Learn More About Sales Coaching Software
What is Sales Coaching Software?
A sales coaching software allows executive sales teams to analyze sales calls and identify proactive ways to improve both general sales tactics and the overall relationship with a particular client. This software allows users to improve their technique with two main features: call audio recordings and call video recordings.
Call audio recordings generally come with call transcriptions that allow users to identify critical talking points they brought up during a call or points they missed. This allows sales representatives to identify what talking points were effective. Video recordings can be equally effective as it can allow sales representatives to analyze their body language or general cadence as they pitch to potential clients. Used together, both video recordings and audio recordings allow sales representatives to consistently refine their technique and see success through more effective sales pitches.
What Types of Sales Coaching Software Exist?
Standalone sales coaching software
Standalone sales coaching software is often a point solution that is intended specifically for the use case of sales coaching. These solutions often come with video coaching, audio recording, and call transcription features but not much else.
All-encompassing sales solutions
Some sales coaching software are packaged as modules as a feature of a larger sales acceleration solution. These all-encompassing solutions generally have features for sales enablement, sales engagement, sales training and onboarding, email tracking, and any additional features that can accelerate sales.
What are the Common Features of Sales Coaching Software?
The following are some core features within sales coaching software:
Sales pipeline: A core feature of most sales coaching software is sales pipeline features. Sales pipeline features allow users to see all sales deals that are currently in the pipeline. If a sales representative sees a deal in the pipeline they may go back to past conversations with that customer or prospect and identify what matters the most to the customer as well as the most obvious pain points. This makes conversations much more effective with customers.
Video coaching: Video coaching features allow users to coach sales representatives by assigning them video assessments. Video assessments prompt sales representatives to record themselves on video while they perform a mock pitch. After recording themselves, sales representatives send the video over to their managers to be assessed. Video coaching features provide managers with an easy way to score the sales representative’s pitch and provide feedback.
Machine scoring: Machine scoring is an artificial intelligence (AI) embedded feature that automatically scores the overall performance of a sales call or video coaching assessment. Machine scoring features automatically transcribe a sales call and identify if key topics were covered, or if the speaking rate was good, and that all emotions exhibited were positive throughout a call.
Sales call library: Sales coaching solutions generally provide a library or repository of past recorded sales calls. By having access to a wide range of past sales calls, new sales representatives easily access calls that were successful and use them to improve their overall sales pitches.
Conversation intelligence (CI): CI features are almost always found in a sales coaching solution. CI records, transcribes, and analyzes sales calls. By analyzing sales calls, it identifies keywords and topics of conversation so users can quickly jump to those points in the recorded sales calls and further derive valuable insights.
Other Features of Sales Coaching Software: Coaching Card Capabilities, Competition Capabilities, Playbook Creation Capabilities
What are the Benefits of Sales Coaching Software?
Increase sales revenue: One of the main goals of deploying sales coaching software is to increase overall sales revenue. By analyzing past calls and identifying what worked and what didn’t, sales representatives can refine their sales tactics and strategies. This improves the overall success of future sales calls and potentially increases overall sales revenue.
Onboarding: Sales coaching software makes onboarding more efficient for new sales representatives. Sales coaching software provides a repository of recorded sales calls that new sales representatives can take a look at during their onboarding process. By looking through these recorded sales calls, new sales representatives see how seasoned sales representatives at a company pitch the product and, which tactics were the most effective. This reduces onboarding time for new sales representatives and increases the chances of their first few calls being more successful.
Consistent messaging: Sales coaching software helps to establish consistent messaging across all sales calls. One of the key ways to improve sales strategies is to establish a common message across all sales calls. This common message allows all sales representatives to pitch the product they are selling with consistent brand messaging that has been proven to be successful in the past. Having a consistent message also allows sales representatives to come prepared for every sales pitch without having to change up messaging every single time.
Who Uses Sales Coaching Software?
Sales coaching software helps unify sales managers or top sellers with the sales representatives who are still perfecting their craft:
Sales managers: For managers or team leads, sales coaching software offers timely insights and metrics to shape feedback for specific employees and the team as a whole. With instructor-led training, managers provide the necessary feedback to strengthen team performance and see improved customer satisfaction and revenue growth.
Sales representatives: For the general sales team, ongoing sales training is the ideal way to improve confidence and technique en route to hitting sales goals and collecting higher commissions. With features such as voice transcription and recorded sales calls, sales representatives can review their sales pitches and continuously improve their sales techniques.
Software Related to Sales Coaching Software
A well-oiled sales floor often involves several solutions built around sales training, performance measurement, and timely assistance. This is in addition to basics like CRM software. Below are some examples of software that supplement sales coaching software at one or more points in the journey:
Sales training and onboarding software: Sales training and onboarding software is designed for the education and ramping of new hires. These involve components, such as product or brand messaging, sales call scripts, and virtual role playing, that help sales representatives get comfortable selling a particular offering. Though there will inevitably be pain points and opportunities for coaching, these learning applications can get new hires up to speed and prepared to hit the floor running.
Sales analytics software: Sales analytics software provides an up-to-date perspective on sales goals, general efficiency, and other aspects of the business process. The dashboards that are assembled in these programs are valuable for managers to gauge the health of the operation and adjust the strategy or staffing as necessary. Dashboards are also displayed on sales floors to give the entire team an updated view of their critical numbers so they know where they stand, when or where to improve, and when to celebrate.
Sales enablement software: Marketing collateral is an important tool for any salesperson. Sales enablement software gives salespeople easy access to playbooks, product descriptions, and scripts so they can study and practice their sales techniques around this company knowledge. These tools are also useful during sales meetings or pitches with customers to help present the most valuable information and bolster product knowledge during critical moments.
Challenges with Sales Coaching Software
Time spent on building playbooks: One of the major features that get included with most sales coaching software is the ability to create sales playbooks. This allows users to create a step-by-step process for pitching to a client. A potential pitfall is creating too many playbooks which makes it very easy to become disorganized and buried under overdue tasks and activities. Every pitch does not need a fully fleshed-out playbook which may take up a lot of a sales representatives’ time.
Protecting buyer privacy: A lot of sales coaching solutions offer video recording, which allows users to record every sales call with a potential buyer. This may feel invasive to the client, especially if they don’t know they’re being recorded. The wise thing to do is choose a solution that allows users to clearly state that the buyer is being recorded so they are aware of the situation and can opt out of the call.
Which Companies Should Buy Sales Coaching Software?
Companies that have enterprise sales teams: The most common use case for sales coaching software is for companies that have enterprise sales teams. Enterprise sales teams generally sell over video calls or audio conference calls, as a part of a long sales cycle. This sales cycle can take anywhere from one month to a whole year. Sales coaching software can help these teams constantly refine their sales technique as they analyze their cadence over sales calls.
How to Buy Sales Coaching Software
Requirements Gathering (RFI/RFP) for Sales Coaching Software
While there aren’t necessarily stark differences between any two sales coaching software, some offerings do provide more or less functionality, and some software are geared towards certain industries. Buyers can narrow down their choices to choose the software that best suits their needs.
Compare Sales Coaching Software Products
Create a long list
Long lists are created by eliminating software options that do not provide critical functionality. To make a long list for a sales coaching software, a buyer should look at the following functionalities and deem which products provide the necessary functionality:
- Video recordings
- Audio recordings
- Machine scoring
- Sales pipeline tracking
- Call transcriptions
- Sales onboarding and training
- Sales playbook creation
- Manager review scorecards
- Sales rep gamification and leaderboards
- Sales coaching knowledgebase
Create a short list
Once a buyer has narrowed down their list from the following functionality above, it’s then important to get even more specific requirements. For example, some sales coaching software are intended for financial or high tech sales, while others are for insurance sales, travel sales, etc. If the company is in a very specific vertical, the buyer must look for a solution that caters to their specific needs.
Conduct demos
Demos are one of the most important stages in the buying journey. This allows a buyer to sit through an actual product demo and see if the product matches all of the requirements. To make sure the demo runs smoothly, buyers must ensure that the vendor has all of their requirements beforehand so they can showcase their features properly. Some of the critical features that should be showcased in a product demo include video recording, call transcriptions, and audio recording, as these are the cornerstones of any sales coaching software
Selection of Sales Coaching Software
Choose a selection team
It’s essential to have input from the end users of the software before making any purchasing decisions. Businesses must create a small selection team for sales coaching software. It’s important to get input from sales managers as team leads understand what’s critical for the training of the sales representatives they manage. It’s also important for a few sales representatives to demo some potential products and get their input on what features they like or what they need to improve their selling skills. This will allow a conversation where people can voice their concerns and conclude on the software that best fits the team’s needs.
Negotiation
When it comes down to the negotiation stage it’s important to consider implementation and training costs. Once a buyer ensures that all other requirements are met, the last stage is ensuring that workers are properly trained on the new software. This should be included in the price of the software, especially if it’s a recurring revenue cost.
Final decision
After the negotiation stage is conducted, the final decision requires buy-in from everyone on the selection team. It’s important to get everyone on the same page to ensure that all requirements are met and the final decision is supported by everyone involved.
What Does Sales Coaching Software Cost?
There are a few factors to note when it comes to the cost of sales coaching software. The pricing of sales coaching software is generally run on a software as a service (SaaS) model. This means that the software is a subscription, and businesses must pay a monthly fee to use it. Pricing also depends on the number of seats being purchased. This is generally dictated by the number of sales representatives that have their login and account on the software. The more seats purchased, the higher the price will be every month. The price of a sales coaching software varies heavily depending on if it is a standalone product that focuses only on sales coaching versus a product that offers sales coaching features as a part of a larger sales enablement solution.
Standalone sales coaching solution pricing: Since these are point solutions they are often cheaper than all-encompassing sales solutions. Generally, the price of a standalone solution is anywhere from $300-$2,000 a month depending on the number of seats purchased.
All-in-one sales coaching solution pricing: As stated previously, some sales coaching software are packaged as modules as a feature of a larger sales acceleration solution. These solutions can cost anywhere from $800-$5,000 a month depending on the number of seats needed.
Return on Investment (ROI)
Businesses that implement sales coaching software generally see a return on their investment within a year. After a year. Below is the breakdown of the estimated time to ROI according to our review data on G2 as of December 4, 2020:
- 41% of buyers see an ROI in 6 months or less
- 31% of buyers see an ROI in 7-12 months
- 17% of buyers see an ROI in 13-24 months
- 11% of all other buyers see an ROI from 24 months onwards
