Definition
Sales force evaluation is an assessment of the overall personal selling effort. The evaluation process helps to measure whether the selling effort is on target with respect to the goals established and also provides strong clues of where and how the selling effort can be improved.
Sales analysis and cost analysis are major techniques sales managers use to evaluate sales force efforts. To supplement these analyses, objective measures such as these can be employed:
Input evaluation criteria are objective measures of the amount of effort or resources expended by the sales force, including the number of sales calls; amount of time and time utilization; expenses; and non-selling activities such as letters written, number of phone calls made, and number of customer complaints received.
Output evaluation criteria include number of orders; average size of orders; number of canceled orders; and number of active, new, lost, overdue, and prospective accounts.
Ratio of output to input is an objective measure of sales force performance that incorporates common ratios used to evaluate salespeople. This ratio is calculated by dividing the amount of output a salesperson or sales force is generating by the inputs (resources expended).
See also
Sales force compensation
Sales force effectiveness
Sales management
References
- American Marketing Association, AMA Dictionary.