Improving Sales Support Efficiency
Sales support is a term used to describe the different tools, processes, and people who help frontline salespeople to work more efficiently. The functions that fall under this category can vary across industries and organizations, but typically include activities like sourcing leads, conducting product training, and managing the back-end work of sales tools. This frees up time for salespeople to focus on closing deals.
For sales teams, a high-quality sales support team is critical to success. Poor sales support often results in a high turnover rate among frontline and pre-sales employees, which hurts overall performance. Fortunately, it can be easy to fix problems with sales support by investing in the right people and resources.
The best sales support associates have strong organizational skills and pay close attention to detail. They understand the importance of keeping a workflow running smoothly, and are adept at working with customer or lead data and preparing and sending sales materials. They also have the ability to adapt quickly when changing priorities or tackling new tasks. As a result, the best sales support associates can be strong stepping stones into either more advanced sales roles or different careers altogether.
Aside from re-budgeting and hiring, improving the efficiency of your sales support may require some changes to current processes. For example, if sales support is taking too long to respond to prospects, it may be necessary to set clear expectations for how quickly responses should be made. Then, track your actual average response times to identify areas where improvements can be made.