The definition of inside sales has changed since its introduction in the 1980s. Now it stands to differentiate itself from outside sales, or field sales. Inside sales are the remote, multi-touch process of selling high-ticket products and services to B2B or B2C prospects.
Operating an inside sales department requires a significant understanding of sales in general. As your reps are working with costly products and services on a remote basis, you want to ensure they’re fully conveying the benefit of what your company offers.
How can you improve the inside sales process at your company?
How to Improve Your Inside Sales Process
1. Hire agents with the right attitude.
Attitude amounts for half of the push when working in inside sales. Since the prospect can’t see your rep’s face, their tone of voice must make up for the lack of in-person communication. Assess a person’s energy and enthusiasm during the hiring process to see whether they’ll make a good fit for your team.
If you have low-energy or uninspired reps, they’ll return sales results relative to the enthusiasm they bring to the table. However, if you have reps who work like there is someone else working 24 hours per day to take it all away, you’ll see unbelievable results.
2. Motivate your team with company outings.
Company outings to team-building activities or sporting events are a great way to bring the group together. Building camaraderie between employees outside the workplace helps break down barriers within the office.
You can use company outings as a motivation to reach certain performance goals or as events to look forward to during certain points of the year. When employees have an exciting activity to look forward to, such as the company box at a baseball game or going go-karting, they are more likely to be motivated in the workplace.
3. Offer consistent training sessions.
Providing regular training helps hold employees to certain standards you expect within the office. Whether you hold weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly training, regular training meetings are an important aspect that holds the team together.
Use this time both to correct any glaring mishaps you may have noticed since the last meeting, but also to bring recognition to any employees doing an outstanding job. This provides correction while also supplementing it with positivity for an overall encouraging meeting.
4. Ensure reps have a top-notch phone presence.
This runs along the same lines as hiring agents with good attitudes. The large majority of touches made in inside sales take place over the phone. Impeccable phone presence is an absolute necessity for any inside sales rep.
Cover phone presence during your training sessions if you notice it lacking. You can analyze phone presence and call performance with the use of Live Agent Monitoring, Real Time Reporting, or call recordings. Providing consistent service between reps and across your company encourages a positive user experience.
5. Aim high on KPIs.
If your team can achieve the established KPIs too easily, reps may feel like they can slack off. When you set lofty KPIs, your inside sales team now has a long-term goal to push towards. While they should still be achievable, it shouldn’t be without a significant amount of work input.
KPIs should be set out to achieve over the month. They are an overarching complement to daily quotas and individual performance goals. If you choose to, you can include your top-performing reps in deciding on your monthly KPIs. Having the input of someone in the trenches could provide a helpful perspective you hadn’t considered.
6. Have your reps set individual performance goals.
Encourage your reps to set their own individual performance goals. In addition to company-wide daily quotas and monthly KPIs, having individual performance goals encourages a sense of accomplishment. This sense of accomplishment is important on both an individual and a team basis provides a necessary balance for each employee.
Although they should be the personal responsibility of each inside sales rep for themselves, you should also keep track of these goals. You can give mention to those meeting their goals while in company training or incentivize employees who achieve their individual performance goals.
7. Leverage reporting and analytics to track quotas.
Call logs, reporting, and analytics help you track your team’s progress on daily quotas and KPIs. Great inside sales teams rely upon reports and analytics to ensure their progression towards quotas throughout the day.
The more in-depth the reporting and analytics, the more you can get to the causes and conditions of the way things run in your center. Detailed reporting helps you keep track of specific metrics you are most concerned with, that keep your center running on a daily basis. Make sure the metrics you need tracked are included and singled out by the software you choose to use.
8. Unify your team on a single piece of feature-packed software.
Inside sales are all about the multi-touch approach to selling. Your reps are not one-and-done selling these products; it requires a significant input of time, consistency, and dedication. Because of this, you need inside sales tracking software that keeps up with your agents while keeping them organized.
Setting dispositions, leaving notes, and creating appointments for follow-ups are just some of the necessary features from your inside sales software. Eliminate any confusion or missed connections with a software that runs as smoothly as your inside sales team does.
Two Integral Aspects in Your Inside Sales Process
The two key things to remember when working with your inside sales team are:
- Phone presence and attitude of reps
- Tracking with reporting and analytics
Since inside sales are conducted remotely and over longer periods of time, maintaining consistent enthusiasm and data collection between calls is necessary.
Your software should simplify the inside sales process by making it easy to keep notes for each touch made with a contact. If your software holds your reps back from focusing on their prospects, it’s time to look for a new software.
