The Importance of Sales Support in 2024
Many sellers think they are in control, but customers sometimes have differing views. COVID-19 forced businesses to digitize, moving sales processes online. Companies that quickly adapted to virtual reality saw early success Thanks to modern innovation, we are dealing with a better-informed customer. In keeping up, more companies are adjusting towards digital sales and hybrid operating models. The 'great attrition' is making it hard to find talent, so businesses are changing their sales processes to allow for more work flexibility.
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What is sales support?
Sales support is the resources (material and human) brought together to help a sales team succeed. Sales support resources include marketing materials, sales scripts, or extra sales staff. In principle,
Thus far, there are no standard templates for running sales support functions. However, the basic blocks for a sales support infrastructure combine automation, people, digitally printed tools, online reference materials, and other information, making the lives of sales representatives easier. Today, reps juggle managing sales leads from the marketing pipeline, keeping sales tracking organized, and responding to customer queries.
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A successful sales outcome is only as good as time management. The data is supported by a Forbes survey showing that nearly two-thirds (64.8%) of sales reps spend their time on on-revenue-generating activities. What this means is only 35.2% of their time goes into actual selling. Whether it's a team of field reps or inside sales, human ability has its limits. No bonus or salary can significantly affect the output.
Pushing salespeople too hard with stiff quotas while they manage paperwork, qualify leads, and keep up with in-office communication leads to burnout and poor performance. How an organization strategizes and compensates for the shortcomings can significantly impact the performance of your sales support.
Before a sale is completed, administrative tasks are involved before and after the transaction. Here is where sales support experts come into the picture by enhancing the process of building relationships and closing deals.
What are sales support specialists?
Sales support specialists are the people running administrative tasks surrounding the sale of goods and commodities. Sales reps need support to do their best. As part of the sales support structure, they impact lead generation and qualification.
To make lead conversions easier, a decent amount of time goes to waste every day for researching and qualifying their leads. Sometimes this is written into their quota requirements leaving hardly any time to build any relationship with the prospects.
Now that we understand what sales support is, let's explore its functions.
Functions of sales support
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Sales support plays a big part in the sales enablement process. Here are ways of improving sales efforts.
Product training & onboarding: Sales support is tasked with getting individual reps up to speed. They give the teams knowledge and tools to achieve the right outcomes without intrusive micromanagement. It can be anything from prudent time planning to the use of emotional intelligence in selling. You cannot make a sale if you don’t know what you are talking about.
Lead management involves tracking customers through the sales pipeline, starting where the lead is generated, captured, qualified, converted, and engaged post-purchase. If left to the sales reps, this task will consume the bulk of their time, which could otherwise have been directed into closing deals.
Customer service: people will never forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel (Maya Angelou). Customer outreach and follow-up are present on both ends of the sales funnel. It is never over when a customer makes a sale.
Market communication: helps create awareness around a company even before a prospect finds him/herself in front of a sales representative. Using sales CRM can automate most of this communication while keeping it organized and cogent for the entire team.
Sales support specialists are also involved with advertising and marketing because customers are likelier to trust a product or service from a familiar brand. Examples of sales support materials are:
Proposal management software
Customer feedback tools
Sales training platforms
Performance tracking software
Competitive analysis tools
Contract management software
Event management tools
Social media management tools
Webinar platforms
Content management systems (CMS)
When more people have an idea of what you are selling prior, it makes the work of sales reps much easier. No matter the size, structure, or nature of a sales organization, it must leverage its sales support infrastructure to deliver expected outcomes. Alternatively, trim as much fat as possible from sales reps and refine your sales support approach.
Now that we have covered the functions of sales support, what is its impact?
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Impact of sales support on company gains
The workload is shared: When can spread out tasks among the sales support specialists, the sales representatives free up ample time to focus on their core mandate: selling. A specialized team fixated on specific tasks is more effective and reduces confusion or burnout from multitasking.
The outcome: a better job satisfaction environment and a higher staff retention rate within the sales team.
Increased productivity: Sales support has an operational and administrative element to it. Activities are: order processing, data management, and customer inquiries. Time freed up from the low-value yet repetitive tasks gives the sales reps ample time to sell more goods and services.
The outcome: customers get quick real-time responses to complaints and order inquiries, boosting customer satisfaction and retention.
Improved customer relationships: when sales support specialists interact directly with customers they offer personalized services that strengthen relationships.
The outcome: personalized outreach is a powerful tool for building trust and customer loyalty.
Data insights: Sales support specialists analyze data that identifies trends and other chances for improvement. This information informs their strategic decisions that build up to overall performance.
The outcome: customer feedback from the sales processes and other sales support help in improving initiatives that refine different products and services.
Benefits and risks of sales support
Benefits
Focus: Handling operational and administrative tasks in sales support helps client-facing teams spend more time selling and building relationships
Streamlined sales funnel: businesses can qualify and nurture tools like customer relationship management (CRM) software and AI-powered chatbots.
Build customer relationships: engagement is an effective way of building a loyal and trusting customer base.
Risks
Lost focus: The lack of a sales support team can overwhelm account executives and sales reps.
Time-value factor: poorly qualified leads box sales teams to handle time-consuming onlow-quality prospects with a low likelihood of conversion.
Low customer satisfaction: You do not expect your customers to feel valued when communication response time is slow and follow up is sporadic.
Sales support KPIs
Once you set up a sales support team, how will you tell you are making progress? Gauge performance with these KPIs:
Sales opportunities created: Track the number of sales attributed to your sales support team. An upward trend in sales numbers indicates better performance.
Qualified leads: You can tally the number of leads and further break it down by inbound, outbound, social media, qualified, and referral leads. That way you can know what works and what needs further improvement.
Conversion rates: helps monitor the metrics on leads that turned into new customers.
Customer satisfaction: Run NPS survey responses to capture opinions around customer support. A higher number of customer satisfaction ratings shows you are delivering a good customer experience.
Increase sales revenues: the right figures show company earnings from the sales support teams.
With a better understanding of the upside of sales support for your sales team, you will have to do some recruitment. Below is a sample job description for someone advertising for sales support roles.
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Sales support job descriptions
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Looking to recruit a sales support specialist? Closely examine what employers are expecting of you:
Quickly respond to customer questions on top products, offers, and services.
Streamline the invoicing and order processes.
Answer all technical queries from customers.
Qualify leads from potential customers and perform follow-ups.
Work with salespeople and implement sales strategies.
Watch industry trends and keep tabs on competitors.
Monitor product releases, features, offers, and services.
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Final thoughts
A blend of a highly skilled sales team and expert sales process is the key to functional and converting sales outcomes. Upu can collect the right metrics required for making insightful analyses through automation technology from CRM or AI software. Customer satisfaction is everything; when done right, you record high conversion, repeat sales, and organic referrals.
Transform your sales process with Lookfor, the AI sales assistant made to help your sales support team!
