You’ve gotten through another days- or weeks-long sales onboarding program with your new sales hires. It feels like it went well, but how can you really know whether it had an impact? Do you know the sales onboarding metrics that will show the impact of the program?
Onboarding is important for introducing new hires to your company and familiarizing them with their roles, teams, daily tasks, tools used, and more. But as happens to even the most experienced sellers, learning so much information in a matter of days is overwhelming — and some information is bound to get lost.
Research shows that over 84% of salespeople forget what they learned in sales onboarding within the first three months.
To really ensure reps are ramped up, ready for the field, and performing at a high level, you’ve got to supplement onboarding with continuous learning and support. These onboarding success metrics help you gauge your team’s performance and provide a more straightforward path on how you can guide them to improve throughout their tenure.
Top sales onboarding metrics
Knowledge retention
Sales reps must retain important information about your company and products in order to properly engage buyers. You can measure retention by providing quizzes and certifications. The best way to help sellers stay up-to-date is with learning reinforcement through virtual micro-learning, videos, recorded role-plays, and simulated sales scenarios. Once you understand where each individual rep stacks up, you can provide personalized learning paths that address any gaps.
Ramp-up time
Also known as time to productivity, ramp-up time refers to the length of time from a new hire’s first day to the day they reach full productivity. This “full productivity” means the rep is embedded in the company culture, can effectively communicate product value, and optimizes use of your tech stack. A shorter average ramp-up time indicates that onboarding has been successful in building skills, knowledge, and behaviors.
Technology adoption
Part of sales onboarding metrics is SaaS onboarding metrics. Sellers use a laundry list of tools to perform their daily responsibilities, so adoption is key in helping them succeed. Make sure your onboarding program includes a thorough review of SaaS applications. If new hires are slow to adopt them, they are either not confident in how to use it (meaning you’ve got some work to do with onboarding) or don’t find it useful for their job (meaning it’s time to reevaluate your tech stack).
Employee satisfaction
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, is ensuring your new hires feel supported and empowered from their onboarding program. People aren’t shy to leave a job if they don’t feel like they’re set up for success from day one. In fact, employees who had a negative new hire onboarding experience are twice as likely to leave a job than those who had a positive experience. Save money and hold on to your salespeople by offering a post-onboarding survey, and make changes based on their feedback.
Time to refresh your onboarding program? Here’s a sales onboarding checklist to help you get started on creating a measurable, effective, scalable program.
By Helen Waite
By Rahul Mathew