Effective sales team procedures set out how a deal is handled: who is responsible for the customer, what they do, by when and who they turn to if they run into difficulty. They allow the owner to require a consistent way of working without giving personal instructions for every enquiry. For this, the document needs rules for everyday work, permitted exceptions and the actions the head of sales takes when a rule is broken.
If the procedures are already written but employees bypass them, it is too early to add more prohibitions. First, find out exactly what they are bypassing. Was a call missed because the salesperson forgot, because the buyer asked for another date or because the salesperson was assigned a meeting and calls at the same time? In the report, it all looks the same: an action was not completed on time. The solutions will differ.
The owner is buying an orderly way of working when they commission procedures. But alongside the document, they should receive a way to distinguish an unmet requirement from a requirement that gets in the way of work. Without this, the head of sales either turns a blind eye to everything or makes the team follow every point, even against an agreement with the buyer.
Sales team operating procedures
Sales team operating procedures describe recurring actions from receiving an enquiry to handing over an order and contacting the buyer afterwards. For each rule, specify the event, the person responsible, the action, the deadline, confirmation of the result and the process for departing from the usual path.
A job description sets out a person's responsibilities. Procedures connect the actions of several people in one sale: the salesperson receives an enquiry, a specialist prepares a calculation, and the head of sales approves the terms. A script helps with a particular conversation. Combining everything in one file is technically straightforward, but finding the right solution in that file is inconvenient.
Base your first set of procedures on where losses keep recurring. New enquiries are going missing — describe how they are received and assigned. Disputes about what was promised begin after payment — describe the order handover. A department without a common sales process will need a broader document, but it will still have to be introduced one action at a time.
The head of sales is responsible for the content. They agree deadlines for other departments' work with the heads of those departments. The owner approves decisions that affect costs, terms of sale and the company's obligations. Writing on the warehouse's behalf that dispatch takes one day does not mean the warehouse has agreed.
Sales team procedures template
The sales team procedures template below contains the main rules for a department that receives enquiries and works with customers through to an order. It can be transferred to a working document; before putting it into use, the team must agree its own deadlines, roles and way of keeping records.
Purpose and current version
The procedures apply to incoming enquiries and deals in the sales department. The head of sales is responsible for adherence and updates. The current version is available through one shared link; its effective date and a list of the latest changes appear at the beginning. Previous versions are kept in an archive. Employees consult the current version when making a new decision about a deal.
Receiving an enquiry
Every enquiry is recorded in the CRM system with its source, arrival time and the salesperson responsible. Before creating a new record, the employee searches for the customer by phone number or another available contact detail. A repeat enquiry is added to the existing history. The head of sales resolves any dispute over who is responsible for the customer; until a decision is made, the assigned employee responds to the customer, so the enquiry is not left without anyone responsible.
Contact and deal progress
The salesperson establishes what the buyer needs, their selection criteria and when they will decide. After the conversation, they record confirmed agreements and the next action with a deadline. They change the deal stage after the event specified in the sales funnel description. An email sent, a proposal agreed and an order paid for are recorded separately. If the customer does not respond, the contact attempt is saved in the record without marking a discussion as having taken place.
Proposal and terms of sale
The salesperson prepares a proposal using current prices and the agreed contents of the order. They refer a discount, deferred payment or other changes to the terms to the person the company has authorised to approve them. The decision and the person who made it remain in the record. The person responsible for fulfilling the order confirms the promised completion date. Until this is confirmed, the salesperson tells the customer when they will return with an answer.
Order handover
The salesperson passes the contents of the order, agreed terms, deadline and special agreements with the buyer to the person fulfilling the order. The receiving employee confirms receipt and identifies any missing information. Until confirmation, the salesperson is responsible for arranging the handover. If the order is not accepted, the head of sales investigates the reason with the head of the receiving department; the customer gets an update from their salesperson.
Rejection and follow-up
When closing a deal without a sale, the salesperson records the known reason and the source of that information. A lack of response is recorded separately from an outright refusal. If a purchase is postponed, the date given by the customer and the agreement about contact are kept. For a repeat order, a person is assigned responsibility and an event is specified after which they contact the buyer. If repeat purchases are not typical for the product, this point is removed.
Exceptions and employee absence
Permitted departures are listed alongside the relevant rule. In other cases, the salesperson contacts the head of sales before missing the deadline; the head of sales records the reason, the chosen action and the date it will be carried out. Decisions beyond the head of sales' authority are passed to a manager authorised to make them. When a salesperson is absent, the head of sales appoints a replacement and hands over the tasks that will fall due during the absence.
Monitoring and revision
The head of sales reviews overdue actions and unassigned enquiries every day. They examine recurring departures separately to see whether the employee needs training, the department needs resources or the rule itself needs changing. The revised version includes its effective date and explains what employees will do differently. The head of sales tells the team about the change and removes the old instructions from active use.
This template deliberately leaves out universal targets for call volumes and response times. These must be set before putting the document into use, based on working hours, the flow of enquiries and how long tasks take. The phrase “within the working day” also needs clarification: which time zone applies and what happens to enquiries after the department closes.
Sales team procedures example
A sales team procedures example for follow-up contact needs to distinguish between no response and a pause agreed with the buyer. Below is ready-to-use wording for one rule: it can be used in a department where proposals are discussed with customers over the phone.
Discussing a proposal after sending it
- After sending a proposal, the salesperson records the time it was sent in CRM and schedules contact for the next working day during the department's working hours.
- If the buyer has given another date, the salesperson schedules contact for that date and saves the customer's message or a link to the conversation. Separate permission from the head of sales is not required for this change of date.
- If the customer does not respond, the salesperson records the attempt and repeats it on the next working day. After two attempts without a response, the head of sales chooses the next action and deadline, taking the customer's history into account. The status “proposal discussed” is not set.
- If the employee cannot make contact on the scheduled day, they tell the head of sales before the end of their working hours. The head of sales assigns a replacement or agrees a new action and records the reason.
- The head of sales receives a list of overdue contacts every day. Task completion is confirmed by the action actually taken; changing the date does not remove information about the original deadline.
Here, the next working day and two attempts are a proposed approach that the department accepts or replaces with its own before putting the rule into use. This is not a standard for every sale. A customer buying a complex project will need time to discuss it with colleagues; a request to call on a specific date already gives the salesperson a clear reason to wait.
This rule leaves the salesperson free to agree a time and preserves control. A change of date made without permission and a customer's request can now be distinguished by a call recording or message. The head of sales does not have to guess the salesperson's intentions.
Why are procedures not followed?
Procedures are not followed when a requirement is unclear, impossible to carry out, conflicts with other instructions or nobody checks whether it is being met. An employee breaking a clear, workable rule is a separate matter: it must not be confused with flaws in the procedures themselves.
For the review, the head of sales brings the owner a confirmed cause and a proposed solution. The table helps choose an action without the blanket verdict “we have no discipline”.
| What the events show | What to find out | What decision is needed |
|---|---|---|
| Salespeople understand the word “handle” differently | What result each person considers completion | Specify the exact action and how it is confirmed |
| Missed deadlines coincide with meetings assigned to the same people | Whether the tasks fit into working hours | Schedule them at different times or redistribute the work |
| The salesperson is waiting for another department to respond | Whether the deadline was agreed with that department | Agree the handover and who is responsible on each side |
| The head of sales regularly permits the same departure from the rule | How these deals differ from the others | Add a separate rule for this group |
| The employee knows the requirement and how to meet it but repeatedly fails to carry it out | What the head of sales did after the previous breach | Review how the rule was followed and make a decision about the employee |
Another trap is requiring one thing in the document and rewarding another. If the salesperson gets credit for proposals sent, while the procedures require them to establish the need before sending, the head of sales must take the quality of preparation into account. Otherwise, the salesperson benefits more from sending the file quickly and having the work marked as done.
Adding a mandatory field will not resolve this conflict. How records start serving a report instead of a sale is covered in a separate analysis of how a head of sales works with CRM data.
How do you introduce procedures and see whether they are followed?
Introduce the procedures in five steps: identify the loss, agree workable rules, prepare the tools for the job, train the team and start tracking whether the rules are followed. You can tell implementation is complete when employees apply the procedures without prompting and the head of sales distinguishes between the reasons for departures from them.
- Choose the loss. The head of sales gathers facts about one area: enquiries left unanswered, proposals not discussed, orders handed over without terms. The owner decides which loss to eliminate first.
- Agree the rule with those who will carry it out. Go through a normal case, an employee's absence and dependence on another department. Each scenario needs an action and a deadline.
- Prepare the place of work. Set up the necessary task or field in CRM and give employees access. Remove duplicate entry if the same information is required in a record and a separate table for the same purpose.
- Show how to apply it. The employee finds the relevant point independently and carries out the action in their CRM. Reciting the document from memory does not achieve this.
- Start with one area. Set a start date and the first observation period, for example five working days for daily contacts. Resolve any contradictions you find before extending this to the whole department.
The owner needs a short summary of the chosen rule: how many times it was needed, how many times it was followed, how many permitted departures there were and how many breaches. Missing data is shown on a separate line; it cannot automatically be counted as either following the rule or breaking it.
Calculate two measures separately. For the compliance rate, divide the number of requirements met by the number of cases where the normal procedure applied. For the exception rate, divide the number of agreed departures by the total number of cases in which the rule was applied. Count only reasons covered by the document or agreed before the departure; approval given afterwards hides a breach.
For example, of 40 scheduled contacts, the required action was completed for 30, eight were moved at the customer's confirmed request, and two were missed without a valid reason. Compliance with the normal procedure: 30 ÷ (40 − 8) × 100 = 93.75%. Exception rate: 8 ÷ 40 × 100 = 20%. The figure 30 ÷ 40 = 75% would mix breaches with keeping agreements to use a different date.
Eight exceptions need a separate look: are these different requests from buyers or one recurring type of deal? In the latter case, the head of sales proposes a separate rule for it. Otherwise, the head of sales will endlessly approve something the company already knows how to describe in advance.
What should you do if everything depends on you again after the procedures are written?
If the owner personally reminds everyone of every deadline and approves every departure, the department needs someone to handle day-to-day management. The existing head of sales needs time and authority to do this; if the work is handed over to an external team, it must include introducing the rules and ensuring they continue to be followed.
At RENTROP, building a sales system is part of the “turnkey sales management” product: in three months, our head of sales puts in place a sales plan, a sales funnel, scripts, procedures, recruitment and monitoring. After building the system, they continue to manage the department according to these rules.
The owner also has reason to be concerned when the head of sales reports: all departures from the rules have been agreed, there are no issues. If the same thing has to be approved every day, the issues remain — the head of sales is simply resolving them over and over again. Revising that point frees up their time for deals where a solution really does still need to be found.