How to do I improve the productivity of my sales force without major investment?

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Sales force productivity is a common challenge for organizations. From our analysis of large retail sales organizations across service industries (e.g., banking, insurance, utilities, telecommunications), we see a pattern of common issues across our clients:Underutilization of the sales force, with time allocated toward customers often representing less than 50% of capacitySales behavior driven more by the preferences of the individual sales agent than by sales strategy and client needsFailure of incentives and sales leadership to sustainably motivate delivering the desired outcomeOften organizations opt for high-investment, long-term structural changes to improve sales performance but fail to deliver the full potential. The key reason: everyday sales force behavior does not change despite structural changes.Companies require an innovative, more effective approach to sustainably improve sales force behavior toward desired outcomes. For that, Kearney applies Nobel-Prize winning insights from behavioral economics to the daily business of our clients’ sales people and customers. Based on experience and data from more than 2,000 tests across 6 industries, 10 countries and 1.4 million salespeople / customers, we are the unrivaled experts in uncovering the most effective and applicable “nudges” for behavioral change. Given that few companies have cracked the code on how to do so, the potential is immense. Key steps that we take include:We review our clients’ sales process and sales performance with quantitative and qualitative analyses, conduct on-the-ground mystery shopping, and integrate Kearney’s expert knowledge across different industries. This enables us to identify the key areas with thehighest potential for sales performance improvementWe develop a catalog of tailored improvement measures based on behavioral economic effects (i.e., “nudges”), design selected nudges with the involved business units, and manage production to ensure the implementation of small but impactful nudging features. This delivers themost effective, ready-to-implement, measuresfor sales performance improvementWe conduct online pre-tests with specific features of the measures to find the best measure design, select appropriate pilot and control groups, and ensure successful implementation by involving a pilot group of salespeople. These efforts determine theeffect size of the measuresand collectpractitioner feedbackfor refinement of the measures.We examine pilot results quantitively and qualitatively, select and refine nudging measures for roll-out, and develop a plan not only for a smooth roll-out but also for a successful hand-over of an agile test-and-roll-out procedure to designated business units. This enables our clients toquickly realize the full revenue addand continuously analyze, develop, test and scale nudges for further revenue adds.This is not a simple task, but for those that succeed, the rewards can be substantial. We have achieved double-digit topline growth within months, with very limited investment, at globally leading companies across sectors. To learn more about A.T. Kearney’s approach to improving topline by driving behavioral change, please visit our websitehere.