Sales reports are essential for every data-driven company. They help you keep track of completed deals, identify problems, identify successes, and know how to replicate them. In short, call center sales reports give you a complete view of your sales so you can increase your revenue.
Sales reporting is documentation for a specific period of time. Here’s what it allows you to track:
Sales reports let you see trends in team performance and potential areas for improvement.
First of all, a sales report for a call center is important for managers: top managers and directors. It allows you to track the state of the funnel, income and other quantitative performance indicators.
Team leaders and team managers can use the sales report to find problems in sales processes, identify the neck of a sales funnel, help employees close deals, and train them. For example, after collecting data, the team leader sees that most employees have a conversion rate at a certain stage of the funnel, say, 2%, while for a few managers it reaches 4%. This is a useful fact. How to use it? Start recording calls to analyze the conversations of top managers. In the process, you can find out how their negotiation tactics differ from those of other employees, and implement these practices in the work of the entire department.
Thus, reporting provides data, and based on this data, the company can make informed decisions about optimizing workflows, training, connecting new technologies, hiring or firing employees.
Reporting is just as important for the sales managers themselves. The report gives context to them: it shows the conditions of the working environment and the results of the work. For example, in the B2B segment, the sales process can take months – and work is carried out in parallel with dozens of customers. Can they be memorized and kept in mind? No. But the collection and aggregation of statistics allows you to always be aware of the stage at which each transaction is in order to prepare for the next meetings and phone calls.
Reporting allows you to avoid data loss during staff turnover. If the company does not have a centralized reporting system, then information about customers and transactions is stored separately for each manager. The manager leaves – the information leaves. But if all the data is stored in CRM, then transactions can be reassigned so that new employees see all past interactions with customers.
The right report is critical for three key processes: tracking team performance, optimizing work, and motivating. Let’s talk about them in more detail.
To collect and store data in the sales department, CRM systems are often used, which are integrated with IP telephony and other auxiliary programs. This allows you to collect all data in real time: calls, emails, personal meetings, etc.
The information helps to hold working meetings with the team – daily or weekly, where they discuss the processing of customers at different stages of the funnel. In the process, you can discuss working on new leads, progress through all current potential customers, the nature of conversations, customer opinions, as well as employee observations. Such a weekly report across the entire department allows the director, team leader and the team itself to see the big picture of all processes, and at the same time notice weaknesses where additional efforts need to be made.
At the level of each specific manager, reports can include key performance indicators:
The report shows the current performance of the manager and allows you to understand what training he lacks to improve results.
For example, managers in the call center of a B2B company have a goal: to increase revenue from new leads by 10%. A month later, a report shows that several employees saw only a 3% increase in income, even though the forecast was quite realistic. At this point, a team leader or QA specialist may intervene, whose task is to understand what caused the hitch and how to eliminate it in order to fulfill the plan 100%.
Reports are necessary, among other things, for quality coaching. When a sales report indicates, say, a low conversion rate on incoming calls from a new employee, it may be worth the top manager to join the calls to monitor the conversation, give the agent a hint if necessary, and identify the reasons for this result for further coaching.
Whatever the task, sales reports allow you to identify weaknesses and solve the problem.
Reporting allows you to identify the strengths and weaknesses of employees to create an individual training plan. Then reports provide real performance data, feedback transforms the numbers into an understandable form, and coaching enhances strengths and minimizes weaknesses.
For feedback and coaching, you can use the sandwich method:
Feedback is best given 1-on-1. Why not do general training? Because of personalization and personal involvement. General training covers a lot of diverse issues to interest all employees; while private coaching sessions are dedicated to the results of a particular person and focus on his work inside and out, which is much more effective for motivation and learning.
Of course, proper reporting is not only important for sales; departments of marketing, accounting, production, even HR – each of them can have a reward system that will be based on data. Therefore, convenient collection of information is so important for training, motivation and team improvement.
Sales reporting is best done using CRM – a customer relationship management system. Most CRMs offer a ton of useful and automated reports so you don’t have to manually collect or analyze data. Which reports are key for evaluating the effectiveness of a department and an individual employee:
Shows the number of leads and conversion rate at each stage of the sales funnel; helps to optimize lead generation and increase the number of closed deals. Usually the stages of the sales funnel in CRM are already created based on the basic funnel, but in most systems they can be customized if necessary.
Helps to determine the volume of potential customers received from marketing. At the same time, leads are segmented by time periods, plus a percentage of the total number of transactions is considered. Thus, the report will allow you to calculate how many customers the marketing team brings and how effective the marketing is.
Displays the number of expected sales and how they compare to actual results. It will help determine how well the strategy is chosen to achieve the targets; whether there is a weak point in the processes. An analysis of this report will show which deals to focus on, given the expected income.
Demonstrates how the team and individual managers achieve their revenue goals. Often these reports in CRM are based on the individual financial goals of managers – monthly, quarterly or yearly.
Helps to accurately determine the performance of employees. To do this, you can set goals for the number of sales for each manager or sales team; further, these goals will be tracked as deals are closed and displayed in the report.
The day-to-day work of a sales department is incredibly demanding. Reports help keep abreast, know exactly current and potential deals and income from them; the performance of the team as a whole and of each employee in particular. They will help both sales directors, and team leaders, and coaches, and the employees themselves. For management, reports are a direct way to see how the department is doing; but for employees, they reflect the working reality with its open deals, upcoming negotiations and successfully completed sales.
