CRM

hubspotlove
Contributor

Oldschool company prefers notes on paper, tips for transitioning?

SOLVE

Hello, the company I work for has traditionally taken notes for sales calls with a notepad and pen.  We write down the necessary details quickly while on the phone, it's very effective.  It's also very useful at trade shows to take written notes.

I'm sure we're not alone on this venture, can some of you offer suggestions on how we can break free of the paper, and more easily transition to a digital note-taking system?  It's important that we keep the process simple, a lot of the people here aren't very tech-savvy, so some degree semi-automation is important. For example, the notes should quickly and easily be connected to the contact/company/deal, with minimal clicking required.

Thanks for your ideas, and please feel free to ask me questions about our process!

1 Accepted solution
gelflex-cc
Solution
Key Advisor

Oldschool company prefers notes on paper, tips for transitioning?

SOLVE

@hubspotlove This was an issue for me when on the road. Then I discovered the HubSpot app on my iPhone.  This meant I no longer had to remember everything as I could use my new "notebook" on my phone to jot down everything immediately.  It also helped me to be more concise in my notes.  If further information needed to be added it was easy to do later. 

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9 Replies 9
gelflex-cc
Solution
Key Advisor

Oldschool company prefers notes on paper, tips for transitioning?

SOLVE

@hubspotlove This was an issue for me when on the road. Then I discovered the HubSpot app on my iPhone.  This meant I no longer had to remember everything as I could use my new "notebook" on my phone to jot down everything immediately.  It also helped me to be more concise in my notes.  If further information needed to be added it was easy to do later. 

hubspotlove
Contributor

Oldschool company prefers notes on paper, tips for transitioning?

SOLVE

Thanks for that reply!

This is exactly the situation we're in.

I imagine it will just take a bit of practicing to get used to it.

 

Gelflex, did you typically take the notes after the call, or are you typing them into the app while on speaker phone, or perhaps bluetooth?

 

HubspotMaster, do you take physical notes, and then later voice transcribe them into the app?

0 Upvotes
gelflex-cc
Key Advisor

Oldschool company prefers notes on paper, tips for transitioning?

SOLVE

@hubspotlove Glad, I could help. I actually typed in the info. I am not sure of all the functions on the app and never tried anything else. Worth looking into.  This is great if someone else (in the office) needs to provide information quickly on the salesperson's behalf.

 

The app saved me many time for contact phone numbers and then verifying information at the gatekeeper. 

bradmin
Key Advisor

Oldschool company prefers notes on paper, tips for transitioning?

SOLVE

I'm not sure what mechanics would work best. But if I were a salesperson, and you gave me the option of writing something down THEN typing it in to HubSpot, versus simply typing, I'm choosing the latter 100% of the time. That's twice the administrative work for every call that connected. I don't know how much time that adds up to over the course of the day, but it has to - at least marginally - cut into their bottom line.

 

I'd just hammer that message over and over until they get the point or admit they hate money.


Brad Mampe, Salesforce Analyst, Fidelity
I'm probably wrong. I may not be right about that.
hubspotlove
Contributor

Oldschool company prefers notes on paper, tips for transitioning?

SOLVE

haha thanks, yes we understand that it's annoying to type it after writing it.

 

I want to offer them something more than "deal with it". That's not really my style 😉

 

The reason hand-written notes are so great is because they're more dynamic than typed notes, it's much more natural, and easier to catch up on. You can also edit hand-written notes more quickly than digital notes.

 

I'm looking for feedback from people who have gone through this process of switching from paper to digital. What helped you make the change?

0 Upvotes
HubSpotMaster
Key Advisor | Diamond Partner
Key Advisor | Diamond Partner

Oldschool company prefers notes on paper, tips for transitioning?

SOLVE

I use the hubspot app and read my notes using voice to text feature on my Iphone. This at least allows me transcribe it into Hubspot using the Mobile app and avoid double typing. 

bradmin
Key Advisor

Oldschool company prefers notes on paper, tips for transitioning?

SOLVE

Edit notes where? And for what purpose? 

 

I'm sure those notes are valuable to that person, but it's just a piece of paper. No one in the organization can benefit from that. You're not just entering notes for yourself; you're making your history available to the organization. Your sales activity is always bigger than you and the customer. 

 

If it's a matter of not wanting to do lots of extra clicking and navigating during the call, then load the contact first and start a note before calling. Then, during the call, they're just typing down their thoughts the same way they'd write it themselves. Post-call, all they have to do is save (but can edit to their heart's content if they like).

 

There's not really a good answer here. Behavior changes are tough. All you can do is describe how the benefits are important to the organization, and effectively puts more cash in their pocket. If that's still a blocker, I'm not sure how to proceed.


Brad Mampe, Salesforce Analyst, Fidelity
I'm probably wrong. I may not be right about that.
0 Upvotes
hubspotlove
Contributor

Oldschool company prefers notes on paper, tips for transitioning?

SOLVE

Thanks for the feedback!

 

Preparing before making a call is defeinitely easier, but that's not our typical situation.

What would you suggest for incoming calls?  We get a lot of random calls throughout the day, and since we're a small company we're not always in front of a computer when the phone rings.

Thanks again for your insight!

0 Upvotes
bradmin
Key Advisor

Oldschool company prefers notes on paper, tips for transitioning?

SOLVE

For incoming calls, depends if you're getting existing contacts or net-new users. If the latter, you may just want to have whoever's manning calls to live in the contacts dashboard, ready to create a new contact with key info. (Based on what you described, you may want to customize the create-a-contact layout to a minimum of properties.)

 

Once the contact is created, it's a matter of creating a new note against it. If your calls are primarily from existing contacts, update the agent's talk track to get key info they can search for in HubSpot - name, email, phone, something. Then, locate that contact and make notes as normal. 


Brad Mampe, Salesforce Analyst, Fidelity
I'm probably wrong. I may not be right about that.
0 Upvotes