Sales managers encounter many challenges in the development, oversight, assessment, and motivation of their representatives. Among these,  measuring and tracking the ongoing performance of their sales team so as to ensure the consistent delivery of all required objectives is one of the most important. A deep examination of key performance data is vital to achieving that end, and once a careful analysis is performed, it will reveal a true snapshot of the actual performance not only of each sales member, but also of sales team results as a whole.

According to the latest Salesforce statistic, 81% of sales reps believe it is important to have a connected view of data across the entire customer journey. However, a lack of integrated systems that effectively links each data source is preventing many sales members from having the complete picture they need, resulting in inferior sales performance and a loss to the bottom line.

Unfortunately, the need for a holistic data overview hasn’t translated into a majority of companies adopting the technology they need to achieve it, as only 49% of businesses say they have the fully integrated systems their sales team needs to thrive. The impact of failing to equip sales departments with the right data tools is clearly felt in the evaluation of their productivity, as high-performing sales teams are 2.1 times more likely than underperformers to have such systems in place [1].

The takeaway by now should be clear: good data analysis is a vital component to both sales managers and their team if they want to improve their performance. When applied, intelligent data analysis can lead to actionable insights that allow for a precise diagnosis of any inefficiencies that sales members may be experiencing, and a clear conclusion on how they may be solved.

Tactics

With the importance of integrated data analysis being clearly understood, the question then becomes how best to implement an insightful data analysis system. Here are a few practical steps that can be taken to develop an effective way to measure, monitor, track and report on your sales team’s performance.

Step One – Set Expectations

Don’t be afraid to have a goal-driven personal gathering with your sales team. Setting sales expectations for individual salespersons, teams, and the organization as a whole begins with identifying sales performance factors such as:

• Motivation – Increase the drive of your team by setting realistic incentives, goals, quotas, and forecasts to drive revenue expectations to maximize the organization’s success.
• Barrier identification – Reveal internal and marketplace obstacles that are preventing your team from reaching their goals and projection targets.
• Integration – Develop an effective sales process for all team members to adopt a coordinated playbook that executes the vision and strategy of the company.

Step Two – Define Your Driving Points

Knowing where you are in your sales campaigns requires a roadmap that coordinates and pinpoints the performance of your sales journey. Before this can be achieved, however, identifying the types of metrics you should be tracking is a must. To achieve that, establish the following:

• Set goals – Define clear performance metrics based on daily or monthly quotas of activities that impact the movement between each stage of the sales pipeline.
• Describe success – Identify the type of outcomes that drive the success of the company.  To best achieve this, base your desired outcomes on revenue and profit objectives as a result of deals won and closed.
• Statistical evaluation – Management must set assessment benchmarks to measure the effectiveness of sales reps in accomplishing sales-related activities and determine their productivity. Metrics to look at include the number of calls or appointments made or contacts that lead to conversion — though many other metrics exist for evaluating the productivity of each team member.

Step Three -Utilize a Better Mousetrap

Be a Horcheal Alger and have your data beat a path to your door. Employing an intuitive dashboard platform will provide up-to-date measurable indicators to monitor, analyze and track, thereby offering true and total visibility into their business. Having done so, these are just a few things users should be able to see more clearly:

• Pipeline flow – Track the process, progress, and results of activities occurring in the sales pipeline to make data-driven decisions more quickly.
• Results analysis – Examining the right KPIs and metrics data points will tell the complete story of a company’s courting, conversion, and revenue outcomes.
• A clearer picture – Build forecasts and customized sales analytic reports that offer deep insights that reflect the company’s sales process and performance.

Technology to the Rescue

CRM and ERP applications today have become the software of choice to ensure that a manager’s decisions are backed by good data. With 79% of sales teams currently using or planning to use sales analytics technology to increase their efficiency, the marketplace has clearly taken notice of the importance of data analysis to inform a manager’s decision making [2]. Even more telling than that, 76% of sales professionals today say using sales analytics has significantly or somewhat improved their ability to provide customers with a consistent experience across every channel, so the results of the benefits of integrated sales analytics are conclusive [3].

Between the two testimonies of marketplace adaptation and improved customer support, the verdict on sales analytics is in: a comprehensive data picture for sales teams is no longer a luxury. It’s a requirement.

Work Harder and Smarter

With the right strategy and management tools, technology can monitor performance in real-time, helping organizations hit their targets with deeper insights and visibility to optimize their sales opportunities. Implementing the tools required to reach this endpoint does take an investment, but the unleashed potential and optimized performance a sales team can realize make it more than worthwhile.
[1][2] [3] 26 Sales Statistics That Prove Sales Is Changing – Salesforce Blog

In this article, we will identify the seven hottest “I” trending technologies that are reshaping the way businesses operate today.

Scaling a team, growing your revenue, and beating out the competition. These are the main objectives of every organization that wishes to thrive in the industry. From small businesses to large enterprises, each tries to sharpen its blade to achieve a competitive advantage and stand out from the competition.

To accomplish company goals, it’s imperative for businesses to invest in new strategies fueled by innovative technologies. Implementing the right technological solution is one of the most effective ways to skyrocket sales and become a market leader.

More than 80 percent of business owners agree that technology creates financial opportunities for them. In fact, today’s technology dominates almost every aspect of their business. However, the abundance of resources can lead to decision paralysis. Knowing the right solutions for your business can be a time-consuming task. The more options we have, the harder it is to choose which one to implement.

1. Insightful Financial Management with Automation

Keeping an eye on the bottom line has become easier with software to manage daily accounting processes. Developments in the technology space have led to applications that integrate with leading accounting software offering your personnel an efficient and effective way to simplify routine accounting tasks and other financial transactions.

Based on a Mckinsey Group study in 2017, 52 percent of accounting tasks can be fully automated. Technologies such as AP Automation and Expense Automation can reduce business costs and minimize errors by eliminating redundancy and improving tasks once performed manually. Automation enables a firm to fully optimize its financial management functions, such as expense management, accounts receivable, and payroll.

With the importance of integrated data analysis being clearly understood, the question then becomes how best to implement an insightful data analysis system. Here are a few practical steps that can be taken to develop an effective way to measure, monitor, track and report on your sales team’s performance.

2. Improve Communication with Digital Assistants

A.I infused voice and chatbots are indeed taking over the world. Businesses have reshaped and retooled their customer service and sales departments to offer round-the-clock responsiveness to answer customers’s questions and address other concerns. With the trend of 81 percent of customers trying to solve things independently before reaching out to a live representative, it is no wonder why companies are rapidly deploying this automated communication channel.

Furthermore, chat assistants do not only optimize business processes.  They are a cost-effective solution for an organization. Having a digital team member costs a lot less than employing human personnel.

80 percent of customers prefer to purchase from brands offering highly personalized experiences.

3. Influence Your Customers Experience and Journey

According to Forbes magazine, 80 percent of customers prefer to purchase from brands offering highly personalized experiences. Improve customer relationships with personalized promotional emails that are customized to the target audience’s preferences. With email automation, a firm can nurture and monitor their customer’s journey and experience. Doing this can highly influence their future buying commitment. Having a friend in business and achieving that relationship level is no longer the holy grail of salesmanship. Both are easily achievable with the right technology.

4. Increase Productivity with Smart Customer Management Apps

CRM and ERP cloud applications are a single, central source to organize and customer-sales-related information. It can help businesses manage customer interactions with past, current, and future customers. Both improve efficiency and productivity by managing leads and customer data, communication, opportunities, and forecasts. It automates everyday tasks and provides tools to monitor performance and productivity. These software applications can help businesses gain deeper insights, retain customers, and maximize profits.

5. Interact with Your Customer and Give Feedback

Forty-nine percent of consumers say a business needs at least a 4-star rating before they would use them. One bad review can break a business. What people say about your business is more critical than ever. Online reputation platforms service can help maintain your brand’s value, visibility, and trust by strengthening your reputation. Social media platforms, online forums, blogs, and directories contribute to your brand reputation.

ORM applications are a perfect tool for businesses that depend on good reviews. They can monitor what your customers are saying about your business and communicate a response to demonstrate your care and commitment. Today, taking control of your brand’s reputation is no longer optional. It’s a necessity.

6. Information Security with Cloud Computing Adoption

“Providing data access from anywhere is the top reason for cloud adoption”. Today, cloud storage solutions provide businesses of all sizes and various industries easy access to their data anywhere in the world. Cloud computing offers a powerful alternative to on-premise computer servers. It’s a scalable, robust, and cost-effective solution that securely backs up, stores, and shares information to improve collaboration in real-time.

7. Intelligent Analytics for Better Decision Making

The most powerful tool in managing your business is metrics. Measuring your metrics can determine whether your efforts are helping your business reach its objectives. Analytics delivers insights to help decrease business costs and increase revenue. A recent study revealed that companies adopting data-driven marketing strategies can reduce costs by 30 percent and increase revenue by 20 percent.

It’s vital to ensure that you are using essential resources as effectively as possible. Data analytics tell you about the health of your business. You’ll have a clearer idea of whether you’re on the road to achieving your business goals, what’s happening in your business, and what you should do to make it thrive. You can embrace Analytics to drive business growth.

Embracing data throughout your organization has clear benefits. You create actionable insights measuring key performance metrics for your websites and business processes. You can track different activities and make measurements that produce actionable data.

Technology Leading the Way

These proven technologies’ importance is that it can have a net positive gain in managing the infrastructure, culture, efficiency, and relationships. Regardless of your business’s size and demands, technology has tangible and intangible benefits that help companies become more productive in their singular mission to grow.

[1][2] [3] 26 Sales Statistics That Prove Sales Is Changing – Salesforce Blog

About The Cynergy Group

The Cynergy Group offers a diverse range of consulting, managed services, and business intelligence across domains, including finance, marketing, HR, and automation, underpinned by technology and data solutions. We help companies meet their operational requirements and growth strategies by improving their work processes to generate productivity gains and scale value for their customers and workforce.

Incorporating help desk software into your customer service strategy provides many benefits for both your business and your customers. This technology aids in delivering exceptional services to meet your customer’s expectations and increase their satisfaction, which improves your brand image and reputation.

Retain Customer Loyalty By Improving Customer Satisfaction

There are two common financial truisms in business: The first is that it costs more to gain a new customer than it does to sell to an existing one, and the second is that a loyal customer is a reward that keeps on giving.

Current customers will not only spend 67% more than recently acquired customers, but they also buy more often than new customers do. Therefore, keeping current customers satisfied and in the fold is a reoccurring revenue stream that is vital to your business. However, the key to achieving this profitable benefit, ensuring continuous customer loyalty, and keeping customer satisfaction is to provide excellent customer service.

Why Customer Service Response is Critical to Customer Retention and Acquisition

Good customer service must be responsive across all channels of communication, but especially online. Gone are the days of the physical help desk where the lone customer service clerk would hear complaints. In today’s competitive marketplace, it is imperative to respond to your customers’ inquiries in a timely manner so they won’t go elsewhere.

And with online comments and reviews being so powerful where everyone can read and follow someone else’s good and bad experiences, you don’t want to find yourself on the naughty list. This could cripple your company as many consumers shy away from businesses with bad reputations.

52% of Brands Report That Help Desk Technology Helps Them Deliver Responsive Service

To meet these challenges, businesses are turning to responsive online customer service programs. In fact, 52% of brands report that this technology helps them deliver better customer support as it captures support requests across communication channels, such as phone, email, chat, SMS, and social media. Monitoring reported or posted comments gives valuable insight into your client base, allowing you to respond, remedy, and reward your customers rapidly.

How Help Technology Can Benefit Your Business

Help desk software provides a centralized communication location that allows the monitoring, recording, and tracking of customer reported issues and activity in one place. It also improves the ability to respond and resolve submitted concerns and questions, allowing agents to collaborate on answers to deliver fast and exceptional service. In addition, help desk software boosts responsiveness by improving the inter-level communication between internal staff members to ensure proper prioritizing and the escalating of service tickets with ease.

This technology increases productivity as it facilitates better workflow by automating routine tasks that your support team has to complete. Not to mention the valuable time both employees and customers save on locating and downloading documents and media as well as getting answers to common questions with an online knowledge base and community self-help forums.

Help desk technology is not just for IT companies. Regardless of size and type, every business enterprise must cater to the needs of its customers. With the fast pace of business today, arming your employees with the right tool can help them stay on top of addressing a variety of customer demands.

About The Cynergy Group

The Cynergy Group offers a diverse range of consulting, managed services, and business intelligence across domains, including finance, marketing, HR, and automation, underpinned by technology and data solutions. We help companies meet their operational requirements and growth strategies by improving their work processes to generate productivity gains and scale value for their customers and workforce.