in control of what reaches your leads, so you can get the feedback you need when it matters most.

2. Social media platforms

Social media is more than a place for marketers to promote brands — it's an environment ripe with opportunities to drive sales.

Young shoppers in particular are so comfortable with these platforms they'll shop directly from social media channels. The Influencer Marketing Factory conducted a survey where 62% of Gen Z and millennials reported social media posts influenced them to purchase. Encourage this shopping by linking to your products from your social accounts, setting up shoppable social posts, and, of course, making sure your site has a responsive design.

Beyond driving purchases, social platforms are a great spot for sales reps to learn about their target audience, engage with them, and refine their pitches.

Your sales team members can also join industry groups on social channels to understand what your target audience wants to see from products in your space. And if you're in B2B, social platforms — especially LinkedIn — are also a critical space for building relationships with individual stakeholders. Say hello, send helpful resources, like, and comment on your followers' content. Keep your relationships going.

Of course, when you expand your company's social media following, you're finding new customers. A survey by Sprout Social indicated that 75% of consumers would increase spending with brands after following them on social media. With that in mind, always be on the lookout for creative ways to get more followers! Post valuable content like blog posts and product launch announcements every week to encourage new followers and post sharing.

Reps should read their brand’s social media comments — whether they have a brand mention or not — to gauge how people view the company and shape their pitches accordingly. For example, if reps notice most LinkedIn comments come from accountants, they can note that this segment is especially engaged and reach out more.

Social listening tools like Brand 24 allow reps to track company mentions across platforms. Sales reps can view mention analytics, which break down who is talking about your brand. Reps can also use social listening tools to track competitor mentions or follow a specific topic.

Knowing what people are discussing (and when) can help sales teams note differences in brand mention volume. If a brand is mentioned on social media much more after a specific release, for example, sales teams can infer the release was popular or sparked interest. Awareness of social media activity ultimately helps reps to determine what sales efforts are working.

3. Email marketing tools

Email marketing drives customer spending. Litmus discovered in a worldwide marketing survey that every dollar businesses spent in email marketing generated up to 36 U.S. dollars in return.

This return on investment means email marketing is a massive opportunity for your sales team to increase consumer spending. But make no mistake — if your sales reps manually handle email, they’ll be strapped for time and slow to convert prospects. Instead, set your team up with a marketing automation platform like MailChimp that handles core email tasks for you.

Email software tools also help you speed up email campaigns with message templates for a variety of sales situations — from setting up a demo appointment to thanking a prospect for hopping on a call with you. You can even pair your email software with your CRM, so these situations automatically trigger the message.

Use email marketing tools to nurture relationships by keeping your audience updated on your latest sales events, company news, and product launches. Help support potential buyers at every step of their journey, from abandoned cart emails to welcome emails and order or shipping confirmations.

An email marketing platform lets you build contact lists for different target customer segments, so personalizing messages is easy. Need to send an email to your 20- to 35-year-old female leads in Canada? No problem — just select the list, and your email platform will send your message to only that group. Targeted email lists help you harness the power of precise content to increase customer loyalty and form stronger relationships with leads. These lists can also help create more sales conversions by speaking directly to each targeted group.

Email software also lets you A/B test messages, so you can determine which variations lead to opens and clicks. You might discover that including an emoji in your subject line drives 10% more opens than messages that don’t include them.

Experiment with emails by adjusting your writing style, send times, subject lines, or images. MailChimp will send test campaigns and measure their performance across your chosen metric, then automatically use the campaign that performs the best once the test results come in!

Email marketing software should cover all of your bases: choose software that includes campaign tracking tools, customizable email templates, and verified email lists.

If you’re looking for email marketing software, look no further than MailChimp. As a leading SaaS email marketing company, MailChimp has all of these features and more.

4. Customer relationship management software (CRMs)

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software helps sales teams gain insights into leads and prospects by building customer profiles, reporting, and tracking each stage of the sales cycle.

Reports and profiles are created by pulling data from multiple sources, like the automated surveys we mentioned before. The information gathered helps reps to better understand customer demographics, behaviors, and preferences — and improve their pitches, as a result.

CRMs sometimes have a lead scoring tool, which helps reps gauge how ready customers are to make a purchase. Sales teams can quickly get a snapshot of the customers that need the least effort to complete a new sale. For example, reps may prefer to focus on leads in the consideration, intent, and evaluation phases of the sales process before tackling potential customers who are still in the early awareness and interest stages.

Finally, a CRM helps reps quickly access customer information (possibly from multiple platforms) while answering questions on sales calls. Zendesk, for example, makes all your customer data — whether it comes from an email, a chat, a phone call, or a web form — accessible from one location for sales agents

5. Sales engagement platforms (SEPs)

Sales engagement platforms (SEPs) manage projects for your sales team: they track and measure results, automate time-consuming tasks, and sync data with other tools.

Sales engagement platforms are similar to CRMs, and they do share some functions. CRMs, however, are more focused on recording and centralizing customer data, while SEPs primarily improve sales team workflows.

Workflows are automated by SEPs, so events occur based on specified triggers. For example, a welcome email can be sent to every new subscriber after they submit their information through the company website.

This tool can also automate:

• Integration of data from outside apps like calendars, LinkedIn, and email accounts
• Invoices
• Meeting scheduling
• Receipts
• Nitty-gritty data entry tasks, like the implementation of customer contact data
• Phone calls (via auto-dial features)
• Pre-recorded voicemails
• SMS messages
• Sync of emails to CRM software
• ...and more!

With these features, SEPs help sales reps focus on lead nurturing and outreach instead of administrative tasks.

Sales teams can collaborate more efficiently by using SEP workflow management tools. Workflow tools enable reps to assign team members to complete specific tasks and prioritize them to get leads through the sales cycle quickly. Sales managers can also view activity logs to stay informed on sales cycle stages, potential deals, and overall sales performance.

SEPs sync with CRM software and other sales tools to merge lead and prospect data. For example, teams can see stats that pinpoint which email templates and call scripts perform the best. Reps can also search for details, like which times and weekdays get the best connection rates for sales staff. This combined information allows reps to build a solid, results-based sales strategy.

A Gartner study found that 92% of sales development companies view SEPs as critical to their sales team success, and it’s easy to see why given the tool’s vast benefits.

Use a SEP platform that integrates data from all channels instead of trying to piece together data from multiple apps. Outreach is a SEP with a lot of integrations, so it plays well with your current tool stack. SEPs allow sellers to keep valuable lead data at their fingertips, and sales managers can use real-time information to coach teams.

6. Live chat

It’s critical for sales agents to assist website visitors quickly when self-service isn’t enough. According to Drift, there was a 64% increase in online shoppers' demand for immediate responses from 2020 to 2021.

With the rising popularity of instant auto-responders and chatbots, leads now expect faster responses than ever. Live chat offers the same rapid response, but with a real human. Sales reps can use chat to address leads' questions right away and inform them about the best products for their needs. Leads will feel confident making purchases knowing that they received personal recommendations from sales experts. Many live chat options now include apps with push notifications, so your sales team can respond on the go.

Live chat tools automatically save transcripts for future use, so you can see what does and doesn’t work in these sales conversations. Use chat touchpoints to train new sales staff during onboarding and help your existing team craft better pitches.

Chat software like Zendesk stores analytics data from live chats to give agents useful metrics. Use Zendesk to improve sales performance by creating custom dashboards and live chat reports measuring wait times, chat volume, and more.

An alternative (and completely free, as of March 2022) live chat software option is Tawk.to. It’s an excellent choice if you'd like to try out live chat with no strings attached to see if it works for your business.

7. Collaborate browsing (Cobrowsing)

Sometimes, a phone call or written message isn’t enough for a sales rep to connect with a lead or prospect. The potential customer may need help navigating your company’s site or product, and explaining instructions over a call or written message is too confusing.

Cobrowsing technology helps to optimize communication. It allows sales reps to see prospects' screens and control their cursor to complete tasks, like sharing product demos or filling out forms.

Gone are the days of extensive back-and-forth instructions, like "find the support tab at the top right," where prospects are unclear about what sales reps are sharing. Instead, sales reps can engage more with leads by focusing on conversation instead of instruction.

Paul Moore of Follow Up Boss explains why Cobrowsing with Cohere simplifies his customer interactions: “Cohere is dead simple and lightning fast. It helps us cut through a lot of wasted time with setting up traditional screen shares and makes our customers more comfortable and confident, knowing that we’re right there with cutting-edge support if needed.”

Look for Cobrowsing software with robust security features that keep sensitive customer data private. Cohere prioritizes safety by allowing users to control every part of the interaction. Leads can change what parts of each page are shared, and Cohere automatically hides sensitive information like credit card data or passwords.

Users must grant the rep permission to view web pages, and they can revoke the consent at any point during the session. Cohere is also compliant with security and data protection frameworks, including SOC 2 Type II, GDPR, CCPA, and HIPAA. All hosted data is within secure Google Cloud facilities.

In addition to security, Cohere also strives to offer an intuitive, simple user experience. The software only takes a few short minutes to install and start using, and it integrates with all of the tools in this article, plus many others!

“Cohere is dead simple and lightning fast. It helps us cut through a lot of wasted time with setting up traditional screen shares and makes our customers more comfortable and confident, knowing that we’re right there with cutting-edge support if needed.”

Cohere offers omnichannel abilities, meaning agents can switch effortlessly between features like live chat and Cobrowsing, depending on business needs.

Go to Cohere’s Cobrowsing page for more details on how the software works and how to make the most of tool integrations.

Prioritize leads for improved sales engagement

CEO Clare Muscutt tells her audience, “Building a good customer experience does not happen by accident. It happens by design.” Well-designed experiences aren’t just about the customer journey — they begin in the sales funnel. Selecting the right sales tools is a critical step in converting leads to happy, long-term customers.

When deciding what customer engagement tools to implement, keep your leads’ needs at the forefront of all decisions. If you aren't sure if a tool is right for your team or customers, look for a demo or free trial. Try Cohere for free today.

Sales can be challenging, but we’re here to help. With sales tools that help you engage leads and save time, you can build a proactive and efficient sales culture that helps your reps focus on what matters most — winning customers.