What Customers Want -
1999 World Class Sales Awards

Excerpted from the Jan./Feb. 1999 issue
of Selling Power

How Sales Organizations Were Measured

With the goal of identifying the best sales organizations in America, and to ensure objectivity, Selling Power turned to independent sales research and testing company HR Chally to conduct the surveys. Researchers at HR Chally contacted more than 5,600 corporate decision makers to identify the sales organizations that were rated the best by their customers. HR Chally researchers interviewed decision makers ranging from top executives to purchasing agents within client companies. They were asked to rate sales forces on a scale of Poor to Excellent using the following criteria:

The decision makers evaluated more than 5,600 sales organizations and identified the "best in class" sales forces in 15 different market segments. Decision makers identified 134 finalists based on their "overall sales" rating in one of the 15 different market segments. Since some companies operate in several industries, their sales forces were ranked in the industry segment where they were most frequently mentioned.

What Creates Satisfied Customers?

According to more than 15,000 business customers, overall customer satisfaction is determined by four major factors that depend largely on the salesperson:

 

Why Some Industries Are Better At Selling

Each industry seems to create its own standards for sales excellence. Industries that are dominated by a single, major competitor tend to drive ratings down to a lower level. For example, the computer industry ranks 13th and Microsoft has the lowest rating of all companies listed. The perceived effectiveness of a salesperson is not related to the level of compensation or the "prestige" of the product sold. Sales forces in the paper and business forms industry enjoy far higher customer ratings than salespeople in the telecommunications industry.

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