Do you require your salespeople to compile a daily or weekly call report? If you’re like the vast majority of managers, you do.
What do you use them for?
How useful are they?
I’ve spoken with hundreds of managers about call reports and almost to a person they agree call reports are one of the most useless traditions management clings to. The reports are filled with fictitious information, and the information that is truthful is itself useless.
The typical call report will identify who the salesperson met with, if and when the company plans to make a purchase, an estimate of the size of the purchase, and any information the buyer wants from the salesperson. The report may even give an approximation of the likelihood of securing the contract. It probably looks something like this:
 “Met with John Smith, head of procurement for XYZ Corp. He said they’d
be purchasing by the end of the quarter and wants me to re-bid based on
a quantity of 5,000 instead of 10,000 units. I told him I’ve had the new
numbers to him by Tuesday of next week.”
What does this report tell the manager? Does it:
• indicate why the change in the number of units to be purchased? No.
• discuss why the purchase decision will be made by the end of the quarter instead of now? No.
• indicate the likelihood of closing the sale? No.
• indicate what actions the salesperson plans on taking other than giving revised numbers? No.
• indicate who the salesperson is competing against? No.
• indicate if there are other decision makers in the process? No.
We could go on.
The Problem
Call reports are useless for three major reasons:
1. Salespeople haven’t been taught how to construct a useful call report.
2. Salespeople see no use in the reports. Although they’re told the reports will be used to help them sell more, they believe its real purpose is to keep an eye on them.
3. They believe management is only interested in how many appointments they have, so they pad them with fictitious appointments to keep management off their back.
Salespeople see call reports as a weapon—or potential weapon--in the hands of management instead of a training and coaching tool. And most often, that’s what it’s used for.
The typical call report doesn’t give the manager enough information to be able to help identify the areas in which a salesperson needs training and coaching. Consequently, the most often result of submitting a call report is a response of, “You aren’t seeing enough people. You need to make more calls.”
That response is worthless. It doesn’t help the salesperson in the least. There is no guidance in how to ‘see more people.’ There’s no identification of what the real root problems and issues are.
Call Reports as Real Tools
Call reports, however, can be real tools managers can use for coaching, training, market and competitor analysis, and managing department assets.
The problem with call reports isn’t with the concept, it’s with the execution. Salespeople must be taught how to construct a meaningful call report and managers must be trained how to analyze the report for coaching, training, and market analysis purposes.
A Meaningful Call Report
Call reports don’t have to be massive documents, but each call should be broken into three sections:
Synopsis of the call: a brief summary of the sales call. Who, what, when, bullet points of key information from the call, including the length of the call.
An analysis of the call: a longer discussion that analyzes the call and the sale, indicating:
• who the decision makers are and where the sale stands with each
• what issues must be dealt with before the sale can be closed
• who the competition is
• the salesperson’s best estimate of the probability of closing the sale
• the salesperson should rate each potential prospect as to the long-term value of the account
Moving forward: What specific steps the salesperson intends to take—and when—to move the sale forward.
A call report that follows the format above can be used to help salespeople close more sales. It lays out for the salesperson and the manager what happened, where the sale stands, what is expected to happen, and what the salesperson is going to do to make it happen.
Using the Report
Call reports that summarize, analyze and outline how the salesperson will move the sale forward offer both the salesperson and their manager real information that can be used:
• To spot skill and behavioral issues where the manager can step in to coach and train
• Opportunities where the manager can offer specific help in identifying and addressing prospect needs
• Spot accounts where the salesperson is investing too much—or not enough—time and energy
• Spot buyer, competitor, and product trends within the local market
Some sales performance management technology products and CRM programs make the call report generation process easier and more accurate. They can help turn generating call reports into highly useful tools for helping your sales team members become better sellers, spotting and analyzing changes in your local market, and maximizing both the department’s human and non-human resources.
Whether you are using hand written reports or using a system, you must turn the reports from wasted effort to keep management off the salesperson’s back into a real tool that can improve sales and your salespeople.
| Paul McCord - |
|
Paul McCord, president of McCord and Associates, a sales training, coaching and consulting company, is an internationally recognized authority on prospecting, referral selling, and personal marketing. His best-selling book on referral generation,Creating a Million Dollar a Year Sales Income: Sales Success through Client Referrals, has y become recognized as the authoritative work on referral selling. Contact Paul at
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
or at www.powerreferralselling.com Read More >> |
|
|
Comments 
Write a comment
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
1. I've seen too many sales managers insisting on sales call reports, but never reading them. This behavior is inexcusable. If a manager is not going to read and use the information provided in a report, they are wasting their time and the sales people's time in asking for the report. I've written in the past about my experience as a manager coming into an organization, asking for a report, and someone sending me an article they had cut and pasted into the report. Clearly, the sales person had broken the code, he knew management never read the reports, but the report had to be filed. He, properly, chose not to waste his time. He also learned that whenever I asked for a report that I would always read it. He started giving reports that were always meaningful and that we could take action on. The key point here is that any manager asking their sales people for a report of any time, has to make certain they are reading it and using it.
2. Frankly, I've never found the notion of a sales call report very useful. If I want to track activity, there are easier and less intrusive ways of tracking or reporting on activity. What I care about is how the call moved the opportunity forward, and what the resultant strategy is. It has always been more useful to use the opportunity strategy as a basis of conversation about sales calls and where we need to go. Discussing the opportunity strategy provides a better foundation for coaching and development than a sales call report. Having said this, I believe you are saying the same thing in your recommendations.
3. Related to the previous point, it is really difficult to use the sales call report to coach a person on improving the results they get from there sales calls. I've always found the joint calls made with a sales person the best opportunity to coach and improve sales people. I encourage managers to use the "windshield time" immediately after a call, to debrief the call. Typically we focus on actions and next steps, but we should take time to diagnose the call itself. The manager should be asking things like, "did you accomplish all your objectives (assuming they had a call plan in the first place)?" "Is there anything you would have changed, is there anything you might have done better,etc." Having participated in the call, the manager can really coach based on observing what happened and behaviors. You cannot do this from a call report. Yet too many managers use the call report as the surrogate for making calls with their sales people.
4. Your recommendations of making the reports actionable is great. Perhaps one of the problems with call reports is the name, and we should change the name to reflect more accurately what their purpose is and how sales people and managers intend to use them.
Thanks for a great post. Regards, Dave