Without sales departments, many purchases wouldn’t be made. Some businesses exist solely for connecting customers with products they’re interested in, like home shopping networks on TV. These networks’ single function is to convince viewers to purchase their many products. Organizations that have multiple functions rely on making sales, as well, and often feature sales departments packed full of salespeople to capitalize on their full sales potentials.
While any business can pour significant sums of money into departments, functions, and products, not all of them operate with high efficiency. Furthermore, because sales performance strongly depends on employees’ attitudes, ability to get along with others, and close leads, maintaining high levels of efficiency often proves impossible.
Here are several ways to improve sales efficiency at your business, regardless of its function, field, or size.
Use headsets to save time and improve call quality
An astounding 92% of customer communications happen over phone lines. As such, it’s important that employees using phones to deal with customers have headsets. Having to pick up phones, hold them while typing, and putting them on hold is difficult without a headset. Typing is certainly more difficult without two free hands, as well as otherwise navigating computers. Headset devices are usually inexpensive to purchase, can be passed along old to new employees, and are well worth their cost.
Send emails out at ideal times
Email marketing is an activity most businesses engage in, and something every business should. Organizations who connect with consumers using email are likely to build personal connections and brand awareness by having their brand, products, and offerings in consumers’ email inboxes on a regular basis. Because email marketing is used so broadly, it’s important to use this strategy as effectively as possible to compete with other businesses using the same technology.
Most emails are viewed sometime in the afternoon, usually between 2 P.M. and 5 P.M. As such, it’s a good idea to send out marketing emails around the time people get off from work. It’s also of importance that when people get off of work, they’re in better moods than they were since they woke up, as they’re fortunate enough to be on their ways home to friends, family members, and delicious food.
Set benchmarks and record sales performance
Like everything in business, analyzing data sets can help improve effectiveness, efficiency, and overall performance. Pertinent information that isn’t recorded can’t be analyzed, obviously. It’s important for your employees and upper-level managers to measure performance and compare it to benchmarks set previously. Benchmarks are arguably as important as recording information as without them, sales departments aren’t able to reason how their performance has changed.
Results can be analyzed immediately after implementing new sales processes, products, managers, devices, or any other stimulus. Doing so will help your sales department figure out what it’s doing right, and how it can improve in other aspects of business.
Utilize an easily-navigated customer relationship management program
Customer relationship management (CRM) programs provide a number of benefits to employees dealing with sales. CRM software can save important customer information, keep notes from employees about customers, visualize their previous communications, and even provide suggestions to employees.
These helpful software reduce time spent by employees on necessary functions like saving information or sharing customer profiles with other employees or departments. Searching the Internet for these programs will reveal tens, if not hundreds, of options to choose from, with many geared towards specific lines of business.
Some of them are free, open-sourced platforms that can be equally effective as paid programs, reducing your company’s expenses on sometimes-expensive computer software integral to success.
Properly train employees responsible for sales
Employees that hop right into sales functions likely don’t know how to treat customers or handle problems with patrons. They will be prompted to ask other employees or managers how to perform certain functions or deal with customers.
A lack of proper training results in these problems, among others, in turn reducing your sales department’s efficiency. If sales employees can’t devote their entire minds to converting consumers into paid customers, they likely won’t perform as well — this problem can be circumvented by thoroughly training employees prior to granting them on-campus work.