E-mail communication vs. digital sales room

We’ve managed to get through yet another Christmas season that was largely dominated by Covid. For many, that meant a holiday period with no real relaxation, which makes coming back to work and an overflowing e-mail inbox even more stressful.

And the figures for e-mail communication are truly staggering. In the past year alone, the number of e-mails sent and received globally was estimated at 319.6 billion every day.

Working from home has changed the way we work

Covid has clearly changed the way we interact with friends and family, but also with colleagues and business partners. Communication has shifted away from face-to-face meetings towards online solutions, often leading to one video call after the other. With a large percentage of employees still required to work from home, a healthy work-life balance can be a real challenge, especially when work and living areas cannot be strictly separated in the home.

Statistics show that psychological stress is continuing to increase in the work environment. Identifying and reducing potential stress factors at work is therefore even more important than ever. A flood of messages can soon translate into additional stress and disrupted workflows. Since it’s almost impossible to influence how many e-mails we receive in a day or how time consuming they are, we can often feel that we’re losing control over our working day.

E-mail communication is time consuming

According to a McKinsey study, employees use almost 30% of their working time to read and answer e-mail. Another 20% of their time goes into finding relevant information within company communication networks. However, roughly 80% of that time could be used more effectively as many reasons for inefficient communication are avoidable. Badly configured mail servers slow down interaction and a lot of information gets lost because e-mails cannot be found or are not accessible for certain colleagues or a hand-over did not go smoothly. These factors lead to additional stress and a greater need to manage the messages we send. But how can find the best solution to fit our communication requirements?

Benefits and limitations of e-mail automation

Many companies have identified communication loopholes and try to tackle them with e-mail automation in their sales and marketing processes, thus decreasing the workload. Mail automation involves triggering electronic messages based on predefined rules leading to a set action or response. For example, a welcome message to new customers signing up for a newsletter or a reminder about an incomplete check-out process.

The main purpose of e-mail automation is to take repetitive tasks off your hands so you can spend your time on more relevant work such as customer support. Effective interaction with customers is vital, as is providing them with information. It helps them to learn about your products and brand, reminds them of their previous choice to buy from you and invites them to keep coming back. The logic behind mail automation has clear advantages and can be used for b2b sales processes as well. However, when it comes to individual, personalised communication during a sales process, e-mail automation is not a great solution.

The digital sales room: a single point of contact

Digital sales rooms (DSR) are secure portals for sellers to inform potential buyers and to interact or negotiate with them. A digital sales room is sometimes also described as a microsite or centralised location. Its aim is to offer personalised consultation and individual responses, creating a unique experience for the customer. A digital sales room can also be used as an exhibition space where you can present case studies, whitepapers, proposals, testimonials or videos for potential clients.

Buyers and sellers both benefit from the possibilities offered by digital sales rooms. Customers receive a more focused and personalised digital shopping experience while sellers can keep an eye on how effective their content is and the customer’s shopping behaviour. DSR are secure portals for personalised, trackable digital interaction. However, there is still room for improvement.

envivo.io can do more for you than a digital sales room. envivo.io is a one-stop solution for customer communication – both for sales processes and marketing. What customers truly appreciate is our single point of contact!

envivo.io’s one-stop solution combines the best of both

How can we help you to reduce potential stress factors, free up time and find an effective form of business communication?

• envivo.io gives you the option to manage your e-mail volume and therefore your time
• envivo.io is your digital sales room and has got everything under control
• envivo.io is cloud-based – messages go out in less than two minutes using templates or blueprints, they arrive quickly and no information is lost
• envivo.io templates help you write and send personalised e-mails as quickly as possible
• envivo.io is GDPR compliant – a must when it comes to digital communication