I'm sick of the weekly activity sync bs. Having to log fake calls because my customers don't want to speak on the phone. It's exhausting. I have 30 large customers and if I had to properly follow the metric I'd be constantly calling them to talk about what we don't have or can't sell. Right now they want to know how much will it cost today and how fast can I get it. Is it the same in EMEA & APJ or just mothership bs???
9 replies (most recent on top)
create a fake contact with @yourcustomer.com mail address (check if it bounces back!). Then create 2-3 daily "sync" calls and put them on a daily recurrence. you will reach your number automatically and nobody will bother you anymore.
@pj I rather like the manual tracking. Turleaday-Friday I do 2-4 hours of work then log 10 hours and call it a day.
@c1 Tech support agents also have to manually track their activities when they aren't automatically captured by inbound/outbound calls or chat sessions. It's absurd—you have to calculate your own time just to meet KPI metrics for hours worked. Some people even report over 100% productivity, even though they’re just working their normal daily shifts! lol.
Not in sales but I remember when I was in the Pro Support division in 2017, one of our metrics was basically harassing the customers lol.
They call in on day 1. You resolve issue. They be happy as a camper! They move on with life and Dell support is in the past, thank god for them!
Day 2. You email them making sure they are still happy and have no further issues - no response? Well then you better GD email them every day for a week until they respond!
If they dont respond in that week then you better pick that phone up and CALL THEM!
I got PIP'd because I refused to harass customers that I helped fix issues with.
💯
Replying to a mail... log a trip. Sending a quote... log a trip. Partner asks about a deal reg... log a trip. Thats the pointless metric driven dance we all have to do now.
APJ biz dev here. It's the same thing. Unlike AEs who hold accounts, we don't have accounts to call. Our leaders have pushed back to no avail, because someone at Level 2 says we must do it.
What do we do? I've heard co-workers log trip reports from water cooler conversations. If it's some planning for some customer, or quotes done for an opportunity, I just log it.
There used to be guardrails on what qualifies as a trip and what qualifies as a task. Those are totally irrelevant now.
Across the board, no sales function appears exempt from the KPI requirements.
The activity-based metrics are counterproductive and disconnected from the actual time needed to manage the rest of the sales cycle. That includes planning, preparation, coordinating materials, presentations, and follow-up meetings after an initial call—all of which often require significantly more time than the customer interaction itself.
When combined with compensation plan changes and return-to-office mandates, this reflects a deeply flawed approach to running a healthy sales organisation.
It's the same everywhere, since leadership is clueless.
Setting the same KPI values across all segments, expecting 15 calls a week regardless of the portfolio (enterprise reps with a bunch of accounts or SB reps who often have over a thousand of customers assigned) is a clear indicator of how pointless such KPIs are.