Big data may be all the rage, but you can’t let it take over your organization. Likewise, analytics holds a lot of potential for improving company performance and building revenue generation opportunities, but there’s a limit. There’s a deft art to sales analytics that should take precedence over big data blundering. But how much is too much? Finding the sweet spot of sales analytics techniques without overdoing it with metrics and rubrics can be a challenge, but it’s a worthwhile one. With a few targeted implementations, employers can develop smarter sales strategies and drive productivity in their workforce.
The case for sales analytics
It’s not hard to make the argument in favor of sales analytics. The key to making successful sales – the key to doing anything successfully in business, really – is to know what the customer is thinking. Without a team of psychologists, and whatever the digital equivalent of a handwriting analyst is, a company has to find non-human means of assessing sentiments and predicting behavior. Sales analytics enable vendors to get this sort of feedback in spades.
Analytics can help describe customer behavior, spot patterns at a speed much faster than the human eye and anticipate what customers are likely to do next. This process establishes sales intelligence. As sales teams progress from simply drawing conclusions from past customer behavior, they can engage in prescriptive analytics, which allows them to make data-driven decisions. Concerned about customer retention? Look at behaviors that preceded customer churn and trace the steps that caused a customer to quit. Breaking up the retention process like this can help management gain more perspective on the performance of sales representatives and identify areas with room for improvement.
The dangers of complacency
The hazard of relying too much on data to drive sales strategies is that employees will lose their autonomy and see their critical thinking skills shrivel up. As information piles up and big data cheerleaders boast about its capacity to solve every problem known to man, workers can be more confused than ever, wrote SYS-CON Media contributor Laura Lilyquist.
“For most salespeople, the once simple task of making sure their message is reaching the right people is now a daunting, seemingly impossible endeavor,” Lilyquist observed. “Even with the ever-expanding options of communication and analytical tools available to sales professionals, the most well-connected sales teams have difficulty understanding what is working to engage customers and what isn’t.”
There’s a psuedo-medical term for it: Analysis paralysis. It’s a state of complacency, the belief that data can (and will) accomplish the task better than the person. Employers have to combat this notion. Policies that incentivize salespeople to use data tools as just one part of their arsenal can help keep the machines from taking over.
