I learned something today...
We all know that we are supposed to be logging our touch points in Salesforce. We also know that the management looks at them on a regular basis. But, how often do we check that the counts are accurate? I've run into a number of occasions where it's not. It turns out that Salesforce is set up to aggregate based on the Account Location, not the SE location. This little nuance can actually result in the touch point count being off in your territory! In my experience, the major culprit has always been remotely managed accounts.
A lot of larger accounts remotely manage the licenses for multiple sites from one central location - usually the corporate headquarters. We know this, it's what results in the splits we all see in the credit reports. But, if you log a demo for one of these remotely managed accounts the demo will generally show up in the count for the SE over the main account! Screwy, right? It turns out that there is a solution - satellite accounts. The AE's and Inside Sales Reps for our teams are able to set up satellite accounts. They should be doing this anyway because this is apparently part of the split calculation process. If you log your demo using the satellite account rather than the parent account the demo will show up correctly in your report.
So lessons I learned:
- Always log your demos ASAP.
- Always use the satellite account for remotely managed accounts (unless the parent account is in your territory).
- Make sure your account team is making the satellite accounts for the remotely managed accounts when needed.
- Always sanity-check your demo counts as you enter them.
