Boost productivity with sales tracking software

What is sales tracking software?

One of your SDRs is ready to make a sale. The lead brings up a concern they’ve mentioned before. Your SDR made a note of this somewhere and is spending valuable time trawling through emails, documents, and spreadsheets, looking for that essential information to handle their objection. Not only did this result in a lost opportunity, but the trust between your SDR and the lead has been damaged. This raises an important question for your business—without timely access to important and relevant information, how can your team build strong relationships, create great customer experiences, and successfully close deals? With sales tracking software, you’ll never have to worry about a scenario like this one again. True to their name, sales trackers help you track and monitor everything that’s going on in your sales process and with your customers. When your team members gain complete visibility into business data, they’ll be able to make better decisions and create a more effective sales strategy. 

Benefits of sales tracking software

1. Contact/customer lifecycle management: A lead can enter your pipeline through various channels: your website, targeted landing pages, etc. Sales tracking software helps centralize customer data from various channels in one place–helping salespeople have more meaningful and contextual conversations with the leads.

2. Clear pipeline visibility: Sales teams can get real-time updates about where each deal stands and what they need to do to close. Teams can also easily identify which deals might need extra attention or support.

3. Boost team productivity: Lead generation and deal pipeline reports reveal reps who may need additional training to meet targets.

4. Forecast revenue better: With access to historic data and current pipeline metrics, businesses can make informed predictions about which deals are likely to close and when. This will let you forecast revenue more accurately, so you can make the right business decisions to accelerate growth.  

5. Identify bottlenecks: Full sales funnel visibility pinpoints areas where deals stagnate. Issues with pricing, negotiation, follow-ups, or response times can be swiftly identified and addressed for increased efficiency.

6. Better collaboration: Sales tracking software facilitates collaboration among sales team members. Tasks, insights, and scheduled reports can be easily shared, making it easier for teams to collaborate on deals.

7. Improve your sales strategy: Sales tracking software provides the data-driven insights you need to refine and optimize your sales strategy. By tracking key metrics like conversion rates, pipeline velocity, and win/loss ratios, you can identify bottlenecks, pinpoint successful tactics, and forecast sales with greater accuracy.

Best practices for sales tracking

• Define key metrics: Consider your sales goals, how your business operates, and your overall business model. Based on these factors, select key metrics such as lead conversion rate, pipeline value, and the number of scheduled demos.

• Establish clear processes and workflows: Break down your sales process into distinct stages, from lead generation to closing. Assign clear ownership to each stage, ensuring everyone knows their role. 

• Make sales data entry easy and accurate: Rely on a centralized system to reduce the risk of error, and accurately track lead and contact information and other details as they move through your sales funnel.

• Analyze, review, and iterate better: Build on your existing processes and workflows as you gain new information. Continuously adjust them to adapt to changing business needs and market conditions.

Top 10 sales tracking software tools

1. Freshsales

Freshsales offers a full range of features to simplify your sales tracking and optimize your entire sales process. Get a complete view of your pipeline with customizable views (table, list, or Kanban board). Get a 360-degree view of the customer and track every interaction across channels in one place. With workflows and sales sequences, you can set up automations to qualify leads, send emails, set up appointments, etc. With Freddy AI, Freshsales’ native AI copilot, you can go after the right leads, craft email copy, and make data-driven decisions. 

2. HubSpot

HubSpot’s sales tracking software consolidates your sales information all in one place. The whole team will have access to key sales info, details about each prospect, and an overall view of your sales pipeline. You can also set appropriate permissions, depending on who needs to access the software. HubSpot is known for its streamlined interface and integrations with other software packages. 

3. Copper

Copper is a sales tracking software that’s focused on client retention and is appropriate for consultants, media agencies, and real estate companies, among others. It enables you to keep relationships in one central location, track deals and pipelines, automate tasks, and easily maintain relationships through email. It also offers integrations with many popular tech tools, including Google Workspace. 

4. Nutshell

Nutshell offers automation features and lets you reach your prospects through emails and custom forms. This all-in-one CRM has capabilities for sales automation, reporting, collaboration, contact management, pipeline management, and more. The company also offers auxiliary services, like digital marketing and email marketing. Nutshell’s sales tracking software makes it easy to centralize customer data, collaborate with your team, automate your workflows, and get free support. 

5. Close

Close is a low-cost sales tracking software that offers automation, outreach, and engagement functionality in a single CRM software. Built by salespeople, the software offers features that are specifically designed for sales reps. It integrates with other popular software like Gmail and Calendly, and offers AI features to help create prospecting lists, meeting agendas, and customer relationship summaries. Close’s AI call assistant automatically transcribes calls, and its rewrite assistant helps with writing emails. 

6. Zendesk Sell

ZenDesk Sell is a sales tracking tool designed for both small businesses and enterprise organizations. With its sales automation features, your sales reps can track leads, manage contacts, analyze sales reports, and streamline your sales strategy. The software helps facilitate communication between departments and determine how valuable leads are. It integrates with many other technologies, and also has intelligent features like queue management, predictive dialer, IVR/Voice recognition, and real-time chat.

7. NetSuite CRM

This cloud-based sales tracking software is used mainly by small and medium-sized businesses. It offers 24/7 support, sales forecasting, and quota management. NetSuite CRM is compatible with most mobile devices, and enables sales reps to access a 360 view of customers, partners, vendors, and prospects. They can also take advantage of capabilities like sales force automation (SFA), customer service management, and marketing automation.

8. Salesforce

One of the big names in sales tracking software, Salesforce offers teams a wide range of tools through their Sales cloud. Their AI-driven CRM solution has solutions to improve seller productivity, engage buyers, and close deals faster to grow revenue. It offers sales engagement, buyer engagement, and sales program capabilities. With sales analytics and revenue intelligence, sales reps can access the insights and forecasts they need to grow sales figures.

9. SalesNOW

This cloud-based CRM is available on both desktop and mobile devices. Its automated, customizable lead management system assigns new leads directly to sales reps. SalesNOW can be integrated with email accounts such as Outlook or Gmail, and offers free online training for fast deployment and implementation. With SalesNOW, sales reps get visibility over the sales pipeline, the ability to track sales activities, sales manager visibility, organization by teams and territories, and forecasts and reports.

10. FreeAgent CRM

FreeAgent CRM is a sales tracking software that also offers tools like drip emails and expense tracking. The tool combines sales and marketing features, with A/B testing and customer segmentation along with prospecting tools and channel management. FreeAgent’s goal is to eliminate repetitive work, streamline selling by email, phone, and text message, and make scheduling meetings faster and easier. A Company Live Feed offers real-time visibility of the sales team’s activities. 

What to look for in sales tracking software

• Pipeline management: Effective sales tracking software provides complete visibility into the sales pipeline. This includes tracking the number of deals at each stage, their value, and the probability of closure.

• Revenue forecasting: Sales tracking software should accurately predict sales performance and revenue based on historical data, enabling effective budgeting and planning for future quarters.

• Sales activity management: Understanding customer engagement is key. Quality software allows easy tracking of calls, emails, meetings, and follow-ups, providing insights into buyer interactions.

• Task management: Sales tracking software should streamline the creation, assignment, and prioritization of sales tasks, ensuring activities remain on track.

• Key metrics: The software should let you track essential metrics most relevant to the business. These might include metrics related to leads, calls, deals, or more granular measures like email responses and bounce rates. 

• AI: Sales tracking software with AI capabilities takes things to the next level. AI can offer valuable insights, help you automate repetitive tasks, identify sales opportunities, and predict future outcomes.   Automation: Ensures that sales reps don’t waste time on repetitive tasks. The software should enable automating tasks, follow-ups, and reminders.  Integrations: To avoid missing important communications, select a sales tracking software that integrates with your email and phone systems. 

Why Freshsales is the best sales tracking software

1. 360-degree view: Personalized customer engagement A 360-degree customer view provides a single, centralized hub for all customer data and interactions. This comprehensive picture—presented in different formats (table, list, or Kanban board)—empowers your sales team to understand each customer's journey fully. Gain essential context for personalized communication, identify upselling opportunities, and proactively address potential issues. Learn more about 360 view

2. Maximize conversions with sales intelligence Freddy AI, Freshsales' AI copilot, analyzes data like demographics and behavior pinpoint the hottest prospects. This saves time and maximizes conversion potential. Additionally, Freddy AI's predictive insights, based on historical data and key deal factors, enable accurate deal closure forecasts. These insights empower you to proactively address potential roadblocks, optimize resource allocation, and achieve your sales targets with greater confidence. Learn more about deal insights

3. Boost productivity with sales activity management Optimize your sales process with sales activity reports and tracking. Plan appointments with customers, get helpful reminders, and track performance. Identify which activities increase conversions, use AI-based suggestions, and create easy-to-read automated reports. With detailed analytics reports, you can get to know which activities are paying off the most, as you monitor email and chat engagement and track sales calls and SMSes. Never miss an activity again and maintain full visibility over your sales process. Learn more about managing sales activities

4. Close more deals with inbuilt call management Access call logs, notes, and recordings to easily communicate with prospects. Keep track of key details, follow up on previous conversations, and improve customer experiences. Analyze the metrics that reflect the efficiency of your sales calls, so you can accurately assess your sales reps’ performance based on the calls they make. Learn more about cloud telephony