2. Sales Audit is a comprehensive, systematic, diagnostic &
prescriptive tool .
"The purpose of a sales audit is to assess whether a firm's sales
management process is adequate, to give direction for performance
improvement, and to recommend the needed changes.
Sales audit is a good method for evaluating the effectiveness of a
sales organization .
It should be conducted by someone from outside the sales
organization.
It could be someone from another functional area within the firm or
an outside consulting firm.
3. Members of the sales organization should participate actively,
as most of the information is provided by sales manager &
salespeople.
Sales Audit is an expensive & time consuming process.
But, the benefits are much more than monetary & time costs.
Marketing & sales audits should be conducted on regular
basis, so that the company can identify & correct potential
problems before they become troublesome.
5. Sales Auditor may check and scrutinize the hiring
methodologies of sales reps used by the company. A complete
record of the Salesperson is checked including,
background, reference, method of selection, salary, increase or
decrease in training programs for the Sales team and any other
component which may be important.
6. Market conditions are evaluated by the auditors to determine
whether the targets given to employees are feasible or not and
they are compared with market standards and industry growth
rate. This helps to not only determine the feasibility of sales
target but also helps to determine early bird advantage if any
for the company.
7. The auditor then goes on to check Sales procedures employed by the
company including the price, discounts, promotion offers, special
offers and ultimately the net profit margin. This is an elaborate step
and requires a detailed analysis by the auditor. The auditor compares
ideal sales procedures vis-à-vis the actual procedures carried out.
8. Since the retention of customer and repurchase of product or
service solely depends on customer service and after-sales
service, Sales Auditor performs a check on them. Also, a
genuine customer feedback is obtained from the Customer
service which can be passed on to the respective teams.
Thus, the sales audit involves detailed analysis of the sales
procedure starting from the sales objectives set up till the
ultimate sales done by the company’s sales staff, methods used
to achieve the sales figures and viability and future of the
trend if carried forward along with suggestions and
improvements if any.
