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Managing Remote Sales Teams: How Software Can Help

Managing a remote Sales team can be particularly tricky and throws up several new demands. Here we look at some of the pitfalls of remote team management and how the right software can help.

Nowadays, most Salespeople work online, and travel is not essential to get to the office. Almost everyone works from home and most very successfully, albeit with some challenges and distractions. They’ve had to adapt and separate work from home where possible and find a quiet space where they can focus on their job to achieve their targets, KPI’s, bonuses, and commissions, prosper in their role, and climb that ladder of success.

But we all know the challenges of remote work–crying kids, dogs barking, doorbells ringing, and many other interruptions. That’s why managing a remote Sales team can be particularly tricky and throws up several new demands.

In this blog, we’ll look at some of the pitfalls of remote Sales team management and how the right software can help.

Quality Monitoring

How do clients and prospects feel when the dog barks during an important call, or when there is a crying baby in the background, needing attention? How do Executives, Directors, and Senior Managers feel about these everyday challenges?

Assessing the quality of customer engagement is more important than ever when managing a remote team. Whether generating new business or supporting a valuable client, it’s crucial to score and measure the quality of the team’s interactions: was the client/prospect demo up to scratch? Did we respond to that email professionally and timely? Are we meeting our client’s expectations? Did we do everything we could to win that deal?

That’s where an investment in solid, quality monitoring software can help. Innovative, forward-thinking companies of all sizes need to measure and score interactions across voice, video conferencing, email, webchat, and social media. Managers and Team Leaders must know how well their team is communicating and whether it is effective or harmful to the company. Real-time data insights are essential for staff and businesses to continuously improve, spotting gaps where training or immediate action is required.

Incentivizing and Motivating Remote Sales Teams

Another key focus for companies large and small is how best to incentivize their remote revenue-connected workforce. Below are some common questions Sales, Sales Operations, Revenue Operations, and Finance leaders need to keep in mind:
Remote sales teams are 100% dependent on instant, real-time access to client and prospect data: the stages of the deal or project, access to notes, proposals, contracts, etc., and when the expected revenue will reach the company’s bank. Every member plays a vital role and is incentivized–be it monetarily or otherwise – to do their job for the business to succeed.

1. What metrics are our staff being measured against and how well is this communicated to them?

2. Do our employees fully understand their compensation plans when tied to KPI’s, bonuses, and commissions?

3. Does the company have challenges with compensation disputes and is this process streamlined?

4. Is the company effectively tracking the various stages of a deal in the CRM system and triggering actions against incentive payments?

5. Is the company’s end-of-period processing running like clockwork, or is this time-consuming, labor-intensive, and prone to human error?

6. Has the company had issues with commission/bonus overpayments and underpayments?

7. Is the company paying too little or too much in terms of bonuses and commissions?

8. How is the company managing complex split commissions with shared deals?

9. Has the company the capability to easily financially model and forecast the next 6-12 months of incentive payouts?

10. Has the company invested in the right tools to effectively manage incentive compensation or very much dependent on Excel spreadsheets and siloed applications?

Many organizations are spending anything from 50-200+ hours per month manually calculating commissions. This time-consuming process is inefficient, prone to error, and leads to commission disputes, which distract the remote sales teams from their main goal: driving revenue to support the growth of the business.

Incentive management software can be used to motivate revenue teams directly, allowing them to monitor their earned commission in real-time. Historically, AE’s and Sales Reps would often waste time trying to calculate their own commission to ensure payments were accurate. An effective commission management platform highlights how much the revenue-generating teams have sold this week, month, quarter, and what that means in terms of commission earnings.

Revenue generating teams also use commission management software to model out ‘what if?’ scenarios; to see how their commissions would be affected if they sold 50, 100, or 1000 additional units this month/quarter. From a management perspective, commission management software enables sales leaders to take a deeper dive into the team and individual performance, ultimately leading to more accurate analysis and insights into identifying areas where improvement is required and action taken.

Most well-run, high-growth organizations will spend anything between 10% and 25% of the revenue they generate on incentive compensation payments to their revenue-generating workforce. The problem is over 80% of these companies have experienced issues with payment inaccuracies through manual, excel spreadsheet processing. With multiple departments typically involved in calculating compensation (HR, Finance, Sales, RevOps) and complex spreadsheets integrated with ERP’s and payroll software, this can often lead to a lack of accountability for ensuring accurate payments and prone to human error.

Commission management software enables the revenue-generating team to access real-time sales data, automated reports and ensure commission calculations and payments are 100% accurate, every time. These efficiencies help to ensure that commissions are paid on-time. A prompt and accurate reward payment for a successful job is expected by every employee.

Enabling the revenue-generating team leaders and payroll staff to automate commission calculations can save a huge amount of manual processing work each month. Automated commission processes and complex commission calculations, including tiered, sliding-scale commission plans, and clawbacks can be calculated in a matter of hours with ease.

Contact center QA and incentive management software are two valuable tools for organizations to consider when managing remote Sales teams in 2021. Both enable businesses with 50+ employees to effectively manage their distributed teams ensuring they are incentivized, motivated, and operating to the highest quality standards set by the company.
Leaptree is a Salesforce ISV Partner 100% focused on building applications that connect the revenue workforce. Chat to us today and learn how we add value to organizations across the world.

Say goodbye to soul-crushing spreadsheets!

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