New Study: 37% of Sales Professionals Face Greater Responsibilities but No Additional Resources or Pay

The Great Resignation exposes challenges associated with antiquated selling technologies and practices

AUSTIN, Texas, July 19, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Sellers remain resilient despite challenges related to the pandemic and ensuing Great Resignation. However, roughly one third of sellers still struggle to close deals and meet quotas, according to a new study conducted by CRM analyst firm Beagle Research Group in partnership with Oracle. The study, "Does Your CRM Leave Money on the Table," includes insights from more than 500 sales professionals in the United States that show struggles to keep up with dynamic industry changes and the lack of technology-supported sales processes.

Now more than ever, sellers must quickly get up to speed — and bring their buyers with them — on product history, past communications, and deals progression.

     • The vast majority, 81 percent, of the sellers did not change jobs during the pandemic, however, 25 percent of sellers say customer contacts keep changing.
     • 43 percent of sellers said customers are pulling back on purchases, and 39 percent said customers are taking longer to make decisions.
     • Buyers are often engaging later in the buying journey, yet they still expect sellers to understand their needs. 36 percent said customers are doing a lot of their own research and 40 percent said that customers are more willing to shop for the best offer.

While seller resiliency emerged as a key finding, up to one-third of sellers still consistently have trouble with various aspects of their jobs, impacting their ability to make quota. Several hurdles that sellers faced while trying to meet their goals stem from deficiencies in time and resources.

     • 37 percent of sellers say sales organization churn has led to greater responsibilities, but no additional resources or pay.
     • 59 percent of sellers are involved in training and onboarding new sellers.
         ° Of this group, over half (52 percent) say training takes four to five hours per week. Over a quarter (26 percent) say these tasks take more than five hours per week. 
     • 29 percent of sellers say if a colleague leaves, they use digital notes outside of CRM to pass along knowledge.

Sellers would be happy to offload more mundane and time-consuming tasks if it gives them more selling time. Rather than simplifying record keeping tasks like traditional CRM systems do, sellers would be glad to eliminate them.

     • 39 percent of sellers said they spent too much time working in different technologies.
     • 16 percent of sellers describe their sales processes as the Wild, Wild West — where sellers make decisions based on intuition, rather than on data or best practices.
     • Sellers are open to greater automation and trust AI to take on greater responsibilities, including qualifying leads (nearly 70 percent), identifying priority deals (60 percent) and tracking deal progress (80 percent).

"The pandemic exposed the challenges that many sellers face every day. We knew before the pandemic that sales teams were not performing at their best, but technologies built to help were not being adopted," said Denis Pombriant, managing principal, Beagle Research, Inc. "Our data shows today sellers are beginning to embrace AI-based technologies because these new tools are easy to use, offload menial tasks, and give sellers more time to engage customers and ultimately sell."

"Our research shows that sellers want automation technologies that will off-load rather than just simplify tasks," said Katrina Gosek, vice president, Oracle Fusion Cloud Customer Experience (CX). "Inputting customer information, documenting milestones, tracking materials shared with the customer, and many other tasks can all be automated to keep sellers focused on what they do best – building relationships and selling."

Read the full report here.

Beagle Research polled more than five hundred experienced sales professionals (n=518) in January 2022. The survey inquired about how sellers have adapted and what challenges they still face amid the pandemic and Great Resignation.

Beagle Research identified over 500 line of business employees with primary responsibilities of selling to new accounts via digital tools, in the business-to-business space. During June and July of 2022, we fielded a survey, inquiring about their jobs, the wins, and frustrations they encounter, and the technologies they use. Because we were able to pinpoint these individuals, we believe our results are highly accurate (z-test = 95/90).

Founded by Denis Pombriant in 2004, Beagle Research is a Boston based firm specializing in research and analysis of front office business technology trends in CX/CRM. In addition to this report, Pombriant is the author of many other studies and several books on CRM. 

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SOURCE Oracle