What are the Duties of a Sales Department?

The sales team is the link between a brand’s product and its customers. But if the team is effective and consists of qualified employees, it does even more than sales. It builds strong relationships with customers.

Each department within a company is responsible for its overall development and growth. But most businesses naturally consider the sales department the most important part. Historically, sales have been a key factor in the growth and increasing profits. This article will summarize the sales team definition and determine what this department does.

What is a Sales Department?

The sales department is one of the main structural elements of the company. Its goals are the success and development of the company. If it does not function properly, old clients will leave, and potential clients will never come. In other words, the company will simply have nothing to do. 

The sales department can have different units, depending on the business size. It is a symbiosis of marketing, sales itself, and customer service, which helps maintain the loyalty of existing customers. 

The sales department can be in-house or remote. Many companies are trying to move closing deals online, where sales managers use video conferencing software (Skype, Zoom, Whoosh, Google Meet) to communicate with leads. The sales department functions differently for retail businesses and uses marketing techniques to attract customers. 

Also, Read to Know: Creative Tips to Engage Your Audience in a Virtual Lunch and Learn Session

Duties of a Sales Department

Finding Customers and Closing Deals 

As we mentioned earlier, the sales department’s functions depend on the company’s goals and size. However, finding potential customers (leads) is the main task of the sales manager. 

As a rule, sales can go in two directions — incoming inquiries and the search for potential customers or cold sales. The marketing department or just a marketer simplifies the life of the sales staff. Marketing helps build a customer profile, identify their pains and needs, and build a sales funnel. 

The sales funnel includes making contacts, identifying needs, gathering information, and building relationships — everything you need to lead a person to purchase successfully. In addition, the responsibilities of the sales department include the selection of a suitable commercial offer to the client. Of course, the main thing that sales managers do is to sell. Moreover, they don’t just sell but sell effectively and at a minimal cost.

A sales team that works for results always thinks about increasing the conversion rate, i.e., so that the number of clients who have made a purchase is as high as possible among all the potential clients of the company. A high conversion rate ensures that the company spends less money to acquire new customers and, accordingly, receives higher profits from it.

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Customer Retention

Sales managers help a company retain customers. It costs brands an average of 15-20 times more to attract new customers than it does to retain existing customers.

In addition, experts say that an increase in the customer retention rate by 5% can lead to a rise in profits by 30-90%. That’s why sales managers pay a lot of attention to ensuring that buyers are satisfied after making a purchase and become loyal regular customers. Qualified salespeople build strong relationships with customers and make sure they stay happy and keep doing business with the company.

Read Also About: Prospecting in Sales

Business Growth

A well-functioning sales team often helps a business grow. After all, strong customer relationships impact important metrics such as customer satisfaction and customer loyalty.

If the sales department works effectively, people start talking about the company. When people see that you’ve already helped someone solve a problem, other things being equal between you and your competitor, they’ll choose you. That’s why the sales team’s work affects business growth.

Marketing Vs. Sales 

These two departments often compete in companies. If revenue drops, salespeople can blame marketers for poor quality leads, and marketers refer to outdated sales scripts. To assign tasks correctly to these departments, it’s important to remember that they share the common goal of attracting relevant customers. The difference is that they work at different levels of the funnel. 

Duties of Each Department

If we look at the tasks of the marketing department in the context of sales, the key ones are:

• Introduce potential customers to the company’s products and services even if they have not heard about the brand before;
• Stimulate the purchase of people who are already familiar with the company but have not yet become customers;
• Maintain a base of loyal customers and invite them to recommend the brand to friends and colleagues;

The main tasks of the sales department:

• Bring new customers to the company from target segments and not below a set monthly budget;
• Up-sale to existing customers.

The tasks of the marketing department are part of the selling. Marketers are usually responsible for the first contact with the company (through ads, email marketing, etc.), and then it’s easier for salespeople to negotiate with these leads.

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