The DriveSales™ | Here are the top 7 essential KPIs to measure the performance of inside sales teams!

After setting up your inside sales process and expanding your customer base, it’s important to start measuring the success of your performance. We live in the age of data and there is probably, if anything, too much of it. On top of that, we are becoming smarter day-by-day — not just about how to measure, but also looking for better ways of measuring itself in the first place. This is where key performance indicators (KPIs) play a crucial role. KPIs allow to better understand how sales organization can improve by identifying the behaviours which lead to best results. Establishing the right KPIs has proved to immensely beneficial to track efforts and setting up and targeting clearly defined goals.

However, we would like to mention an important caveat here: no KPIs are one-size-fits-all. A KPI that works perfectly for one sales team may not make any sense for a similar organization. This happens because every organization has different people, different products, and different processes.

Thus, we have curated the following seven most useful KPIs for inside sales teams to measure the performance of the sales team to work smarter and more efficiently.

1) Contact Rate: In the world of sales, the contact rate is the percentage of the number of actual conversations to the number of leads used. Sales teams should be able to provide the right information at the right time to the prospects to move the sale forward.

2) Revenue Per Rep: Undeniably this is the most critical sales metric for most sales teams. This KPI provides an estimate of the ability of sales teams or reps to generate revenue. Sales teams being competitive by nature, so measuring this KPI helps to foster healthy competition among the sales reps.

3) Average Deal Size: This KPI is a measure of the health of the sales pipeline and the efficacy of sales reps. It’s also a critical metric for projecting revenue. Having a higher Average Deal Size indicates that the reps are up-selling and/or cross-selling effectively.

4) Average Sales Cycle Length: By measuring the length of each inside sales reps’ sales cycle is directly correlated to the average time it takes the reps to convert a prospect into a customer. It is further advised that in addition to tracking the individual reps’ sales cycles, the teams’ sales cycle should also be tracked as a whole. This will allow monitoring the stages where the deals are getting stuck and evaluate the reps’ performance based on how fast they can close the deals vis-à-vis the team average.

5) Contacts to Leads Ratio: Generating a strong pipeline of leads is the first and foremost task of any sales team. Creating leads generates opportunities and a chance to win business. If sales teams are not producing sufficient leads on their contact efforts, it’s an indicator to re-evaluate the sales process, training, hiring criteria, and/or sales scripts.

6) Lead Response Rate (LRR): According to a Harvard Business Review study, sales reps who contact the prospects within an hour of receiving a query were nearly seven times more likely to have a meaningful conversation with a decision-maker and qualify the lead. By measuring this KPI, which represents the percentage of leads that inside sales representatives contact every hour, will help them prioritize more efficiently, thus maximizing their chances of having quality conversations and getting better conversions.

7) Activity Efficiency Per Rep: Activity efficiency measures the total number of tasks (or activities) to turn a prospect into a customer. This includes any activity which draws the lead further into the sales cycle such as phone calls, emails, demos, presentations, proposals, and live chats. This KPI is especially useful when it is paired with more quantitative metrics such as the number of call attempts, as it then highlights their efficiency rather than productivity. It helps both sales reps and sales managers proactively monitor progress on overall goals such as total revenue or deals closed. It also helps sales teams understand if a rep is focusing on the right activities. For instance, if a sales rep is having high activity levels but is consistently missing the targets, then it is an indicator that the sales rep needs the training to understand how to prioritize the right activities.

These metrics help in keeping a close eye on the inside sales team’s performance and enable the management to identify if any gaps will cause hindrance in reaching the company goals and objectives.

This is not an exhaustive list of KPIs for inside sales metrics, but each one of them is worth tracking. Though there are always more KPIs to consider, these KPIs provide a good starting point.

Now, as an effective SALESPERSON! We can do three things from here.

1. Not ignoring the opportunity and blaming the situation for revenue loss.

2. Taking necessary notes and revisiting your sales strategy with a growth mindset.

3. Reach out to The DriveSales™ in case you need any specialized help.

To conclude, what you believe also provides some idea of your development as a consultative salesperson. For more, please be connected to team The DriveSales™ as these are the foundations for our culture and ways of working!

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