Question

Topic: Research/Metrics

Average Amount Of Sales Calls Per Day?

Posted by Anonymous on 7/12/2005 at 4:07 PM ET 125 Points
We have an internal telesales group and I was wondering if anyone had any ideas on what the average amount of calls per day and total phone time should be per salesperson. They do not do any cold calling, strickly call inquires for our website. Thanks.
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  • Posted on 7/12/2005 at 4:21 PM Member
    Thomas,

    Since your people are not making cold calls, the answer will depend upon the number of inbound requests your get from your web site.

    If they are calling people who sent an inquiry, the calls are typically longer than making a cold call because the person will usually have follow-up questions. This means you’ll get in less call per hour.

    When doing some work with Symantec, their support personnel were suppose to handle 25 calls per day based upon an eight hour day. Sales organizations making cold calls can average as many as 60 calls per hour.

    In your case, you should be responding to inquiries within 24 hours or less. Based upon the types of inquiries you get regarding your products and services, you will need to determine the time it takes to respond. Your people are likely to be 60 -75 percent productive (actually on calls) versus dialing, making notes, waiting on hold, etc. If each call lasts 5 minutes, you should expect them to get 8-10 calls per hour.

  • Posted by Peter (henna gaijin) on 7/12/2005 at 4:56 PM Accepted
    I worked a position many years ago that sounds similar to what you are talking about. In that, we averaged 3 to 4 hours on the phone per day. The rest of their day was taken up with non-call activities (reporting, database maintenance, etc.).

    I was working with a sale organization this past week that does cold calling. They shot for at least 1 hour a day on the phone. The rest of their time was used in other sales activities (relationship maintenance, etc.).

    Both are actual time on the phone, using numbers provided by the phone system.
  • Posted by Deremiah *CPE on 7/12/2005 at 5:07 PM Accepted
    thomasmfanelli,

    Normal attention span for good concentration and dialogue is about 20 minutes. Between this implement another 20 minutes of paper work and time to log impact of inquiry. I have listed some time frames based on employee types.

    AVERAGE EMPLOYEES...
    About 3-4 hours a day on the average end.

    EMPLOYEES IN TRAINING...
    2 hours a day for trainees.

    SUPER EMPLOYEES (WHO ARE AT THE TOP OF THEIR GAME)...
    For your super communicator type who has extremely effective results I might push it 5 hours a day a few days a week but normally 3-4 hours.

    Monitor the results and adjust according to your employees effectiveness or your satisfaction. Let me know what kind of results you get. Is there anything else I can do for you?

    Your Servant, Deremiah, *CPE (Customer Passion Evangelist)
  • Posted on 7/12/2005 at 7:23 PM Member
    While 3-4 hours a day sounds about right, the real answer will depend on the specifics of your list, your product/service, and a bunch of other factors.

    Using averages is really a bad idea. The average temperature in the world is probably about 65 degrees F, but that doesn't help you decide whether to wear a heavy winter jacket or a bathing suit when you go outside wherever YOU are.

    It's just possible that in your product/industry/geographic location, etc., the right number is significantly higher/lower than average.

    What is it you plan to do with this "average" information?
  • Posted by telemoxie on 7/12/2005 at 8:22 PM Member
    By calls, do you mean dials, or conversations? As a very general rule of thumb for business to business outbound calls, you might have numbers like 100 dials per day and 25 conversations per day... but these numbers will vary greatly based on issues such as have been raised above.

    The amount of productive time is also a function of the efficiency of your systems. Will the salesperson be filling out a paper form, or keying in info while the person is on the phone, or taking notes then updating the database after the call?

    Will the salesperson be conducting a demo over the phone. If so, those calls will be longer... and you may need to schedule up to an hour for each demo to have time for late arrivals, questions, delays, etc.

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