Everyone loves the word “free.” But sometimes “free” doesn’t always mean “good.”
For example, every year on July 11, you can walk into a 7-Eleven store to get a free Slurpee. But when I went a couple years back, I stood in line for 20 minutes only to arrive at a painfully slow Slurpee machine when I could finally pull down the lever. I got my free Slurpee, but it wasn’t the Slurpee experience I had hoped for.
The same thinking behind “free” applies to SaaS, especially when it comes to enterprise sales.
People typically associate free seats with small businesses. However, free seats are a game changer to unlock more value for your business's success — even at the enterprise level.
Here are three reasons why your enterprise sales team needs free seats to help your company grow.
1. The democratization of data gives you improved collaboration and transparency for leadership.
Just because you’re not using the tools doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be allowed to see what’s happening. Typically, paid seats are only reserved for those who do the nitty gritty work.
But what if a manager wants to see a sales report but doesn’t have a seat? What if an executive needs to see productivity trends during the last three months but doesn’t have a seat?
You can imagine the bottlenecks and frustration this may cause for fast-moving teams. Instead of having direct access to info, business leaders would have to rely on someone else for that information. Or increase the cost of their sales software by paying for a bunch of seats for managers or executives who won’t use them for the day-to-day tool functionality.
With free seats, you don’t have to pay for more transparency of your information — and leadership can get the visibility into the reports (and the successes of your team) they need.
2. Powerful tools with no extra cost.
Running a customer-focused business goes beyond creating an ad, landing page, and kickback email. With powerful free tools built into a robust, enterprise-grade CRM, it’s easy to create campaigns, make sales, or support customers in a way that delivers the remarkable, consistent experiences customers now expect.
Powerful free tools supplement your workforce at no additional cost to you. Whether it’s at the hands of an experienced sales rep, consultant, summer intern, or curious executive, free tools can create an impact on your business without costing you a penny.
3. Deliver a more cohesive customer experience
Think about two worlds.
The first is one where information is siloed.
The other is one where information flows — easily accessible.
Which one you would rather work in? Then, put yourself in the shoes of a customer — which one would you want to deal with? The answer should be obvious — businesses can get a better understanding of how their interactions are working if information flows free.
Knowing how many times the marketing team has reached out to a lead prevents the sending of duplicate content. You want to know how your sales team is operating in different locations so you can make the right recommendations for further building out the sales team in those locations.
When information flows better between teams, there’s less friction between completing your work and helping your customers. You can give your entire organization visibility into the rich customer data housed in HubSpot. This helps teams work smarter and deliver a more cohesive customer experience.
Frankly, it’s information that you've collected: why should you have to pay extra to let everyone access it?
The offering of free seats isn't common in the SaaS world. In fact, you may be using a CRM that doesn’t offer the ability to see any information for free, especially if you’re an enterprise business. For example, Salesforce charges you for every seat, no matter what your role or responsibilities are.
Because customer experience matters more now than ever, having the information you need available across your teams is imperative to better growth. Free seats are no longer nice-to-have if you want to create a world class customer experience — they’re essential.
Gone are the days of paying for extra seats to get the information you need to do your job. With HubSpot, it’s pay for what you need, when you need it.
Start using free seats with HubSpot today. Learn more about HubSpot pricing here.
