How to Analyze Sales Call Recordings to Uncover Valuable Customer Feedback

A call recording bot makes its way into almost every sales call and meeting these days.

But how do you actually use those recordings?

Sharing calls with other teams is an invaluable way to get insights from customers and prospects that might otherwise be lost. 

Our research from the 2023 State of Sales Productivity Report found that the average conversation intelligence user shared 14 calls per month and left four comments on calls per month to transfer knowledge to teammates.

Average number of calls shared internally

0
per month

It’s critical to know the “why” behind the customer’s decision. Did sellers fail to articulate the value of your solution? Did the messaging miss the mark? Was another vendor’s pricing more competitive? Did the seller lack the competitive intelligence to adequately address the customer’s questions or objections?

Not understanding the wants, needs, concerns, and expectations of buyers, and lacking insight into the customer experience during sales calls, can have dire consequences to your business including:

  • Deals are lost to better-prepared competitors
  • Key business initiatives – competitive and market strategies, sales methodologies, etc. – fail too frequently
  • Best practices are difficult to identify, share, or replicate
  • Outdated messaging affects deal outcomes
  • Fewer reps make quota
  • Churn increases
  • Your company misses revenue targets

Call recordings reveal the “why” behind customer decisions

Using conversation intelligence and call recording tools, sales organizations can automatically capture and transcribe live sales conversations to reveal the “why” behind wins and losses. Your sales managers get access to invaluable insights about your customers and their interactions with your sales teams so you can better understand:

  • How customers perceive your brand
  • What they think about your solution and its value
  • How they view the competition
  • What objections they have
  • Why a deal may be in jeopardy
  • What more they expect from your company

AI-driven analysis of sales call recordings can reveal a seller’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as trends such as the talk-to-listen ratio, the frequency of objections or how often customers mention a specific competitor across all calls. Your sales managers can identify areas for improvement by digging into high points or shortcomings during conversations. They can understand the topics and themes discussed and the overall impact of the interaction.

Then, using these data-driven insights, your managers can diagnose conversations, identify personalized sales coaching opportunities, implement best practices across your teams, and ensure sales methodologies and training align with the needs and expectations of the buyers in your market.

How to create a customer feedback loop to improve your go-to-market strategy

Analyzing call recordings can deliver actionable insights that extend across the organization. To ensure ongoing alignment and to optimize your organization’s go-to-market strategy, you can use call recordings to establish a strong feedback loop across sales, customer success, and marketing.

Most sellers want feedback on their performance but are hesitant to ask for it. On top of that, most feedback from sales managers is anecdotal and not based on any objective assessment. An effective feedback loop incorporates insights from call recordings and enables managers to identify and close gaps in knowledge and skills.

Managers can provide direct feedback to individual sellers by commenting on specific recording snippets – offering critiques, comments, or advice. Using insights gleaned from call recordings, managers can recommend or request specific coaching and training opportunities to address competency or skill gaps and then continue to analyze future customer calls to gauge performance improvements. 

The majority of sellers want to know your top rep’s secret sauce. They’re seeking inspiration and guidance on creative ways to position and address questions. Using call recordings, managers can share best practices from key snippets to motivate sellers and inform ongoing training. For example, during sales onboarding, new hires can review recordings and snippets from the best sales conversations and then practice through role-play so managers or other team members can offer qualitative and quantitative feedback submitted by new sales reps.

Call recordings can ensure nothing gets lost in translation between sellers and customer success teams. Sellers can share account history, information, and updates to execute a seamless handoff. Customer success teams can share recordings, snippets, and information with sellers if they identify new issues or opportunities within an account.

Call recordings give marketing direct insight into the voice of the customer, providing an insider’s view of buyer pain points and challenges. Marketing teams can team create, campaigns and messaging that speak directly to customer needs. Call recordings may uncover that current positioning is not resonating with customers or differentiated enough from the competition.

Customers are telling you what they think; you just need to listen

Some leaders might be unsure about call recordings because they don’t want to come across as intrusive. The value of analyzing call recordings isn’t to spy on buyers or sellers, but to reveal direct, actionable insights into the buyers in your market – their wants, needs, perceptions, and objections.

It’s also important to keep in mind that the most successful reps have a growth mindset. They don’t let embarrassment or insecurity get in the way of their professional growth. Call recordings help identify sellers’ strengths and weaknesses so managers can give them advice, feedback, training, and tools to help them be more successful. 

Call recordings help pinpoint what’s working and what’s not, establishing a continuous feedback loop between sales, customer success, and marketing to ensure ongoing visibility and enable continuous improvement. Using insights gleaned from the voice of your own customers gives your organization a significant competitive edge:

  • Sellers are empowered to win against more poorly prepared competitors
  • Key business initiatives are far more likely to succeed because they’re informed by critical field-based evidence
  • Best practices are easy to identify, share and replicate
  • Marketing can craft messaging that aligns buyer needs
  • More sellers will make or exceed quota
  • Your organization will meet or exceed revenue targets

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This post was originally published in May 2021, updated in July 2023, and again in January 2024.