One of the most popular channels of win-loss insight is sales team feedback.

When done right, this can provide an internal perspective on why you win and lose. To explore all of the potential channels of win-loss insight for your organization - and the pros and cons of each - download a free copy of The Definitive Guide to Win-Loss Analysis.

This mini-series explores three challenges that organizations typically face when implementing a win-loss reporting process in Salesforce CRM.

Part 1: The data we are collecting is not insightful.

Part 2: My sales team is not participating.

Part 3: The insights don’t translate into action.

Part 3: The insights don’t translate into action.

In Parts 1 and 2, we explored tactics for encouraging reps to participate and generating more insightful data. Another common complaint we hear about win-loss reporting in Salesforce is that little is done with/about the insights that are captured. In other words, the insights don’t drive action within the organization.

Win-loss information should be flowing into your organization and driving operational impact. If it’s not, you may be suffering from one (or more) of the following problems:

1. Your company doesn’t realize that win-loss information is valuable to the entire organization. Every department benefits from win-loss, so win-loss insights should impact every department in your business. The product team can use win-loss feedback to hone in on pain points and prioritize the product roadmap. The sales team can use win-loss feedback for sales training and competitive intel. The pricing team can use win-loss feedback to refine the pricing strategy and packaging of your firm’s offering. A common mistake we see is that win-loss becomes siloed to one department in a company, and the valuable insights that are collected are not shared with key stakeholders throughout the company.
2. Your company doesn’t have a way to share win-loss information across the organization. How can companies prevent win-loss insights from getting lost in one department? Share the findings throughout the organization. Use Slack or other messaging platforms, send emails, and embed win-loss data in your company’s BI dashboards. Push win-loss information out to stakeholders. Stakeholders can’t use data to make informed decisions if they don’t have the data in front of them.
3. Your company doesn’t share win-loss information often enough. Don’t wait for all the win-loss data to be aggregated before showing it to the executive team. Win-loss information should be flowing to executives regularly so that they become familiar with it. This way, executive roundtables will be focused on “what should we do?” instead of “what does this data tell us?” You don’t want to waste time interpreting data simply because no one is familiar with the format. Pushing custom reports to relevant stakeholders regularly gets win-loss information into the hands of people who can act on it quickly.
4. Your company doesn’t take advantage of existing information in the CRM. Great win-loss is about putting feedback into context. If you’re not complementing your win-loss data with CRM data, your win-loss program is fundamentally flawed. You should be able to pivot on CRM data to help you understand your win-loss data. Filter win-loss feedback by different parts of your business, such as region, product line, sales team, etc. so that you can get the right level of insight. Let the data tell a compelling story. Make sure that any reports you build are real-time dashboards that allow you to filter feedback based on things like primary competitor, deal size, region, etc.

The Clozd app for Salesforce streamlines the collection and reporting of win-loss data from your sales team, and can help you apply the principles outlined above. For example, Clozd can generate and share summary reports of key win-loss insights via email or Slack:

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Remember, if your win-loss insights don’t translate into action (symptom), you’re probably suffering from a deeper problem (root cause). Fix the problem at its source and win-loss action will take care of itself.