Most if not all inside sales reps have a CRM that they work within, but not many sales executives create and/or enforce any sort of process for how their reps should be operating and logging information within that CRM.
There needs to be a rhyme and reason and expectations set for how inside sales reps are working in their CRM. CRMs are very customizable and there’s endless fields available to ensure that sales reps are capturing the best quality data possible through conversations and emails. It all adds up to critical intel for accounts that could be future customers.
Here are a few sets of data that sales executives should ensure are being captured:
Outbound Activity: As a sales executive, do you have visibility into what each rep is doing on a daily basis? Probably not. Requiring reps to log all inbound and outbound activity is a great way to understand what they do on a daily basis and how much outbound effort is going toward prospecting new or target accounts. It’s been a common best practice to also require a minimum amount of outbound dials and/or emails.
Technology Currently in Use: Inside sales reps are constantly having conversations with influencers, evaluators, and decision makers on a daily basis. Even though many of those prospects will express no interest, it’s still crucial to find out what technology they are currently using. Maybe your solution needs to know what ERP is used or what CRM they have in place, so having a field that could log “SAP” or “Salesforce” would be valuable. Especially when you factor in the turnover of inside sales reps and accounts as time goes on. If that happens, there’s no need to worry as the information is still logged and visible by the new account owner.
When are they reevaluating? Again, going back to the notion of a not interested account, it’s still ideal to understand when they will be evaluating a solution like yours. Having a field that identifies that timeframe will better help sales teams to manage their pipeline.
Who makes the decision? They might not be looking now, but it’s good to know who the decision maker is so inside sales reps can check back in with the best contact possible, especially for when that reevaluation timeframe approaches.
Having fields in a CRM that outlines some of these data points can greatly improve upon an internal sales prospecting workflow as well as keep track of data consistently. Knowing what data to mine from sales conversations is incredibly valuable and should not get lost in a notebook or the mind of one individual.
