Could this be the end of the cold call?

New research by the professional network LinkedIn Corp. shows that social tools are playing a growing role in the sales process, with more than 70 percent of sales professionals using networks like LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook to cultivate relationships with prospects. Sales professionals also said relationship-building tools had the highest impact on revenue, with nearly 71 percent rating them as “impactful” or “very impactful,” despite the fact that “impactful” isn’t technically a word. Sales intelligence tools, which are used to generate background and contact information on leads, were seen as having the second greatest impact. Customer relationship management (CRM) was close behind at 64 percent.

Use of social selling tools was most pronounced among the salespeople who consider themselves to be highly effective, with 90 percent adoption among that group. Millennials were one-third more likely to use sales intelligence tools to research prospects than Generation X and Baby Boomers.

CRM, which has been around for more than 20 years, still commands the largest number of hours per week of sales professionals’ attention. However, respondents said they spend nearly as much time with social selling and sales intelligence tools as with CRM. Email tracking commanded the least amount of time among the limited number of options measured.

The survey results indicate that CRM is no longer the be-all and end-all of sales technology. “Organizations are embracing a new ‘stack’ that is made up of a broader suite of digital tools used to close more deals and grow their revenue,” wrote the study authors. “Email tracking tools, productivity apps and sales intelligence software have gained significant traction.”

While the conclusions may seem self-serving given the source, the study was conducted across a large domain. More than 1,000 sales or business development professionals were contacted by email, and responses were screened for eligibility.

Salespeople who defined themselves as high performers were 24 percent more likely to attribute their success to sales technology; 82 percent of them said sales tools are “critical” to their ability to close deals, compared to 66 percent overall.

Technology use by millennials was greater than any other age group across the board, with the biggest variances being in the use of sales intelligence and productivity tools, such as collaboration and office applications. Millennials were also more inclined to attribute value to social selling tools, with 63 percent rating them as either “critical” or “extremely critical” to their ability to close deals.

One surprising finding was that CRM tools are much more predominant at medium-sized businesses than at either large or small companies. Forty-four percent of salespeople at midsize companies said they use CRM, compared to only 27% of their enterprise counterparts.

Relationship selling is nothing new. What’s new is that relationships are increasingly defined and sustained in hyperspace.