How to Track Sales Activities (Calls, Tasks, Appointments)
Learning Objectives
At the end of this lesson you will know how to….
Enter your conversations with customers into Thynk
Enter future tasks and reminders so you can follow up accordingly
Enter appointments for face to face call or client lunch, or a site visit
Benefits of Tracking your Sales Activities in Thynk
As a sales person, much of your day is spent talking with customers, whether it’s trying to find new customers during prospecting calls, servicing your existing bookings, or booking future business.
To help you keep track of all your sales activities, you should enter everything into Thynk. There are so many benefits to this:
It reminds you of tasks you need to follow up on.
Reminds you of what your past conversations have been.
Helps your sales directors see what sales activities you are engaging in.
It allows you to also change the dates on future tasks if you are going on leave or attending a tradeshow, without having to miss a call.
If you’re out on leave, and another team member needs to follow up with a specific customer on your behalf, they can read all the calls, so they can pick up from where you left.
Many of our customers say, ‘If it’s not in Thynk, it doesn't exist’!
‘Activities’ can be created from an Account, Contact, Inquiry, or Booking.
There are 3 types of Activities in Thynk
Calls - phone calls you have had with your customer
Appointments - face to face appointments
Tasks - future tasks, e.g. call to discuss a BEO, call to chase for a decision, etc.
Note: If you are creating an activity specially about a piece of business, we recommend you link the activity to the booking, which will then keep all your booking related traces and calls together under the booking. The activity is linked to the booking automatically, if you open the booking first and create the activity there.
Activities can be created by you, or they can be assigned to you by another user, or by a workflow set up by your administrator. Activities are displayed either on the Home Page or on specific records, such as an Account, Contact or Booking.
An administrator can create automated activities for Sales Managers such as follow up calls, reminders to send proposals and contracts, or to check on a deposit.
Logging a Call
When you’re talking with your customer, whether it’s on the phone, or remotely via online conferencing, or in person during a visit, you should make note of what you have discussed, for the simple reason that you and your team can go back to those conversations if needed. If you’re on leave and your colleague has to help with the booking in your absence, they can refer back to what you discussed last, enabling them to have a professional conversation with the right results.
A ‘call’ is a conversation that took place in the past. [Tasks are tasks to be completed in the future.]
To log a call activity, follow these steps:
In this example, we are creating a booking activity. Search the booking and click into it.
Click on the ‘Activity’ tab.
You will see three tabs: New Task, New Event, Log a Call, Email.
To type in a conversation you have had with the customer in the past, or just now, click on ‘Log a Call’ and a window opens. Type in a basic description into the ‘Subject’ line or choose one of the values on the drop down list.
Enter the comments - enter in as much as you like here. The more information, the better of course, but make sure it’s valuable information.
Because you created the ‘log of call’ from the booking, the booking name already appears in the ‘Related to’ field.
Click on ‘Save’.
After you have saved it, you will see the activity appear on the list below, under ‘Upcoming & Overdue’.
Entering Future Appointments
Face to face appointments are also important to track. This is also done in ‘Activities’. You can add an appointment in various different places, accounts, contacts, inquiry, booking. If the appointment is about a specific booking, it’s a good idea to create it there.
If you have an email/calendar integration, your appointments in your calendar can show in Thynk as calendar events.
Again, in this example, we will start it in the booking by opening the booking.
Click on the ‘Activities’ tab.
Click on ‘New Event’.
Enter into the’ Subject’ field the reason for the appointment - e.g. lunch to discuss upcoming event. If you have a drop down list of activity types, you should select one of these.
In the ‘Description’ field you can type in what you need to do in preparation for the appointment, e.g. do you need a certain meeting room set up already, or show them specific function rooms, or anything else you need to showcase the client when on site.
Enter the start and end date and times.
Enter the contact, and the ‘related to’ will already show the booking because we started this in the booking.
Click on ‘Save’.
After you have saved it, you will see the activity appear on the list below, under ‘Upcoming & Overdue’.
Creating a Future Task
Future tasks and reminders act as a reminder for you to chase a customer, or make prospecting calls. They also show your leadership that you are engaging in a lot of sales activities.
You have just learned how to log your past calls and future appointments. As before, you can create a future task on the account, contact, inquiry or booking. If the future task is about a specific booking, make sure to either create it from the booking, or ‘relate’ it to the booking.
To add a future trace/task, follow these steps:
In our example, we want a task in the booking, so we find the booking (or you may still be in it, as you have just entered a log of call, but now want to add a future follow up task).
Click on the ‘Activities’ tab and then click on ‘New Task’.
Enter information into the ‘Subject’ line or select one from the drop down list. You should always be more specific than just selecting ‘call’. For instance, if the trace is to call about the BEO, you can type in Call - to discuss BEO. If there is a predefined drop down list, please select one of the items that appear.
Select a date for your future trace in the ‘Due Date’ field.
The ‘Assigned to’ field defaults to show your name. If you need to set a trace for someone else you can do this here as well, but in most cases, users will set their own traces/tasks.
Enter the name of the contact.
The ‘Related to’ field will already show the booking name, because you are creating this task from the booking.
Enter the comments (reminder of what you want to talk about) and finally ‘Save’.
Again, when you save, you will see the future task on the list below, under ‘Upcoming & Overdue’.
Marking a Task as ‘Completed’
When you have completed a task, you should go back and mark it ‘Completed’ otherwise it will appear as an overdue task. You will mark the task as done, by following these very simple steps:
Find the activity and click into it.
Scroll down to ‘Additional Information’ and click on the pencil icon.
In the ‘Status’ field, select ‘Completed’, and enter into the ‘Comments’ field what you discussed. This is important because it will remind you of your conversations and any decisions you have made with the customer.
And lastly, ‘Save’.
Best Practices for Tracking your Sales Activities
Enter all sales activities into Thynk!
Make sure to mark your tasks as ‘completed’ as you do them, and enter into the ‘Comments’ field what you discussed. This is important because it will remind you of your conversations and any decisions you have made with the customer.
Always, be as thorough as possible, which will help you and your colleagues if you are out of the office and they need to cover for you by talking with your customer.
Some hotels may set targets for prospecting calls, and your leadership may review how many prospecting calls you are making and compare them to your targets.
Tracking all sales activities in Thynk gives you a method of pacing yourself and tracking those prospecting calls
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