Salestech: Stats and Trends for 2023

🎵 4 cold calls, 3 posts on LinkedIn, 2 CRM tools, and a Sales rep for B2B 🎶 

Well, this might not be the 12 days of Salestech-mas, but it's just as festive and/or fun. 

And what's under the tree, you ask? No, it's not more contacts, it's a list of the top stats and trends in Salestech you need to look out for in 2023.

Looking for the down low from a download? Want to be overly-informed on SalesTech? Well, check out our SalesTech Best Practice Guide, here!

Let's jump in:

Current State of the Landscape

  • Half of all sales organisations in the UK have responded to the pandemic by increasing their investment in sales tech, with another 52% saying they will grow their investment over the next year.

landscape

CRM tools (42%)
Visual collaboration / demo tools (41%)
Sales intelligence (40%)
Sales planning (37%)
Sales engagement (36%)
Sales enablement (30%)
Sales coaching (28%)

  • 40% of sales professionals opt for warm outreach compared to 39% who lean more toward cold outreach in the midst of the pandemic. 
     81% of B2B buyers were worried about a recession in 2020, which was alleviated by 92% of salespeople stating that they would help B2B buyers navigate through the crisis. 
    70% of US-based sales managers agreed that managers’ capability to adapt to change is more important now compared to five years ago. 
  • 52% of UK B2B sales reps have never used digital signatures in their sales process (while only 18% have switched over to digital signatures only).
  • 55% of sales professionals expect their sales pipeline to decrease.

Salestech is the new martech, and it's supercharging both professions -  Chief Marketing Technologist

Salesperson Behaviour and Concerns

  • Today’s sales professionals spend just 34% of their time selling
  • 57% expect to miss their quotas this year.
  • 66% of sales teams track customer satisfaction (CSAT) as their top KPI, edging out “team quota met” (65%) by a small margin.
  • The top 3 sales enablement priorities are: optimizing value messaging (55.5%), optimizing sales processes (35.5%), and optimizing sales coaching (32.9%).
  • 41.2% of sales reps say that their phone is the most effective tool for performing their jobs.
  • High-performing sales teams are 1.6 times more likely than underperformers to say service reps proactively alert them to opportunities.
  • The top two process challenges that sales organizations face are meeting customer expectations and dealing with competitive concerns
  • 79% of business buyers say it’s absolutely critical or very important to interact with a salesperson who is a trusted advisor — not just a sales rep — who adds value to their business
  • Only 28% of sales agents find cold calling effective.
  • Sales representatives spend 15% of the time leaving voicemails rather than talking with prospects. 

Sales Roles are Changing

  • 60% of sales reps report an increase in virtual meetings since 2015
  • On average, inside sales roles have increased by 7% and sales development roles by 6% since 2015
  • 75% of business buyers say that connected processes are very important to winning their business
  • 77% of salespeople say selling collaboratively with other departments is important
  •  51% of sales leaders focus on increasing customer retention through deeper relationships
  • 73% of sales teams say collaborating across departments is absolutely critical or very important to their overall sales process.
  • 60% of sales professionals say that collaborative selling has increased productivity by more than 25%, and more than half (52%) say it has done the same for increasing the pipeline
  • 68% of sales professionals say it is absolutely critical or very important to have a single view of the customer across departments/roles
  • Nearly 90% of B2B decision-makers expect the remote digital model to be the “new norm”, with 3 in 4 decision-makers believing that the new model is as effective (or more so) when compared to pre-COVID-19.
  •  Don’t expect in-person sales coverage to make a bounce back. Fewer than 25% of B2B buyers in the UK ever want to interact with reps in person again--even after the pandemic ends.
  • The shift to online-only means B2B buyers are very comfortable buying without face-to-face interaction. The vast majority (96%) claim they will make a purchase in a digital self-serve, end-to-end portal, spending $50,000 or more in one transaction.
  • The businesses’ buying process will involve around 6-10 decision-makers.

Social Selling

  • Despite the obvious omnichannel approach that modern buyers are using, our own research – based on responses from 268 UK sales professionals - shows thajust 20% of UK B2B sales reps use a multi-channel approach to engage with new prospects.
  • When it comes to social media, LinkedIn leads the way. More than half (51%) of B2B sellers ranked LinkedIn as the best social media platform for providing unique customer data for social selling strategies.
  • More than 80% of UK B2B sales reps are active or very active on LinkedIn.
  • Only 21% of UK B2B sales reps have a social selling strategy.
  • 50% of teams leverage data to produce timely, accurate forecasts
  • Sales teams are twice as likely (33%) to prioritize leads based on data analysis of “propensity to buy” rather than on intuition (16%)

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  • High-performing sales teams (the top 24% of more than 2,900 sales professionals surveyed) are 1.5 times more likely to base forecasts on data-driven insights
  • Unfortunately, only 46% of sales reps have data insights on customers’ propensity to buy
  • 81% of sales reps believe it is important to have a connected view of data across the entire customer journey
  • High-performing sales teams (the top 20% of more than 3,000 sales professionals surveyed) are 2.8 times more likely than underperforming teams to say their sales organizations have become much more focused on personalizing customer interactions over the past 12–18 months
  • 79% of sales teams currently use or are planning to use sales analytics technology to increase efficiency
  • 76% of sales professionals say using sales analytics has significantly or somewhat improved their ability to provide customers with a consistent experience across every channel
  • 62% of shoppers are more scared of their information being compromised now than they were two years ago.
  • 56% of consumers prefer to buy from companies that consistently release new products and services based on their needs and new technology
  • Sales market research data reveals that 79% of consumers prefer interacting with salespeople who are trusted advisors that can add value to their business–not just sales representatives who are selling them products and services. 
  • 84% of consumers cite good customer service as one of the key factors when buying from a brand. 

Data, Analytics, and Sales

  • 50% of teams leverage data to produce timely, accurate forecasts
  • Sales teams are twice as likely (33%) to prioritize leads based on data analysis of “propensity to buy” rather than on intuition (16%)
  • High-performing sales teams (the top 24% of more than 2,900 sales professionals surveyed) are 1.5 times more likely to base forecasts on data-driven insights
  • Unfortunately, only 46% of sales reps have data insights on customers’ propensity to buy
  • 81% of sales reps believe it is important to have a connected view of data across the entire customer journey
  • High-performing sales teams (the top 20% of more than 3,000 sales professionals surveyed) are 2.8 times more likely than underperforming teams to say their sales organizations have become much more focused on personalizing customer interactions over the past 12–18 months
  • 79% of sales teams currently use or are planning to use sales analytics technology to increase efficiency
  • 76% of sales professionals say using sales analytics has significantly or somewhat improved their ability to provide customers with a consistent experience across every channel
  • 62% of shoppers are more scared of their information being compromised now than they were two years ago.
  • 56% of consumers prefer to buy from companies that consistently release new products and services based on their needs and new technology.
  • Sales market research data reveals that 79% of consumers prefer interacting with salespeople who are trusted advisors that can add value to their business–not just sales representatives who are selling them products and services. 
  • 84% of consumers cite good customer service as one of the key factors when buying from a brand. 

Automation and AI in Sales Technology.

  • According to Salesforce research on enterprise technology trends, 64% of enterprise IT leaders are actively looking for ways to use AI. There is a 95% projected two-year growth for AI. 
  • Revenue intelligence software leverages AI to analyse data and identify opportunities for your sales team based on all customer interactions (no matter if email, phone, or video meetings), analytics, CRM data, and more. Sales Hacker research found that over 60% of all companies with more than ten employees plan to adopt a tool for revenue intelligence
  • Sales reps spend less than 36% of their time actively selling, which means less than 36% of their time talking to customers and moving deals forward.
  • AI is the top growth area for sales teams — its adoption is forecasted to grow 139% over the next three years
  • Triple-digit growth is also expected in areas such as predictive intelligence (118%) and lead-to-cash process automation (115%) in the next three years
  • High-performing sales teams are 2.3 times more likely than underperforming teams to use guided selling.
  • By 2022, 59% of business leaders believe that AI will widely used in sales and marketing. (MIT Technology Review, 2020)
Which Tools Are Most Prevalent in High-Growth Companies' Sales Tech Stacks?  - Marketing Charts

 

This post is part of our Martech stats series, which compiles key data and trends. Others include: