Sales Tracking Software

Sales tracking software fits into the larger family of sales force enablement and sales force automation software and has many applications in common with traditional sales software and general purpose customer relationship management (CRM) software.

On the whole, the sales force enablement and automation software market is expanding quickly—it grew 12.8 percent to $5.6 billion in 2016. Today, most of the new growth is coming from the successes of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) vendors entering the market with specialized, focused tools like lead management and, the topic of this guide, sales tracking software. Companies are flocking to these SaaS solutions for three main reasons: To provide better customer experiences and improve customer relationships To streamline sales staff workflows and improve process efficiencies To improve outcomes, close more deals and sell more per deal Sales tracking software can help your company work towards all three of these goals, but it must be chosen correctly and aligned well with your business goals. Those caveats can be especially challenging, especially given the the vast number of solutions available in this quickly growing, rapidly changing software market. This Buyer's Guide will help you make the right choice. In it we explain:

What Is Sales Tracking Software?
Common Features of Sales Tracking Software
Market Trends to Understand

What Is Sales Tracking Software?

Believe it or not, a large percentage of companies still track their sales processes manually: in spreadsheets, on whiteboards and even on paper. Manual tracking can work in small offices with very low sales volume, but it's never ideal. It leads to poor performance on the three points listed above: poorer customer experiences, inefficient use of sales staff time and fewer closed deals and lower per-deal revenue.

Sales tracking software helps manage, track and guide all aspects of the sales process. It usually provides set process workflows so salespeople know where each prospect stands at any given point in time and which steps need to be taken next. These days, with better machine learning integrations, some sales tracking software platforms are even able to recommend the single best out of a set number of possible follow-up actions.

Salespeople make the most direct use of sales tracking software, but it's also used by team and department managers and executives. For the latter group, it provides insight into the health and status of the sales department's overall operations. It can help also help with sales forecasting, help optimize workforce scheduling and even help determine the best pricing plans and strategies.

Common Features of Sales Tracking Software

Clearly, sales tracking software can accomplish a lot. But how well it helps you achieve your specific goals comes down to the specific applications and features and how well they're aligned with your organization's workflows and goals. Here's a list of common features to look out for in the sales tracking solution you select:

Market Trends to Understand

Since sales force automation and enablement tools play such critical roles in the business world's profitability, they receive tons of attention from software developers. They're some of the first applications to receive updates and integrations of newer technologies like predictive analytics and machine learning.

Current and up-and-coming trends in the sales tracking software industry include:

• Better user experience: Gone are the days when updating a lead required a dozen mouse clicks and switching back and forth between multiple screens. Today's sales tracking tools are designed with user experience in mind, streamlining processes on the front end and featuring clearer, more intuitive user interfaces.
 
• Curated account intelligence: Account information and client data both help close deals, but it's easy to have too much of either. What salespeople really need is the right information at the right time, so they know what they need to know exactly when they need it. Curated intelligence tools help manage CRM and sales data and present it only when it's needed.
 
• Just-in-time training: The average sales department is no stranger to turnover and new staff onboarding is a part of operations. Sales tracking apps can speed up onboarding with the better interfaces (mentioned above) as well as with tooltips, automated cues and set workflows that help train new staff as they work.
 
• Predictive analytics: Sales tracking tools have traditionally been systems of record: they'd simply record relevant account and process information. With better predictive analytics tools, they're increasingly answering valuable forward-looking questions, such as: How likely am I to close this deal? What should I do next with this deal?