How to set sales KPIs that encourage steady growth

KPIs, or otherwise known as Key Performance Indicators, track the performance of your business as a whole or only in specific areas. These helpful metrics let you know exactly where you need to make changes or improvements to the business or departments. By measuring KPIs, you can set standards of performance for your employees, and measure the success of your goals as a whole by whether or not KPIs are met or exceeded. Keep reading to learn how to set sales KPIs that encourage steady growth.

Match or Beat Competitor Pricing

Paying attention to your competition is vital to beating their prices. One of your KPIs to consider is how often you beat the competition and drive new customers to your store or solidify the relationship you already have with existing patrons.

Beating the competition starts with knowing what their prices actually are. If they’re pretty similar to your own or even a bit lower, you can either lower your own prices or offer a price matching promotion. That way, your customers are always getting the lowest prices and you’re either matching or beating the competition with every purchase.

It’s equally important to pay attention to any sales trends in the industry, in order to stay updated with information regarding industry standards.

Maintaining Good Relationships with Existing Clients

Another important KPI to measure is the relationship you have with existing clients. Maintaining a good reputation with your customers is important for generating loyalty that will turn current customers into lifelong patrons.

Touching base with your customers lets them know you care about their business and are willing to hear their suggestions on how to better serve them. This can be achieved either in person (by interacting with customers on the sales floor or at the point of sale) or by customer feedback surveys.

Surveys make for great customer interaction tools, giving them the chance to provide valuable insight into their spending habits and what they like or dislike about the way you conduct business. The more you know about your customers, the better you can serve them; and a business that serves its customers is more likely to experience growth than one that doesn’t.

Net Promoter Scores

NPS is essentially a measurement of how likely your customer base is to recommend your business to their friends/family. A simple “would you recommend us” survey is a great way to gauge your customer’s NPS. The survey should be on a 0-10 basis, with three levels of recommendation.

With a score of 9-10, these are your promoters or customers who will definitely promote your business to friends and family. It’s important to do your best to keep these customers coming back to your store, as they’ll essentially act as a walking billboard for the business.

A score of 7-8 identifies the customer as a passive, or one who is satisfied with their purchase and the service, but probably isn’t going to go raving about it to mom and dad. This can mean that they feel you’re only about average in service and products, a good indicator it may be time to step up your game.

Finally, anything from 0-6 means your customer is a detractor. This means they were likely not satisfied with the service, and probably won’t be recommending you to any family or friends. It’s important to work with detractors to see exactly what made them so unhappy. Was it customer service? The product? Long lines? Narrowing down the issue is key to resolving is and perhaps regaining those detractors as paying customers.

Track Your New Leads and Conversion Rates

How often are you converting new leads into paying customers? This is one metric that should be constantly monitored. Turning new leads into paying customers, or conversion, is absolutely vital to growing your business. Without new leads, you’ll be stuck with the customer base you already have, which can cause stagnancy and loss of profits.

In order to grow, you need to reach as many potential customers as possible with your marketing efforts and increase your conversion rates. Pay attention to any factors prohibiting leads from converting, and work to address them quickly.

This also includes monitoring your sales personnel to ensure they’re meeting sales and conversion quotas. Your team is your single greatest asset in improving your conversion rates, so tracking their performance becomes more than a duty, it’s a necessity.

Use Your POS System

If you have a modern POS system, you should know that it’s more than just a point of sale. It’s also an incredibly powerful tool for monitoring customer purchases, creating marketing campaigns, and effectively tracking your inventory.

Using your POS system to create custom receipts can also make your marketing efforts more effective, as well as provide a simple, portable information hub for your customers. You can include things like your social media links and phone number, so when customers want to recommend you to their friends and family, all they’ll need is a receipt.

You’ll find a POS system has many tools to increase your awareness and help make your business run more efficiently. You can even set goals for your sales team inside of certain POS software, so you’ll always be aware of which team members are meeting quotas.

Conclusion

Sales KPIs are essential to the growth of your business. Always stay up to date with competitor pricing, keep in touch with customers, and work to increase those conversion rates for steady growth.