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Do you log every call / email? Why/why not?

Adam Frank
2 minute read time

A customer asked me the other day about getting their work mobile to automatically log every inbound and outbound call to Sugar. I explained how the native apps worked - they prompt the user to log a call after you dial that person, and the view automatically prefills date/time and then you can use dictation to get your notes in. 

But.. that wasn't good enough. They wanted every inbound and outbound call to be automatically logged.

I dug into this topic - "Why?"

"Because that's how I'm measured."

"But why?"

"Because management believe that unless I'm doing a certain number of calls/day, I'm not doing my job/working hard enough."

This customer is not alone. I regularly hear managers asking about automatic call logging, automatic email archiving - all from a view of "if we get it all in there, we know our team is doing their job properly!". I have two comments on this matter:

1. Does management care about output or input?

It should not matter whether you made 1 call, or 4 calls to a prospect. What should be important is whether you advanced the conversation. Has the deal moved down the funnel? That's what counts. With that in mind, that is what should get logged - the calls that make an impact.

2. What does the next person need to do their job well?

Another argument for automated logging of everything is that if staff is away (or leaves), everyone has a history of what has happened. However, having 20 emails with the same subject, to agree a date for a meeting, does not help the next person work out what is going on in the account. I'm a fan of good naming conventions for your activities - so that when someone does look at a customer's history, they can put together the narrative quickly and efficiently.

In summary - I vote no to logging every call/email. I believe common sense ought to be exercised to identify key conversations/emails, and for those to be the ones that get logged. However, there does not have to be a right/wrong here - we all have opinions based upon your experience.

So - what is your take?


Parents

  • This might slightly depend on roles within a company.

    As a BDR, I do see some benefit of calls being logged automatically.

    1. Quantity reduces risk. In other words, getting your (likely inexperienced) BDR team to make many calls will allow them to not get every call right. And If they´re making many calls, you can save 1-2 clicks by auto-logging.

    2. Trust. Now, you can let your BDR team tell you what they did. And manage trust. But that´s a lot of pressure, on both sides. Or you can let them show you what they did. And build trust from there. 

Comment

  • This might slightly depend on roles within a company.

    As a BDR, I do see some benefit of calls being logged automatically.

    1. Quantity reduces risk. In other words, getting your (likely inexperienced) BDR team to make many calls will allow them to not get every call right. And If they´re making many calls, you can save 1-2 clicks by auto-logging.

    2. Trust. Now, you can let your BDR team tell you what they did. And manage trust. But that´s a lot of pressure, on both sides. Or you can let them show you what they did. And build trust from there. 

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