Sales Force Management Report: Customer Relations and Strategies

This report comprehensively examines sales force management, emphasizing the benefits of customer relationship management (CRM) and its impact on business profitability. It explores various working practices and technological advancements that enhance customer relations, including the use of social media and cloud-based CRM systems. The report delves into the personal characteristics and motivation of salespeople, analyzing the components of a salesperson performance model, and critically identifies cultural forces influencing sales performance. Furthermore, it evaluates criteria for selecting salespeople to target international markets and outlines effective sales force strategies for planning, implementing tasks, and managing both internal and external environments. The report also addresses resource allocation, sales forecasting, and the impact of sales targets, providing a detailed overview of how sales force management can be optimized to achieve business objectives.

Management Sales Force

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...............................................................................................................................3
TASK 1.................................................................................................................................................3
1.1: Identify the benefits of managing excellent customer relations..................................................3
1.2: Evaluate different working practices and methods to maintain customer relationship within the
organization.......................................................................................................................................4
1.3. Identify the use of the technological forces improve sales force management practices.............4
TASK 2.................................................................................................................................................5
2.1. Identify the personal characteristics on salesperson motivation..................................................5
2.2. Critically analyse the components of salesperson performance model.......................................5
2.3. Critically identify the cultural forces affecting the performance of salespeople.........................6
2.4. Critically evaluate criteria of selecting the best salesperson to target international market.........7
TASK 3.................................................................................................................................................8
3.1. Identify sales force strategies to plan and implement sales force tasks.......................................8
3.2. Identify how to deal with an internal and external environment in salesforce planning..............8
3.3. Use financial and non-financial information to assess the scope of resource requirements........9
3.4: Evaluate the impact of sales forecasting on sales targets..........................................................10
3.5: Plan the use of resources to meet sales target...........................................................................10
CONCLUSION..................................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..................................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
The reports talks about the benefits of customer relationship. It starts with detail
explanations of various benefits which businesses can get through customer relationship. The
report also talks about usage of technological aspects to improve or to build customer
relation. Under the report salesperson and their characteristic and what need to be done to
select an idle salesperson is also discussed. The ways by which cultural factors can affect the
performance of salesperson is also discussed in the report. Sales forces are also discussed in
detail and how it can help to increase the profitability of business by using various techniques
and innovation. The report talks about the how sales force can be planned to achieve the sales
target.
TASK 1
1.1: Identify the benefits of managing excellent customer relations.
Building a good relationship with the customer is the key for any businesses.
Customer relationship management talks about recording all the interaction with the
customer. The whole motive of organisation is to make interaction with customer easy by
using technology, strategy and policy, whole motive behind this is to improve customer
interaction of the company with their customers. The company start business for getting more
and more profit and it will be possible if the customer is satisfied with the services, customer
relationship management helps in building relationship with customers so that they can be
retain and profit can be maximised (How to manage customer relationship, 2020). There are
lot of benefits of CRM to the business; it helps in increasing goodwill and the value of the
business. Another benefit of CRM is it helps in gaining the loyalty of the customers so that
customer always purchase from the company. Regular interaction with the customer helps in
increasing the trust of the customers to the firm. Doing the process of CRM may cost
company a lot but it has various benefits attach to it so in today’s era companies prefer to do
CRM to increase their profitability. Improved customer satisfaction result in improve in the
goodwill of the business which all company looks for. CRM also gives the company idea
about profitable customer group, company can focus on that group. CRM also help the
company to optimise marketing that means with the help of CRM company will be aware of
customers wants and needs, therefore they will be knowing when is the right time to market
their product. So it is advisable for any company to manage excellent customer relationship
as it will6 the company in many ways as discussed above.

1.2: Evaluate different working practices and methods to maintain customer relationship
within the organization.
Sometimes in business the company run for new customer and they focus on new
customers and in the process they forget to service the existing loyal customer which is
wrong. It is very important for businesses to maintain an efficient CR with the customers they
have. Looking after building customer relations is vital for the company as a satisfied
customer not only come back to the organisation but also become the agent for an
organisation as they spread word of mouth about the company. This results in more referral
and more business for the organisation. Some of the working practices and methods to
maintain customer relationship are:
Act according to customer: It is very important for a company to listen to the
customers and act accordingly. It helps in managing customer relationship. Social media is a
platform where business and customers can connect and the organisation can know what the
requirements of the customers are so that they can react accordingly. Social media can be use
as a platform to address issues or queries or any suggestion by customer to the company.
Talking and listening can help the customer to build trust based relationship.
Do what is told to the customers: If the customers and the business is agreed on a
deadline, it’s a duty of the business to meet that deadline and finish task on time.
Communication with the customers and regularly informing them about the progress will
help in building relationship with the customers.
Customer satisfaction: The businesses need to make sure that wants and needs of the
customers are satisfied so that the customer is satisfied. Working on consumer satisfaction
tells the businesses that where they need to improve and company can take measures to
improve those areas (How to maintain good customer relationship, 2020).
After sales services: It is very important to provide customers with services even
after sales if there is any need. It helps in building trust and relationship. Company should be
in touch with customer even after the sales so that they can extend relationship for long
period.
1.3. Identify the use of the technological forces improve sales force management practices.
Technological forces are disrupting entire industry by transforming business. Sales
industry is heavy affected by technology. Technological forces help the organisation to
promote sales to the new level as they help in connecting with the people with more effective

ways. There are mainly 4 leading vendor of CRM system, those are: Oracle, Sales force,
Microsoft and SAP. Technological updation helps the company to interest or communicate
better with the market. Be it Facebook, email etc. Sales force management system help in
direct access to information so that the firm can identify their competition and partners on a
given project. It helps in generating loyalty into customers for the organisation. While
traditional onsite CRM software has their merits, cloud technology takes CRM to a whole
new level by freeing up employees from onsite computers and servers. When CRM data is
stored in the cloud, it can be accessed directly from anywhere and at anytime.
TASK 2
2.1. Identify the personal characteristics on salesperson motivation.
Organisation whose duties are to sell their product in market requires salesperson.
They are the most integral part of the organisation as they works on selling the product and
increasing sales for the organisation. Salesperson need to have a detailed knowledge about
the product they are selling so that they can explain the product to the customers and conduct
sales by answering all the doubts and queries of the customers. Personal characteristics of
salesperson comes into the picture as it tells how the salesperson going to interact with the
customers. Motivation is one key factor which pushes salesperson to meet their objective
(Johnston and Marshall, 2016). An ideal salesperson need to be modest with customer and
show empathy towards them. It is important to appreciate the efforts of the salesperson.
Proper incentive should be given to them if they are meeting their target and they should be
motivated to do more in the coming future. The manager need to build a healthy relationship
with sales person so that there is no different and transparency can be achieved. Salesperson
attitude need to be in place and they should know how to tackle an extreme situation in
favour of the organisation. Salesperson personal character affects their performance and it
affects the performance of the company. So it is very important to be confident so that the
public can be influenced by the idea of salesperson. salespersons are to bring in their best to
perform well in the midst of crisis unless and until it is related to their health conditions or
other ailments, which the industry they are working in needs to understand and do the needful
that covers the welfare of both the former and the management.
2.2. Critically analyse the components of salesperson performance model.
It is a known fact that the productivity of the employee directly affects the company. If they
are performing that will be productive for firm. If not it will be a problem for the company.
Salesperson need to have a control to their emotions so that they can take any difficult

decision without any problem. Sales person model also tells that personality, person
environment fit, job characteristic, organisation justice, work relationship and stress. If all of
these are taken care of it may result in job satisfaction. Salesperson will be more committed
and focused on the task in hand if all the factors are taken care of. These factors are explained
below in detail
Personality: Better the personality better will be the performance. Positive
personality may help the salesperson to convince customer more (Borodow and et. al., 2019).
A good salesperson sees for opportunity in every chance instead of worrying about problems
they work on converting opportunity into results.
Person environment fit: Here the relationship is between the worker and the society
in which they are working.
Job characteristic: Employee need to be aware about their roles and responsibility
and should work on satisfying the customer by using things which they learn in training.
Stress: Stress need to be addressed properly. If an employee or salesperson is
experiencing stress they will be not able to contribute fully and that may result in decrease in
productivity which is unacceptable to the firms.
Work relationship: Relationship with the other employee need to be sound as it may
helps in improving productivity and performance of the salesperson.
2.3. Critically identify the cultural forces affecting the performance of salespeople.
Culture affects the performance of salespeople in many ways it affect the way to
communicate with the customers. Here the salespeople are exposed to cross culture theme
after gaining all the training, experience etc. There are lot of factors which can affect the
performance of the salespeople and sales education talks about it. Taking an example of
jewellery shop, shopkeeper need to realise that the preference of jewellery may differ for
different set of customers. The only reason is that public will look for the jewellery which are
there in the culture and the salespeople should be aware about which product need to be
pitched to which set of customers. If the industry is clothing then also the preference and
order will be given to the garment which promotes their culture. Salespeople need to have a
proper knowledge about the different culture in societies in which they are operating and
focus should be given to the culture and product need to be provided to the customers which
promote their culture. It is essential for the businesses not to produce a product which may be

against the culture of people. If the salespeople don’t have sufficient knowledge it may affect
their performance as they are not sure of what they are doing this may result in fall in the
performance of the employee (Reid and et. al., 2017) cultural forces or factors and the diverse
needs of the customers need not necessarily impact on the performance of the salesperson
when these sales aspirants are already instrumental in driving the sales of the company.
2.4. Critically evaluate criteria of selecting the best salesperson to target international market.
Salesperson helps the company to sell its products and at the same time they help in
promoting the product to the public. Most of the businesses try to target the international
market so that they can get new markets to conduct business and get huge margin of profits.
Other than this there are lot of reason which attract companies to operate internationally.
Some of them are: to improve economies of scale, huge market share, lengthened product
life, unexploited markets. For the same company need to have a successful salesperson, some
of the characteristic of an ideal salesperson are:
Ambitious: They are ambitious in nature; they set high targets for themselves and
works on achieving them in any cost. They try to improve all the time and try to challenge
themselves again and again.
Confident: Sales force have self-confidence as they are aware about what they are
doing and how they need to close the deal.
Adoptable: They have plans to solve the situation no matter how tough it is. They are
flexible in nature and know how to switch from one plan to another when required.
Positive: They don’t see problem in a situation, instead of that they look for
opportunities and try to convert those opportunity in favour of company.
Persistent: Salesperson knows when to continue and when to stop, when to look for
increase profits and when to look to cut the losses (DeCarlo, T. E. and Lam, 2016).
Businesses need to attract top salesman through advertisement and then they need to
assess the entire applicant and choose the best lot. Conduct interview and select the best one
suitable for the job. Ask question which will tell if applicant is capable enough to do the job.
Persuasion will be done once the employee is selected. The last step is on boarding proper
orientation and training will be given and salesperson will be told about the goal which they
need to achieve.

TASK 3
3.1. Identify sales force strategies to plan and implement sales force tasks.
Sales force is a powerful platform with unlimited possibilities. These are different
marketing and selling activities on basis of leads and contacts. Sales force helps in driving the
revenue as they try to find out engaging customer prospects. The most personal branch of
marketing purpose is sales. As the salesperson works on interacting with the customer face to
face, via phone or through text. The main focus of sales force is to improve top level revenue
growth. They also work on cutting marketing cost so that profit of the organisation can be
increased. By evaluating the current salesforce the company can take decision whether to
recruit additional salesperson or not. Sales force includes sales for casting and product
knowledge for the benefit of the firms.
The following strategies can also implement to plan and implement sales force task:
 Sales management
 Activity management
 Opportunity management
 Account management
 Territory management
 Sales force management
This strategy can be implemented by the management and it will help in increasing the
efficiency while doing the sales force task (Good and Calantone, 2019).
3.2. Identify how to deal with an internal and external environment in salesforce planning.
The sales force planning may be perfect but it can get affected by the internal as well as
external environment of the company. Starting with the internal once these are as follows:
The company finance: The finance company left with can be an obstacle in
salesforce planning as the company may not have sufficient finance to run the operation.
Personnel: If the personnel is not working effectively and with efficiency it may also
hamper the sales force planning.
Equipment: Lack of equipment for salesforce research, lack of technology required
may also become obstacles to salesforce planning
The salesforce planning can be affected due to the external factors also. Some of the external
factors are:

Economy: If the economy is bad even a well established company can face issues. If
the purchasing power of customers is not that good it will affect the businesses as they will be
left with less customer base (Panagopoulos and et. al., 2018).
Competition: It is obvious that company had to compete with other companies of
same industry. At the time of inception it is very difficult for a company to compete with well
established or experienced firms, it may led to huge losses. Once the organisation is
established, new companies will come who will take some of the customers away from the
business.
Politics: Changes in policies may have a huge impact of businesses. The company is
in danger if the govt. In an economy keeps on changing. A fixed or stable government leads
to a secure political environment.
3.3. Use financial and non-financial information to assess the scope of resource requirements
Financial information
Revenue growth rate: It reflects how well a company is able to increase their sales
over a period of time. Revenue is an actual number and revenue growth rate is a comparison
between current year and previous year. Revenue growth rate focus in increasing sales and
finding an appropriate way to do so if it is not happening. After getting the figures the
company can take decision what need to be done now.
Market orientation and market capabilities: It helps in superior performance by the
firm. Market orientation had a direct effect on firms return on Assets. So increase in ROA
signifies that company is getting most out of their assets(Chung, Kim and Park, 2019).
Human capital: Better human capital result in giving competitive advantage to the
firm. The skills, knowledge, and experience which an individual or population have, viewed
in terms of their value or cost to an organization or country.
Non financial information
It can be inter‐relationships between organizational learning culture, employee job
satisfaction and their effect on customer satisfaction. Under this customer satisfaction is
directly proportional to the employee education level and is indirectly influenced by the
organisational learning culture. There are some non financial indicators of business activity
such as quality clients' satisfaction, innovations and market share can reflect the economic

position of a company and opportunities for growth. These all can be better indicators than
financial information. Employees' skills, opportunities of the information system, and
behavioural factors such as motivation and powers are termed as non financial indicators. The
company can’t rely on financial information all the time sometimes non financial indicators
will provide with such information which financial cant (Subramaniam and et. al., 2020). It
helps in measuring and evaluating intellectual factors for the benefit of the firm.
3.4: Evaluate the impact of sales forecasting on sales targets
Sales forecasting is determined on the basis of internal as well as external factors that
helps to promote the future opportunities on the basis of which demands are generated and
accordingly efforts are made to set the visible targets. The overall staff of an organization
forecast sales on the basis of previous year accordingly the target are set for specific tenure
like on monthly basis, quarterly basis or yearly basis. It is the responsibility of team members
to exploit their potential in order to hit the target and get best benefit out of their individual
and group performances (Johnston and Marshall, 2016). Proper evaluation of the sales
forecasting motivate the team member as even they realise that targets are attainable due to
which they put explicit effort in order to gain benefits in form of salary hike, incentives,
appraisal, promotion and so on. Along with that competitor’s strategy is also evaluated by
company in order to forecast the sales for upcoming duration. This helps in enhancing the
financial position and build desirable goodwill significantly.
3.5: Plan the use of resources to meet sales target.
In order to plan the resources for meeting the sales target , the main effects of sales
control systems along with interactive effects and associated intervening mechanisms must be
considered .Such a plan must be based on job demands–resources theory which focus on
differential interactive effects of outcome control, activity control, and capability control on
job engagement. The plan must be based in such a manner so that outcome control and
capability control have maximum interactive effects on adaptive selling behaviour and selling
effort. Role conflict needs to be understood. Activity and capability control need to be
incorporated. They need to understand the effects of role ambiguity. In majority of the
organizations, supply chain planning is a cross-functional effort. The functional areas such as
sales, marketing, finance, and operations conventionally specialize in fragments of the
planning activities, which results in conflicts over expectations, preferences, and priorities.
Contradictory to conventional studies on this area, which focuses on incentives,
responsibilities, and structures, a process perspective and its integration can be achieved

regardless of formal functional incentives (Hayati, Atefi and Ahearne, 2018). Thus, the
planning process needs to integrate planning performance, information, procedural and
alignment. Along with that social elements that contribute the performance of planning
process and place the information processing parameters of the organisation.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it has been concluded that customer relationship management
is an integral part of any businesses as it help in building relationship with the customer and it
give us information which can be used to satisfy the customer so that they can maintain a
long term relationship with us. Report talks about sales as an important part of businesses and
it is the reason for the revenue. Salesperson helps in increasing sales and the report talks
about their characteristic and the process of their selection which ends with final interview
and on boarding. The report has discussed about component like personality, job
characteristic and stress management which leads to job satisfaction for the sales person.
Further, explanation is made on with planning process so that to achieve the sales target. The
process helps the company to focus on sales target so that it can be achieved with efficiency.
REFERENCES
Books and Journal

Johnston, M.W. and Marshall, G.W., 2016. Sales force management: Leadership, innovation,
technology. Routledge.
Borodow, E. and et. al., 2019. Methods for processing information associated with sales
force management, customer relationship management and professional services
management systems. U.S. Patent 10.181.106.
Reid, D.A. and et. al., 2017. Examining the use of sales force management practices. Journal
of Business & Industrial Marketing.
DeCarlo, T.E. and Lam, S.K., 2016.Identifying effective hunters and farmers in the
salesforce: A dispositional–situational framework. Journal of the Academy of Marketing
Science, 44(4), pp.415-439.
Good, V. and Calantone, R.J., 2019. When to outsource the sales force for new
products. Industrial Marketing Management. 82. pp.106-116.
Panagopoulos and et. al., 2018. Boosting sales force morale in highly dynamic, complex
markets: The role of job resources. Industrial Marketing Management. 74. pp.237-253.
Chung, D.J., Kim, B. and Park, B.G., 2019. The comprehensive effects of sales force
management: A dynamic structural analysis of selection, compensation, and
training. Article.Business Research for Business Leaders publishing.
Subramaniam, S.and et. al., 2020. Content management system implemented using a database
structure. U.S. Patent Application 16/39.855.
Johnston, M.W. and Marshall, G.W., 2016. Sales force management: Leadership, innovation,
technology. Routledge.
Agnihotri, R. and et. al., 2016. Social media: Influencing customer satisfaction in B2B
sales. Industrial Marketing Management. 53. pp.172-180.
Hayati, B., Atefi, Y. and Ahearne, M., 2018. Sales force leadership during strategy
implementation: a social network perspective. Journal of the Academy of Marketing
Science. 46(4).pp.612-631.
Johnston, M.W. and Marshall, G.W., 2016. Sales force management: Leadership, innovation,
technology. Routledge.
Online
How to manage customer relationship. 2020. [Online]. Available
through:<https://www.business.gov.au/People/Customers/How-to-manage-customer-
relationships>
How to maintain good customer relationship.2020.[Online]. Available through:<
https://www.sales-i.com/maintain-good-customer-relationships>