Salespersons once focused their energies on pitching to obtain higher sales. But today, salespersons are increasingly looking at how they can engage their potential customers in a meaningful relationship aiming to fulfill customer needs with the goods and services they sell. And this customer-centered sales approach is made possible through data and technology.
Salesforce released their third annual “State of Sales” report last January 2019. The report analyzed the shift of sales industry from a pitch-centered business model to a customer-centric one. It also presents statistical data that proves just how much the shift has been happening.
Here’s a sneak peek on what the report is all about.
Sales Success Measured by Customer Satisfaction
Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) is the most widely tracked KPI metric by business sales teams. Research shows that 66% of teams use CSAT as their top KPI, besting the metric Team Quota Met by a narrow margin coming in at 65%.
These statistics mean that sales reps are now being monitored for how they can create and maintain personalized quality customer experiences with their end-clients. High customer satisfaction translates to better brand loyalty, which eventually helps sales teams in meeting their client quota.
This also proves that business success is now measured in terms of how satisfied customers are in their entire sales experience with a particular company.
Data-Driven Insights as Basis for Sales Forecasts
Salesforce surveyed around 2,900 sales professionals and found out that the top 24% highest-performing sales teams base their sales predictions on data-driven insights. They look at overall customer data and combine them with their intuition to come up with more accurate predictions.
Customer Journey Improves with a Connected View of Data
Majority of the sales reps surveyed by Salesforce surmise that connecting data from various sources is key to improving customer journeys. 81% of the reps believe that integrated data linkage systems must be put in place to seamlessly personalize their customers’ individual business experiences.
The Wrap-Up
The 2019 Salesforce “State of Sales” report was released to help sales industry leaders and their colleagues in moving to a more customer-centric business strategy. Key points gleaned from the many statistical data in the report include the following:
- Data insights are especially useful for initiating and nurturing a personalized customer sales journey.
- Sales reps and end-customers both benefit more from a connected data view.
- Customer satisfaction is a crucial metric in determining overall sales success.
With all these in mind, Salesforce continues to help businesses by improving the features found in the Sales Cloud. The tech giant knows that sales is becoming more data-driven and customer-centered, and thus they’ve created cloud-based programs to make the customer sales journey a satisfying one for both businesses and end-customers.