The hit rate is a metric of business performance associated withsales. It is the number of connected contacts as a percentage of the number ofattempts. It is defined in terms of the number of sales of a product divided bythe number of customers who visit e-commerce websites, call, or visit a companyto find more about the product. The hit rate is used todescribe the success rate of an effort. Hit rates are easy to figure out. Take,for instance, a call center agent makes around 30 calls every day and has morethan 30 opportunities or prospects each day. The agents will likely sell outhis product to a specific number of those prospects.
The hit rate is based on a sales funnel measuring the number ofsales prospects that you have at different stages of the sales pipeline. Thesales hit ratio is the number of sales you make as a percentage of the numberof prospects you have identified.
Hit rate formula:
Number of sales/Numberof prospects x 100
The higher the hit rate, the better the salesperson is at makingsales. The lower the hit rate, the fewer sales will get closed by thesalesperson. After knowing the number of sales in your quota, you can easilydetermine the number of qualified prospects that are in your pipeline. The hitrate may be measured for the whole sales force or by sales region, salesperson,or product group. It may be used to benchmark the different sales periods andto benchmark the effectiveness of the own sales force with other companies ofthe same sector.
For any business, it is quite easy to track the hit rate. And,you must track hit rates for trending purposes if you aren’t already. But ifyou intend on knowing how you are doing and what workload is coming into yourbacklog, you should monitor the conversion rate as well. It is a more accurateway of measuring marketing success and finding the marketing strategy that willyield higher returns on investment for your company.
If you attempt to compare your stats against other firms, youwill have difficulty selecting which data to include in your hitrate/conversion rate. To do that, make sure you track and compare bothyear-to-year and quarter-to-quarter.
You should also track project trends at least quarterly, if notmore frequently, so you can determine if you lose or win in certain types ofprojects regularly. If necessary, take corrective action.
How can you increasethe hit rate?
If you want to increase the hit rate, here are some ways to doit:
- Do not waste time on customer deals that have less scope of turning into success and focus on the opportunities with the highest rate of conversion.
- Customer representatives must not waste the customers' time. Instead, they must invest time in building customer’s trust.
- Work on your coaching abilities and identify your strengths and weaknesses as perceived by the customer.
- Invest in maximizing your coaching abilities.
Keep all these factors in mind and improve the hit rate of yourbusiness in a short period.
