6 useful hacks for a sales department manager

Sales reps spend almost two-thirds of business hours on stuff that is not connected to deals. And only 35,2% of the time is spent on their main duties. Sales reps left to themselves can miss calls and go far beyond scripts. That’s why constant control is an integral part of a sales department manager duties. In this article, we are going to discuss Ringostat functions that are simplifying the workflow and management of employees.

There are a lot of ways to lose a customer:

• to miss a call;
• to be not enough polite;
• not manage to describe the product or answer the questions on its peculiarities;
• not mention the advantages for a customer. 

There are dozens of moments during the conversation that get dangerously close to customer loss. Sales departments have to upgrade all the time, work with negative cases and objections, change scripts, and insert new tools. This time we will describe how to make the work of a sales department manager easier and increase the service level, using Ringostat. All hacks are examined by our specialists.

Hack №1. Classify calls by categories and value

Teach sales reps to assign a category of a call depending on the goal of a request. Thus, you will be able to analyze what interests your customers more. As well as what takes most of the time of your employees. For example, an autodialer may have the following categories:

• consult;
• registration for a test drive;
• sales;
• servicing.

Including metrics “Category” and “Value” to the report on calls, you can analyze the value of calls brought by ad sources. These data will be a valid argument in the eternal “war between sales and marketing departments”.

Give value to each category based on the chance of closing the deal after this call. For example, the “sales” request will have the greatest value but the spam — zero. Configuration of the call value will allow analyzing the efficacy of ad sources that drive requests made by phone.

For example, if advertisements bring junk leads only like the “cost clarification” — it’s a sign that you need to listen to the recordings of calls. It is possible that customers don’t get the advertising message. By contrast, if a separate PPC campaign is converted to calls with the high value it is better to allocate more funds in it.

Hack №2. Keep an eye on the working schedule

Call tracking divides data on calls by days of the week and hours, showing peaks of customer activity. You can find such a report in the Ringostat account, section Statistics — Call distribution statistics: daily and hourly. It is displayed in three versions:

A bar chart by day of the week. It shows the most peak and “calm” days at the call center work

Linear chart by time of the day. Shows users’ activity during the day

Inbound calls distribution by days and time when they were received. The fewer calls are getting during a specific hour, the brighter is the unit with data

Reports are filled since the first day of usage, however, to receive the most accurate picture it is better to collect data at least for 3-4 weeks. This will help to see patterns that are not influenced by non-standard situations: a peak of requests during competitor’s tech issues or inactivity on public holidays.

Such a report on time of calls gives a clear understanding of the workload of employees and helps optimize the working day: to insert shifts, change the lunchtime, hire part-time employees that will work during peak hours or take other steps.

Hack №3. Check the call duration

Any sales department receives junk requests. Among them are calls of those people who are not interested in the purchase:

• spam and phone hackers;
• the ones who mistaken the number;
• the ones who didn’t understand the product point and wants something else;
• requests from competitors that get your company in a database.

Junk calls rarely last longer than 10 seconds — this time is enough to say goodbye politely and hang up. The surplus of spam and junk requests illustrates difficulties with numbers or advertisements. For example, we had to abandon one of the website’s substitution numbers, as there was only one number that differed from the public utility. 

There is a default metric “proper call” in Ringostat that highlights calls from potentially interested customers. Proper call is the request from the same number that lasted longer than it was set by a user in call tracking settings.

Check unusually long and short conversations. Probably, there will be issues than has to be explored with employees. For example, one of our former sales rep gave to clients one-word answers: “yes” or “no”. This difficulty was mentioned due to long calls as interested customers had to literally grill him for information.

Hack №4. Manage employees with no stress

Each manager at least from time to time is worried that his employees would get relaxed and stop working once he turns back. Some of them are trying to get the whole conversation by the employee’s answers. Others try to listen to calls in real-time and give some advice during the conversation. Such scenarios are tiresome for both managers and sales reps. First, don’t have time for administrative tasks and department development when second ones feel permissiveness and lost customers.

The recordings of calls will help to stop this circle. Ringostat provides an opportunity to download them and share via link, meanwhile, not giving access to the service. Thus, recordings of experienced employees can be easily extracted to educate newbies and interns.

It is possible to listen to the recordings of conversations as well as download them in the Ringostat Call log. The source of the call, duration, latency, and other metrics are also mentioned here

Our Virtual PBX allows displaying separate reports for each sales rep. Moreover, an inner player can speed up recordings that saves time on listening. Thus, employees know that they can be checked anytime so they work diligently even when the boss is on a vacation.

Listening to the recordings of calls may be interesting not only for a sales department. We described how the call recordings may help change campaigns.

Make them more effective in the guidance “PPC Specialist should listen to recordings of calls from advertisements. Why?”.

Hack №5. Receive notifications on missed calls and put your number to the call forwarding scheme

Add your mobile phone at the end of the call forwarding scheme, while launching it in the department. For example, it may work like that: an inbound call is transferred to sales reps who are busy at the moment of this request. If none of them replies during 20 seconds the call is driven to the sales department manager. Thus, a company doesn’t lose a customer who is unsatisfied with the latency. And a manager notices malfunctions of the department work and can fix them.

Ringostat account: Virtual PBX — Call forwarding — Create a new call forwarding scheme

Another way of work with missed calls, the one that we recommend to every client is the notifications on missed calls setup. This can be done in Ringostat account, Settings — Alerts where the email that is registered the account is set as default. Click “Edit” and put ticks in front of alerts that you would like to receive.

Click “Add addressee” to enter another email or add a phone number that will receive SMS notifications.

Hack №6. Use Ringostat Smart Phone with updated Ringostat Insider 2.0

Ringostat Smart Phone is an “intelligent” assistant of a sales rep that is actually an extension for the Google Chrome browser. It provides the following solutions:

• make/accept calls;
• send SMS;
• open deals and contacts in CRM in one click;
• see information on a customer even before picking up the phone.

Example of Ringostat Smart Phone interface during the conversation

However, due to the last update, Ringostat Insider 2.0., now sales reps don’t have to wait for the call from the customer. They can take the initiative and be the first ones to call. A new tab in Ringostat Smart Phone — “Identified customers online” shows customers who are right now on the website and who have already called. Thus, sales reps don’t have to wait for a request, they make a call, close deals and the company receives profit. Everybody wins in this case. 

Read more in the article “Ringostat Insider 2.0: even more information on a customer”.

Summary

1. Call tracking may become a source of valuable insights for the sales department manager. Service collects statistics on conversations of sales reps, helps to improve scripts and correct specific errors in the work of some employees.
2. Distribute calls by categories and give them a value to analyze the importance of requests that bring ad sources.
3. 2-3 weeks after call tracking usage, check the report on call distribution: daily and hourly. With its help, you will be able to give a clear evaluation of the department workload and optimize the working schedule of employees.
4. Not typically long or short requests may be a sign of an issue. First of all, you need to listen to them.
5. Recordings of calls of successful sales reps can be used to train newbies. Failed conversations are useful to work on mistakes and scripts adjusting.
6. Put your phone number in the call forwarding scheme so you won’t miss customers as well as difficulties in the department.
7. Use Ringostat Insider 2.0. to call customers when they are right on the website and are ready to make a purchase.