If you are in sales management or sales operations you should spend most of your time thinking about how you can improve your sales people's performance. As sales is a complex trade, there are  a lot of things you could be focusing on and sometimes it is easy to get lost in the process. 

A great tip for staying focused is to map the whole sales funnel, split it into manageable pieces and start with the most important one. The most important one is the one you think will have the highest influence on your end result, meaning it will lead to most sales. 

In this blog, we'll help you improve what is very often the very beginning of the funnel - sales call performance. 

How to improve call performance: 3 easy steps

• Measure current call performance - Define your standards
• Optimize calling times
• Record your calls and analyze
  

Measure current call performance and define standards

To improve call performance you need to understand where you stand right now. Your current call data is a treasure trove of valuable insight on call performance. By learning to harvest the key data points from your call logs, you can maximize efficiency, optimize your overall calling strategies, and get a data-based grasp on what it takes to qualify a lead.

If you are new to analyzing call performance data start out by measuring the current metrics:

• Amount of calls made per hour/day/week/month
• Unique leads called
• Best times to call - When you reach most people
• Top performers
• Call outcomes

Measuring current rates will help you understand the amount needed to reach your goal. Use reverse engineering - check how many calls your sales people did  when they reached the desired level, and use this data for setting a goal. Check what level your top performers are on and try to move the whole team to that level. 

Optimize calling times

By analyzing when you reach most people, which days of the week and which hour of the day, you'll be able to make sure that your sales representatives spend their time wisely. As the end goal is selling your product or service, you need to reach as many prospects as possible and hence you'll want to put your calling efforts where they matter the most. 

Record your calls and analyze

Now that you know how many calls you need to make and at what time you better be on the phone, make sure you improve what are actually said on the phone.

This is why recording sales calls is so important: 

• Improve your employees’ telephone handling skills
• Let you understand the challenges your clients are facing
• Most importantly, helps refine your sales process/ sales pitch  

Salespeople can learn a lot by listening to their own calls, but even more if they listen to each others calls. If you have a team that is open to feedback from their peers, we highly suggest letting people listen in on other people's calls. 

Interested in trying  Salestrail for call recording & call performance monitoring?