Sales training has evolved considerably over the years.
In the 50s, you had sales coaching in the form of audio vinyl records and cassettes.
The 70s was the period of video-based sales coaching.
Then came the era of CRMs, which led to the downfall(almost) of sales training. Companies did not give due attention to sales training as they believed that CRM was the silver bullet to solve every sales problem, including relieving the pressure of all the salespeople in the company.
However, there was one thing that CRMs could never replace - human selling skills. When businesses found this, they realized the importance of sales training once again and started investing in sales training software.
What is sales training software?
Sales training software enables sales managers and reps to analyze sales calls. It is mainly used to refine the reps’ techniques and improve conversion rates. The tool also helps establish a practice of continuous training by offering a rich repository of recorded sales calls. The goal of sales training software is to:
Reduce ramp time by finding key areas for improvement
Aligning the team’s efforts with your business goals.
But a simple sales training software was insufficient to train reps at scale. Companies yearned for something more intelligent and advanced that was based on real customer calls. They no longer wanted a tool that could only record conversations and offer access to call data.
Long story short, the sales enablement leaders needed training software that could offer:
"Necessary coaching intelligence based on real customer calls to offer personalized training to the reps."
In other words, they needed conversation-intelligence-based sales training software!
How is regular sales training software different from a conversation-intelligence-based one?
A conversation-intelligence-based training tool uses the actual performance of a salesperson in the context of real sales. It distinguishes itself from typical training software by automatically analyzing and extracting patterns across your customer calls and highlighting the techniques of winning sales reps for other reps to learn. These tools are turning the whole sales training ecosystem upside down and creating a significant impact on the reps’ performance, something historical user-guided training could never achieve.
Some of the key features of conversation-intelligence-based sales training software include customized scorecards, playlists of calls and snippets, performance dashboards, and shareable comments and moments.
Top Sales Training Software
Here are some of the top platforms in the world of sales training with a focus on conversation intelligence.
#1 Rafiki
Rafiki is the #1 sales training software on our list that enables managers to ramp up their rep training process by offering direct visibility into the sales behaviors of the team. It helps in designing relevant and personalized training programs by allowing you to see successful and the not so successful conversation patterns.
It not only delivers valuable insights at scale but also empowers reps with exactly what they need and when they need to increase sales effectiveness and close more deals. Thanks to its powerful AI capabilities, Rafiki can transcribe interactions and identify coachable moments and opportunities for upselling, cross-selling, etc.
Key Features of Rafiki that Help in Sales Training
Meeting comparison - This feature offers a deep comparison of key trackers (ex: Competitor Mention) between two meetings. It shows the topic patterns followed by successful reps as against the struggling ones so that you can build a deal-winning topic sequence. Shows what topics were discussed when during a sales call that makes a tangible difference in closing a deal
Snippets & Playlists- This lets you create call snippets in just a few clicks, that too from transcript blocks or video timelines. You can even share curated playlists of your meetings with your team to improve per-rep win rates.
Customizable scorecards - Itlets you track a variety of call metrics, evaluate the reps based on them, and generate a detailed scorecard for improved decision-making. The scorecards can be customized based on your precise needs and processes.
Conversation Metrics Graphs - This feature lets you track the rep's talk patterns and the impact of the topic/tracker on deals won/lost. You can even perform comparisons based on different parameters like reps, duration, time frame, etc.
Comments With @Mentions - It lets you appreciate, acknowledge, and highlight elements of calls that went well or didn’t go well. You can even send private comments to individual reps.
Contextual follow-ups - This enables you to send follow-up emails to prospects after a demo or a sales call and highlight key moments in the meetings. You can also share collaterals or engage in a live chat to answer any further questions. Rafiki also shares a secured meeting link along with the email and tracks it to alert you when the link is opened.
The next software on our list is Gong, which has carved a name for itself as the preferred choice for many large organizations. The platform offers a rich feature set that helps in comparing reps’ performance against each other and industry benchmarks. It is quite adept at highlighting the areas of improvement for each individual member of your team. Like every other tool in this list, Gong is fueled by a robust AI engine that analyzes sales calls and gives you and your team inputs, such as which topics result in better responses, how to handle objections, etc.
Key Features of Gong that Help in Sales Training
Coaching Activity - This feature generates a guided workflow that lets you replicate what works and what doesn’t by transforming data into coachable moments. It generates all the key states you need to back up your coaching strategy.
Role-specific learning - Reduces ramp time and the effort it takes for new reps to close deals. The feature lets you create an ecosystem of peer-to-peer learning where reps can learn from each other. Managers, on the other hand, will be able to ensure that all the crucial skills gaps in their team are closed.
Quality of conversations - This feature maximizes the efficiency of your training plan by gauging the quality of conversations and topics discussed. This way, you can coach your team on different ways to help customers achieve their goals.
How much does Gong cost?
Contact the Gong team for pricing details.
#3 Avoma
With Avoma, sales managers no longer have to guess how their team is performing or where training may be needed. The data gleaned from Avoma will laser-focus your coaching plan. It will also ensure that every rep in your team is utilizing the most effective sales approach. Avoma effectively transcribes and analyzes every rep’s customer interactions and highlights successes and opportunities for improvement. It also offers powerful insights on exactly where to coach for the highest impact.
Key Features of Avoma that Help in Sales Training
Topic Trends & Talk Pattern Insights - Enables sales managers to learn the talk patterns of top reps and coach other reps accordingly. It helps managers analyze trends based on competitor mentions, objections, and feature requests to carefully design a data-driven and personalized training plan.
Curated Playlists - You can save some of the best moments of your top reps and store them into curated playlists. The moments could be related to anything from objection handling to negotiation. The other reps can listen to these playlists anytime, anywhere.
Recording Snippets - Avoma lets you create video snippets from calls instantly and share them with your reps so that they will know how they performed immediately after the call.
How much does Avoma cost?
#4 Clari Wingman
Wingman is also backed by AI technology that not only serves as a sales enablement tool but also as excellent sales training software. With Wingman, managers can instantly identify what top sales performers are doing differently. They can then use it to create an effective sales training strategy. It is the ideal choice if you wish to reduce the ramp-up time of training and replicate successful sales behaviors across the sales team. The platform enhances the productivity of your reps, builds better customer relationships, and improves overall sales communication.
Key Features of Wingman that Help in Sales Training
Battle Cards - This feature ensures that your training is highly personalized for every rep. You no longer have to force your reps to spend hours shadowing.
Game Tapes - These comprise videos of winning sales tactics adopted by the high performers in your organization. This feature accelerates onboarding and promotes peer learning among your reps.
Call Summary - Gives you summaries of every sales conversation, including the questions asked, the next steps, and even pain points. This gives you 360-degree visibility into your reps’ performance and identify if they are asking the right questions and engaging the prospects the right way.
How much does Wingman cost?
#5 Execvision
ExecVision helps improve the sales performance of the reps and boost revenue through data-driven training. It claims to be the bridge between insights and performance, as it offers an array of valuable insights from customer conversations and helps improve reps’ decision-making skills. The platform records, transcribes and analyzes calls at scale. It even identifies untapped opportunities and key areas where coaching is needed for the reps. You can plan tailored 1-on-1 sales training and accurately track individual rep performance metrics.
Key features of Execvision that help in sales training
Customizable Scorecards - You can create fully personalized scorecards that align with your training plans and milestones. The platform assesses different conversations and scores them using different scoring formats for different functions.
Self Review - With this feature, your reps can receive feedback and notes about a specific conversation. The reps can also highlight the section where they want help from the managers.
Coaching effectiveness - With this feature, Execvision delivers full-circle insights about your reps’ training activity. Managers will know what is happening and how it is impacting the reps’ performances with the help of dynamic performance dashboards. Managers can drill down into coaching effectiveness and close the insights-to-performance gap.
How much does Execvision cost?
Contact the Execvision team for pricing details.
#6 Chorus
Chorus
Chorus is another coaching platform that blends sales coaching, sales training, and conversation intelligence to help businesses forge a culture of sales excellence. With this platform, you can instantly boost revenue by increasing the reps’ knowledge of the most effective sales behaviors.
Chorus equips managers with data-driven sales coaching and automated workflows. This empowers the managers to tailor the learning paths for different reps based on their profile, performance, and needs.
Key Training Features of Chorus
Scorecards - Through this feature, you can offer actionable advice to your reps after rating their performance through the inbuilt scorecards. The tool automatically recommends high-scoring calls so that reps can learn from them.
Playlists - It lets you create a library of your best calls for new team members to learn from others. Apart from improving the onboarding experience, Chorus automatically adds new calls to the playlists if they meet the criteria you set.
Coaching Initiatives - You can set up and tailor Chorus’ coaching initiatives to cater to your specific sales process and coaching needs. The unlimited number of questions or assessment areas that you can target ensures that you can build a training program for every rep in your organization.
How much does Chorus cost?
Contact the Chorus team for pricing details.
Bottomline
Conversation intelligence has completely transformed the sales training process by offering deep call insights to improve onboarding, productivity, and performance of sales reps. Regular sales training software will not get you the buy-in you’re looking for. as it doesn’t offer complete visibility into what’s happening with your team. It eliminates the chances of designing a personalized training strategy for all your reps.
On the other hand, using conversation intelligence software like Rafiki gives you access to actionable insights that allow for self-diagnosis, self-coaching, faster onboarding, and skill development.
A sales training software like Gong or Chorus might be justified for Fortune 500 companies. But most of the training features offered by these tools are overkill for small and medium-sized businesses. Rafiki not only offers all the features offered by these tools (plus some unique features of its own) but offers them at a fraction of their cost.
