Microsoft Corp.’s LinkedIn subsidiary is picking up the pace of enhancements to its Sales Navigator lead development and nurturing software with the second set of major enhancements in less than four  months.

In addition, the company today added five new vendors to the list of integration partners in its Sales Navigator Application Platform (Snap) program, which was introduced in late 2016.

Sales Navigator enables sales professionals to tap in to LinkedIn’s database of more than 560 million users to create targeted opportunities, track changes in jobs and employers and fine-tune targeted pitches and offers. The company has been careful not to characterize the service as a customer relationship management tool, preferring instead to partner with CRM providers to integrate its database with their sales productivity aids.

The new release features a redesigned lead page that sales people can use to check to assess a prospect’s relevance quickly, find people to arrange introductions and jump directly to matching records in the CRM system. Individual lead pages have been enhanced with one-click access to email or LinkedIn messaging, links to a prospect’s social pages and driving directions. Users can also now see additional emails, phone numbers, website addresses, social handles and office addresses pulled from both LinkedIn profiles and compatible CRM systems.

Company pages now link directly to the target firm’s website and open up driving directions in mapping software from Google Inc. and Apple Inc. Sales people can also drill down to unique Linkedin information like department sizes and growth rates, recommended leads at the same company and recent news.

The company’s list of nearly 20 partners in areas such as CRM, marketing automation, business intelligence, sales acceleration, web conferencing and e-signature is also expanding with the addition of SAP Hybris, Pegasystems Inc., Oracle Corp.’s Eloqua subsidiary, Clari Inc. and Groove Labs Inc.

Image: Unsplash