The revenue operations team plays a critical role in the sales process. The more they can do to improve efficiency, increase revenues and cut costs, the better their performance will be. However, several best practices can help optimize revenue operations teams’ performance as well as that of their entire organization. Here are some things your company should consider implementing:
Clarity is everything
The first step to increasing the performance of your revenue operations team is to set clear expectations. The clarity of a goal, or “what we’re trying to achieve,” can be one of the most important factors in achieving it. If a manager tells you that you are responsible for increasing sales by 20% this year, but does not tell you how he or she expects your team will do so, then your efforts may be misdirected and wasted.
Similarly, if executive leadership sets goals but doesn’t communicate those goals clearly to their teams (or worse yet, fails to communicate them at all), then there becomes no accountability for results and no way for team members to know whether they have done well enough.
So when setting goals as a manager: make sure that everyone involved understands what needs doing. Define how success will be measured, ensure there are metrics in place so people can track performance against these measures, hold regular reviews where progress is assessed against the plan, and share successes with others when things go well. However, you also need to make sure to brief everyone on any setbcks along the way so that revenue operations can be realistically forecasted.
Keep the revenue operations team in sync with the sales team
Keeping your revenue operations and sales team in sync means that they should be included in the sales planning, forecasting, and reporting process. They need to understand what the sales team is doing, and how it impacts their performance. They also need to be able to make suggestions on how things can be improved or changed.
In addition, they should also be included in compensation planning meetings so that they can help ensure that there is a proper alignment between how much money is being made by the sales team and what it costs to execute those deals.
Use data to improve processes and increase efficiencies
Data is king when it comes to improving processes and increasing efficiencies. The more you can use data to improve team performance, the better your customer experience will be.
Use data to improve customer satisfaction and loyalty by measuring how customers are engaging with you regularly. This can be done through call center monitoring, customer surveys, and social listening tools that collect customer feedback from all places where consumers may interact with your brand—whether it’s at an event or during a conversation over social media channels.
Conclusion
It’s important to remember that a lot of the revenue operations best practices discussed here—from automating tasks to keeping everyone in sync with each other and the sales team—aren’t just about saving time or money. They’re also about improving productivity, which leads to better results and happier employees. After all, if your team is working more efficiently, they can spend more time doing what they love most: helping customers.
