What Is Sales Support? Why You Need To Improve This

Do you want to close more deals? Do you want your customers to stay? For a sustainable business, you need to ask a question. What is sales support?

More than 50 out of 100 businesses say that they will choose a brand if its sales support is better than others. A good portion of the sales team is assigned to the sales support team, which can boost 25% of the company’s return on the total investment.

In simple words, sales support is mandatory for any business. But we will get into the details one step at a time. So buckle up.

So, from the definition, we can already assume that a sales support team is a big deal for a company. But we might confuse the sales support team with the customer support team.

Are they the same?

Sales support vs customer support

The short answer is no. They have totally different functionality. Here are seven differences between these two teams:

1. Goals

Sales support: Help the sales reps team close deals smoothly.
Customer Support: Help resolve customers issues after purchase.

2. Focus

Sales support: Works at the front of the sales funnel and provides product-related information and guidance to the customers so they can make an easy decision.
Customer Support: They work at the end of the sales funnel to solve customer issues and help them use the product or service smoothly.

3. Skills

Sales support: They need strong sales skills and the ability to build relationships and close deals through lead generation.
Customer support: This team member needs to develop product service skills and the ability to listen to the customer and empathize with care.

4. Communication

Sales support: They generally communicate with customers over the phone or via email.
Customer Support: Besides phone and email, this team also communicates via live chat and even through video calls for faster support.

5. Tools

Sales support: The sales support team usually uses customer relationship management (CRM) to ensure smooth sales-related communication.
Customer Support: They use a help desk system. Either it could be a SaaS system or WordPress-integrated plugins such as Fluent Support.

6. Metrics

Sales support: The only numbers they care about are qualified leads, closed deals, and generated revenue.
Customer Support: On the other hand, they care about the number of closed tickets (resolved customer issues) and customer satisfaction numbers.

7. Culture

Sales support: Their culture is mostly result-oriented.
Customer Support: Their culture is customer-oriented.

Benefits of better sales support

There are countless benefits to having a support team for sales. We are going to count here the seven benefits of this team. So, let’s see, what does sales support do?

1. Improved efficiency

A good sales support team can ensure a graceful sales process. It will free up the sales rep team to generate more possible leads for the company.

2. Improved customer satisfaction

When a customer has a positive experience during a purchase due to the help of sales support, they become happy customers. And a happy customer means multiple business cycles.

3. Enhanced brand reputation

When the purchase experience is positive, customers build a positive brand perception. Hance increases brand awareness and customer loyalty.

4. Increased sales

A well-equipped sales support team can help the sales team close more deals. A well-balanced harmony between two teams can increase revenue.

5. Reduced costs

A support team for sales can take up some work from the sales rep team. This can help the sales rep team focus on making a better sales funnel. That means reduced costs and more revenue.

6. Improved employee morale

Providing a good purchase experience can boost the energy of the sales support team. On the other hand, it opens up more time to do research and build a better sales funnel for the sales rep. Both ways, all the teams become more productive.

7. Enhanced data insights

The sales team has a lot of opportunity to collect data because of direct customer interaction. They analyze this big data to figure out more business scope and improvements.

Best practice of sales support

We get the benefits of a good sales support team. But this is not an easy task. There are a lot of factors you have to consider to build a better team.

1. Proactivity

Sales support mainly provides support to the sales rep team. So, the support team should be proactive about their task. They have to reach the sales reps before they ask for help.

Let’s say the sales support team can develop FAQs based on the direct customer interaction experience. This can help sales reps generate more leads.

2. Responsiveness

The sales support team should be responsive to the sales reps. That means they need to always be ready to provide any assistance or guidance to close the deals smoothly.

3. Helpfulness

The sales support team should walk extra miles to help the sales reps. This includes providing information, providing additional survey data, following up with the customers, and even triggering the sales funnel.

4. Positive attitude

The sales support team should always be positive and encouraging about helping the sales reps. Because a positive collaboration can ensure successful sales.

5. Knowledge

The support team from sales communicates with the customers. So, this team needs to have complete knowledge about the product and the service that the company offers. Only then customers will get the proper answers.

6. Organization

The sales support team needs to organize a lot of information. It starts with generated leads, opportunities, deals, product updates, and processes. So, they also need to know about the sales support tools.

7. Communication

Finally, support teams communication should be clear and concise. So that customers as well as sales reps can understand them easily.

Sales support tool

Here are some tools for the sales support team that can ease up the work.

1. Customer relationship management (CRM): It helps to have everything in one place, from leads, opportunities, and closed deals.

2. Sales automation software: This system automates repetitive work, such as sending emails, setting up appointments, or generating reports.

3. Lead generation tools: This tool helps find qualified leads from different channels and advertising.

4. Sales enablement tools: This tool contains all the information about products, services, and offers in one place to conduct a successful sale.

5. Sales intelligence tools: This type of tool helps you collect and organize information about customers, such as company size, industry, pain points, needs, and so on.

6. Video conferencing tools: This system helps the team communicate with customers. Video calls have more success than voice calls or emails.

7. Email marketing tools: This will help you send emails to your target customers in an automated sequence. Tools like FluentCRM can help you with these tasks.

8. Social media marketing tools: This type of tool helps you connect with potential customers via social media channels. Even tools like WPSocialNinja can help you showcase customer feedback to your potential clients.

KPI metrics for sales support

Let’s say you have established a team for sales support. But is that team doing a good job? There are a few KPI metrics you can look into to learn about that.

1. Number of opportunities created

This number indicates how many sales opportunities are created via the sales support team. The higher the number, the better.

2. Number of qualified leads

This number tells you about qualified leads from the sales support team. That means more potential future customers.

3. Lead conversion rate

This is the number of leads that have been converted into potential opportunities.

4. Number of deals closed

This is the number of deals that the sales support team helped to close.

5. Customer satisfaction

This is an NPS survey response from the customer about the sales support. A higher number of customer satisfaction ratings means good performance.

6. Sales revenue

Finally, this number indicates the earnings of the company because of the sales support team.

Job descriptions of sales support

If you can feel the excitement of this job, then here is what employers are looking for:

• Prompt response to customer questions about products, services, and offers
• Efficiently streamline the order process and invoicing
• Answer the technical queries of customers
• Ensure qualified leads and track the process with follow-ups.
• Directly work with the sales reps to develop and implement sales strategies
• Be up-to-date on relevant industry trends and competitor activities.
• Finally, stay up-to-date about new releases of the product, features, services, and offers.

Final thoughts

To ensure a successful sale and a good experience for the customer, multiple teams work through the process. But the direct responders are the sales team.

If you want to close deals smoothly, there are a lot of factors a client has to go through. To ease up the process, a dedicated team is a must. And that’s the sales support team.

Lastly, we can say that an essential part of building a sustainable business is having happy customers. And to make sure that, ask yourself, What is sales support?