What is the point of quality management if the company is successful?

It is the sales organization that, to the greatest extent possible, is the sole function in the company that generates sales and thus contributes to cost recovery and the generation of company profits. By increasing the efficiency of the sales process, the level of results can be significantly influenced. More often, however, sales processes are spared as part of optimization projects. "You shouldn't distract them from selling with internals," are the reasons given, or something similar. Possibly the company is enjoying a great deal of success and therefore does not see the slightest need for action to question sales processes. A mistake with consequences. Because sales and related events in particular have a direct influence on customer satisfaction. This also under the aspect that the sales employee is often the only "personal" face of the company towards the customer. Precisely because the importance of the sales organization is high in almost every company, it is astonishing that process efficiency and effectiveness receive far less attention here than in other typical value-adding functional areas such as development, production, procurement and logistics.

The sales process

Unfriendly or incompetent advice, long response times or poor accessibility or availability of contact persons in sales are ultimately perceived by the customer as a quality defect, as is late delivery of products or products that do not meet the specified requirements. Accordingly, the quality of the selected sales structure and its processes is a key success factor that must be planned, systematized and controlled.

However, the sales process is anything but a "planned", "systematized" and "controlled" process, especially in many small and medium-sized companies. As in other value-added processes, clear strategic goals and sound planning are needed here in particular. Only planning creates the prerequisite for a professional and strategy-oriented sales approach in the dynamic market. Therefore, it is necessary that the sales process is identified and described as a value creation process in the management system in the first place.

The most important success factors in the sales process include, among other things, the most well-founded information possible about existing as well as potential customers, the systematic planning, preparation and execution of customer visits, adequate visit documentation up to the actual preparation of the offer. It must also be determined after what time and in what form the follow-up should take place. For the phase of negotiations that often follows, the scope of competencies must also be defined.

Management is agreed that such process areas must be implemented as efficiently as possible. However, in practice, sales employees are often left to their own devices when it comes to implementation? Many a sales team acts very individually under too vague conditions with self-developed templates or instruments in order to acquire customers or orders. It is understandable that in this case the scope and quality of the data is primarily limited to the processing of the sales team's own activities and needs. Further-reaching needs of the subsequent, internal process customers for complete, relevant information for corporate planning and order processing are often lost in the process.

This behavior then leads to the often lamented iterations, for example in the context of order processing, until all required data and information about the customer or the actual order are available. Iterations that usually affect the lead time of order processing and thus lead to higher costs or, in extreme cases, to customer complaints. To avoid these and other problems that negatively affect the sales process itself, but also the downstream value creation processes, there are a variety of proven measures.

Optimisation measures

Such measures take into account the definition of clear target customer groups and the structuring of the sales process in different phases up to the provision of standardized templates and instruments. Quality management can actively support the sales organization in this, for example in structuring and describing the sales process or in creating and introducing standardized templates and toolkits, see figure.

In practical terms, this means:

• Create and retain professional competence (experts, mediators of quality tools) in the company
• Systematically plan the need for and introduction of quality techniques and set them down in appropriate documents (checklists, process descriptions for the optimisation of internal handover).
• Intensive training and coaching: train all employees according to their need for techniques. The focus is on quality tools that can be used for improvement

Transparency through data

After the conclusion of a contract or the loss of an order, the actual sales process is over, but the company is left with valuable information and tips. These can be used for further needs-oriented customer care and addressing or, if necessary, also for winning back lost customers. An easily understandable evaluation of success and failure is in any case an important source for the systematic processing of customer contact, but also for sales management.

Whether there is potential for improvement and optimization of the sales process is to be evaluated by the sales management at regular intervals by recording and evaluating suitable process key figures. On the occasion of a monthly exchange, for example, the sales employee can be preventively coached by his superior in his goal achievement and the company goal can be proactively pursued. With regard to any optimization measures, it can be useful to call on external help in order to avoid operational blindness and prejudices. Motivation and qualification of the sales staff also play an important role here, which can be promoted through training, suitable incentive systems and with modern management tools.

SAQQUALICON is offering a new seminar on "Quality Management as a Partner of Sales" for quality managers who want to learn about professional approaches and instruments for managing and optimising sales processes (see www.saq-qualicon.ch).