Here’s the Most Important Sales Metric You’re Not Tracking

Tracking the right sales analytics does more than just tell the story of rep and team performance. Analytics also empower sales leaders to predict the future. While there are a lot of must-track sales metrics, there is one metric in crucial metric that I just don’t see enough sales teams tracking: abandoned call rate.

Your most sales-ready leads are calling you. By tracking your rate of abandoned inbound calls, you can track how well your sales team is actually answering these calls. 

When it comes to measuring rep performance on the phone, sales teams can learn a lot from the call center support industry. If we know that responding to inbound web leads within five minutes exponentially raises the possibility of closing a deal, then just imagine how important it is to adequately cover inbound phone calls. By the time a potential buyer actually picks up the phone to call you, it’s virtually always to have a serious sales conversation. In B2B sales, a few missed calls could mean millions in lost revenue.

Measuring abandoned calls can help you ensure that your sales team is answering those precious inbound sales calls. A high call abandon rate could mean you don’t have enough reps to cover the phones, or that your calls are being routed to the wrong place, or even that your reps aren’t answering them. Whatever the case, you need to get to the bottom of it.

Taking another page from the support industry, a metric that goes hand-in-hand with abandonment rate is hold time. Reducing the amount of time that callers wait is one key to lowering call abandonment rates. The last thing you want is to leave valuable, sales-ready leads waiting on hold until they get frustrated and hang up.

By radically reducing hold times and virtually eliminating call abandonment, you’ll almost certainly notice an uptick in opportunities and revenue from inbound calls.

Our team recently released one of the most comprehensive guides to sales metrics ever assembled. If you’re currently leading a sales team (or hope to in the future), I highly recommend checking out this free resource. Tracking metrics is essential to optimizing sales. Without the right analytics you may know that your sales team needs help, but you’ll never know how to help them improve. The eBook is full of actionable metrics that you can start tracking right away.