The Sales team is predominantly responsible for driving the business for any organization. A salesperson not only sells a product but is also seen as a representative of a business. Be it selling IT products, FMCG, or consumer durables, a talented salesperson can generate new leads and bring in money for the company. This happens when he or she has an in-depth understanding of customer behaviour, market trends, market types and more. Recruiting and selecting 'right' sales talent is important for success. An online sales aptitude program can help you identify the best qualities, desirable sales skills, and behaviour pattern of candidates and generate these as a report for evaluation. This report helps recruiters to quickly assess multiple criteria and decide on shortlisting the candidate for the next round of recruitment.
Essential Sales Skills for Building Customer Relationship
Companies can improve sales performance by hiring a salesperson who is open to learning and developing new skills to achieve sales success. A sales representative not only interacts with customers but also understands their needs. They use critical thinking and problem-solving abilities to render solutions through the products they sell. Be it direct selling by visiting clients or cold calling from the office, some of the essential functions a salesperson must be able to do are:
- Gather information on the products they sell
- Understand more about the attributes that a customer is looking for and share it with the internal stakeholders
- Communicate with customers directly or through email/phone or other channels to provide knowledgeable product or service-related suggestions/recommendations
- Engage with clients and make an excellent positive impression
- Sell products through storytelling and make customers aware of new products they may need
- Forecast and complete a sales target within the prescribed time period
- Proactively attend to problem-solving by addressing customer queries and concerns
- Use critical thinking to resolve concerns and help customers get more benefit from their purchase
- Negotiate to create a positive experience for both customer and the business
- Nurture client relationship by helping customers find the right product and instil faith in their purchase
Applications of Sales Skill Tests
In the competitive landscape, it is tough for businesses to stay relevant in the market without a motivated and result driven sales team. The impact of increased sales is seen as increased revenue and more business. So, companies are investing in online sales assessment tests that evaluate sales skills in various scenarios. The assessment test for sales position also help examine in detail:
- Suggestive or cross selling abilities
- Client engagement and nurturing abilities
- Critical thinking and problem-solving abilities
- Knowledge and application of new and emerging sales practices
- Ability to convert prospective customers to paying consumers
- Personality, motivation factors, mental abilities and social skills
MeritTrac Platforms for Sales Skill Tests
MeritTrac, a scientifically designed assessment platform, that has over 360 validated tests for assessment at its disposal. It generates fast, accurate, and equated test results while providing detailed analytics. MeritTrac's services have been used to assess more than 40 million candidates worldwide.
MeritTrac offers online sales skills tests services, which can help recruiters hire a salesperson with the right skills and desirable personality traits. These tests contain self-report multiple choice questions, fill in the blanks, descriptive questions, true or false, and other objective type questions. The sales assessment test results help employers to exclusively focus on candidates with a high score and the best abilities. Pariksha and SmartTest are two of the most popular platforms offered by MeritTrac for online sales assessment test.
Pariksha
Pariksha gives administrators the freedom to author, design, and schedule sales skill tests.
Top features of Pariksha:
- Efficiently filters desirable traits in candidates
- Limits guesswork while hiring right-fit candidates
- Online access and remote invigilation to avoid unsupervised tests
- Delivers tests on web-enabled devices
- Supports Windows and Linux platforms
SmartTest
SmartTest works in three steps.
Step 1: catalogue section
Step 2: candidate mapping
Step 3: test delivery.
Top features of SmartTest are:
- Customise competency-based automated assessments
- Plug and play on multiple devices and platforms
- Smooth and secure assessment and test delivery
- Performance benchmarking with candidate assessment analytics
FAQ
FAQ
1. What is sales skill test?
A. The reports obtained from a sales skill test can help evaluate a candidate’s business to consumer and business to business selling abilities. It also throws light on psychological factors and related behaviours. Most importantly, the evaluation report provides accurate information about the natural sales skills of a candidate and helps recruiters hire the most talented ones. Employers can use a customised assessment sales skill test to add requirements relevant to their organisation or a specific domain.
2. Why are sales skill tests used for recruiting and training?
A. Sales skill assessment test help to find any discrepancies in a candidate's actual behaviour and the behaviour exhibited during a face-to-face interview. It is done by analysing the answers provided by a candidate in response to environmental and psychological factors raised in the questions. These tests are commonly used while hiring for sales representatives and sales manager roles. Additionally, the online sales assessment test can also be used to evaluate the skills of current employees from time to time. Such an analysis can be helpful for building new training programs and for promoting top performers to sales manager or other leadership roles.
3. What are the sales skill tests used in recruitment?
A. The test for sales executive features a mix of theory and practical knowledge questions and cover sales-related topics such as opening, presenting, negotiating, overcoming objections, and deal closing skills. The questions are presented as descriptive, fill in the blanks, true or false and in other formats.
4. What are the USPs of MeritTrac sales skill tests?
- Create, organise and define assessments
- Create an exam schedule and deliver question papers
- Remote proctoring facilities
- Supports multiple devices and platforms
5. What are the skills assessed in a sales assessment test?
The sales assessment tests can be designed to evaluate a candidate’s personal attributes, interpersonal skills, sales aptitude and work management style. The test can also be customised as per specific job profile requirements.