Whether you’re working from the office, from home or from out in your sales territory, targets and KPIs are as important as they’ve ever been. Yet for sales teams struggling with the myriad challenges of working remotely, setting, tracking and achieving KPIs may feel difficult. But in times of uncertainty, it becomes increasingly important to have structure, routine, and – you guessed it – goals. Here’s why tracking KPIs is crucial in the post-pandemic world, and how you can get it right.
Why sales KPIs matter
Any good sales manager knows that setting and tracking KPIs – both for the team and the individual – is a key part of the job. These metrics provide valuable insights into the overall performance of sales people, teams and the business as a whole. They can also help to identify trends, areas of strength and weakness, and potential opportunities. Well-managed KPIs can lead to large revenues and big bonuses – but it’s important to make KPIs clear, achievable and trackable so that sales people feel motivated and supported, rather than micromanaged and set up to fail.
The importance of post-pandemic KPIs
No matter how smart your sales goals were at the start of 2020, it’s highly likely that they are no longer fit for purpose in a mid- and post-pandemic business environment. And while retail sales volumes increased by 0.8% in August compared to July, it’s clear that many parts of the economy are not yet seeing signs of recovery from Covid-19. Many businesses remain working remotely, with the in-person sales experience temporarily shelved and digital interaction now dominating the sales and wider business landscape. Sales people have had to quickly adopt and adapt to new technologies, rethink their sales pitch and consider how their products and services can serve customers in the current environment. It’s an enormous change for many businesses, and professionals are increasingly having to do more, with less. To do this successfully, they need greater insight into how they’re performing, and sales managers need clearer oversight of the challenges and opportunities teams are facing in this new world.
What KPIs should you be monitoring?
With in-person sales largely out of the picture, KPIs should remain focused around customer acquisition, management and selling, with the adjustment towards a digitally-led model. Previous indications of activity such as event leads and face-to-face meetings can be replaced by metrics that measure digital interactions, including inbound and outbound calls and video conferences, online demonstrations, emails and webinars. If your sales people’s home working set up is configured with your CRM, it may even be easier than usual to track contacts and customer touchpoints, as sales people won’t have to manually log in-person meetings.
When tracking KPIs in the post-pandemic landscape, you might want to focus more on customer retention and satisfaction, as opposed to acquisition. It’s vital to understand how customers are feeling about your products and services and how their needs might have changed during the pandemic. This might mean sales people should be targeted against ‘check in’ communications and proactive examination of what new touchpoints and offerings customers might benefit from.
KPIs for marketing
Marketing as a discipline can often suffer from a lack of clear KPIs, and this can let down even the best marketing teams. Many marketers are highly collaborative, communicative team players who rely on interaction with colleagues and clients to drive their creativity and performance. With home working on the agenda for the foreseeable future, it’s key that marketing leaders foster this collaborative and encourage digital teamwork in order to mimic the in-office experience as much as possible. In addition, marketers should have clear KPIs to work towards, such as conversion rates, keyword performance, cost per lead and campaign traffic. To truly enhance the power of your organisational KPIs, align some of the objectives of your marketing team with those of your sales team, encouraging cross-team communication and facilitating shared goals.
Make your sales and marketing teams stronger with BMS
As the business landscape continues to ebb and flow thanks to Covid-19, sales and marketing teams will be tasked with the job of keeping up – and staying ahead – of the latest industry developments. At BMS, we can help to make sure your teams are as prepared as possible for the months to come.
Now you know why tracking KPIs is crucial in the post-pandemic world, it’s time to recruit the best people to help you succeed those goals. Whether you’re looking to upskill your existing sales and marketing teams with dedicated training or you’re considering recruiting new talent to help push your business forward in the post-pandemic landscape, we can help. Contact us to find out more.
