Describe features of analytics software for sales teams

Sales managers tell us they need to see the facts, fast. Put simply, good analytics software needs to provide reports that benefit these teams, save them time and answer their questions whenever and wherever they are. This blog describes features of analytics software that speed up decision-making, track activity and ultimately help generate more sales.

1. Anywhere access

Whether you are in the office, at a meeting or on the road, being able to make accurate and informed decisions wherever you are is essential. The business world moves fast and you need to be agile to meet and exceed the demands it places on you. Postponing decisions until you get back to the office to check your reports will cost you time and business.

2. Dashboards

Immediately gain valuable insights by seeing your data visually represented in graphs, and tables and highlighting important figures. A good dashboard will prompt you to look deeper and then provide answers to any questions that arise. With a good dashboard, all your sales metrics and scorecards can be managed so that they display the right dashboard for the right user.

Dashboards should also offer you the ability to drill down on any feature of the data you see and then manipulate it as you like. The ability to customise should also help you sort by products, customers or any other desirable feature for your business. This allows you to quickly reveal sales opportunities or even threats to the business which were otherwise unnoticed.

3. Combine sales history and CRM activity

Your software should seamlessly merge your team’s sales performance and customer relationship activity. This will ensure that all your key accounts are being appropriately engaged and allow you to match your sales, budgets and orders to your notes.

4. Sales call reporting

This feature is key to tracking your sales meetings each month. You can compare sales across months and then drill down to specific meetings and their relevant notes. This will give you unmatched transparency which you can use to coach your sales team.

You can also keep track of customer neglect. Setting a minimum number of sales against most recent meetings might help you find customers who are selling well but you haven’t seen for a while. This will allow you to add value to your relationship with customers as you can easily create priorities based on consistent data from your team.

5. Simplicity and flexibility

This is the most important feature because it is the one that moderates your ability to use the software. It should be easy enough to use that you don’t have to be an IT expert, but also gives you the flexibility to offer great ad-hoc analysis and answer questions immediately. Below is a list of things that should be simple and flexible on all good sales analytics software

• Compare sales over time – no matter the length of time, this year, last year, yesterday, last month, these should all be easily comparable.
• Sales vs No Sales – See all your customers and what products they are and aren’t buying. Or more importantly products they should be buying but aren’t.
• Gap Analysis – Find which customers are supporting you for certain product ranges and which ones aren’t
• Sales Performance Comparison: Easily see who is performing well and why. Then compare them to underperforming reps, identify differences and work to get everyone on the same high selling level.
• Trend Analysis – Analyse your customers to find increases or decreases in product sales month on month. Track Product growth or even tackle shrinking margins.

All these above features are an essential component of any good sales analytics software. Without them, sales analytics can be complicated, frustrating and difficult to harness when trying to generate sales.

With these features, you can reach new levels of sales performance based on business intelligence and insight.

For more information on describing key features of analytics, download our free eBook, Building the case for a data analytics solution.