Sales Teams Fall Short of Rising Customer Expectations State of Sales 10 01 If you ask a salesperson what they do for a living, Long To-Do Lists Leave Insufficient Time for Customers they probably won’t say “manage emails” or “do data entry.” In reality, however, they likely Even with all the advancements in technology, reps are stuck between menial tasks spend quite a bit of time in their inboxes or and customer relationships. conducting menial tasks. It seems reps would rather spend time doing Top 5 Things Reps Say They Spend Too Much Time On things like understanding their customers’ needs, competitors’ offerings, and pipeline of 1 Managing emails opportunities. In other words, reps spend quite a bit of time on administrative tasks at the expense 2 Logging activities of fostering the trusted relationships their customers expect. 3 Inputting sales data and customer notes 4 Finding the right person to contact 5 Creating follow-up tasks Too Little Time On Top 5 Things Reps Say They Spend 1 Researching competitive activity 2 Researching competitive offerings 3 Discovering a customer’s/prospect’s needs 4 Reviewing pipeline 5 Researching a customer’s/prospect’s current solution Base: Sales representatives Salesforce Research