How do I use Customer Data to Assess the Performance of Sales People?

We recently did some Customer Analysis work for a client who is in the kitchen and bathroom retail sector.  This analysis provided some unexpected results and resulted in an application for our systems that we had not previously considered.  As with our normal practice for conducting customer analysis, our client gave us the postcodes of all of their clients.  In addition, they gave us the postcodes of all of the customer visits that their sales people made.

As part of our normal Customer Analysis process we plot the postcodes provided by our clients on a map.  In this case we potted both the enquiries (yellow dots) and sales (red dots).

Looking at the map (click on it to see large version) we soon realised that there was a pattern to the information that was plotted.  Some areas show that the sales vs enquiries are better than 50/50 while in other areas (such as East Kilbride and Newton Mearns) the ratio of sales to enquires is much less then 50/50.

This suggests that either the enquiries that are being received from these areas are of lesser quality or the sales people responsible for these areas are not performing as well as others.  The analysis of the data (click on data sheet on the right) shows that there is very little difference between the percentage of the sales and enquiries in each demographic category which suggests that the issue may be with the sales people.

The results table also shows how the customers and enquiries are split demographically with Types 12 and 44 at the top and Categories B, H and A being the highest.

The client can use this information in a number of ways, the most including, and most importantly, informing their marketing activities.  In addition it can help with new product and service development, as well as improving customer service.