My Face When I Hear 'My Reps Are Calling on the Right Customers'

“My reps are calling on the right customers.”

I’ve heard this statement dozens of times. From sales directors. From commercial heads. From CEOs.

My face, apparently, doesn’t hide my scepticism well.

What we usually find

When we overlay actual call data onto customer classification, the pattern is consistent.

30-40% of calls go to customers who shouldn’t be receiving that call frequency.

Some high-value customers are under-visited. Some low-value customers are over-visited. Some customers are being visited despite never buying.

The sales director’s belief and the field’s reality rarely match.

Why the gap exists

Reps don’t deliberately avoid good customers. They respond to incentives, both explicit and implicit.

Relationship momentum. It’s easier to visit someone you know than someone you should know. Comfortable relationships accumulate calls. New relationships require effort.

Geographic convenience. The customer on the way to lunch gets visited. The customer requiring a detour doesn’t. Proximity drives frequency in ways that have nothing to do with potential.

Avoiding rejection. High-value customers are often harder to access. Busy doctors. Demanding pharmacists. Gatekeeping receptionists. The calls that count are often the calls that cost the most energy.

Lack of visibility. Reps don’t always know which customers are high-value. The CRM data isn’t trusted. The segmentation isn’t clear. They make judgment calls based on intuition rather than information.

The transformation process

Fixing this isn’t about working harder. It’s about working differently.

Step 1: Baseline reality. Map six months of actual calls against customer classification. No judgment. Just facts. Where are reps spending time?

Step 2: Identify the gaps. Which A-tier customers are under-visited? Which C-tier customers are over-visited? Where is effort misallocated?

Step 3: Make it visible. Share the analysis with reps. Not as criticism -as information. “Here’s where your time went. Here’s where your time could go.”

Step 4: Redesign the call plan. Build minimum call frequencies into the system. A-tier customers get first claim on capacity. What’s left goes to B and C.

Step 5: Track the transition. Weekly monitoring of call pattern changes. Celebrate progress. Address backsliding.

The results

For a client who was confident their reps were “calling on the right customers,” the data showed 34% of calls going to the wrong customers.

After 90 days of focused transition:

34% increase in calls to right customers. Not more calls -better calls. Same total activity, different distribution.

22% improvement in call productivity. Measured as revenue per call. Better customers respond better.

28% decrease in “comfort calls.” Visits to friendly-but-unprofitable customers dropped without damaging relationships. Quarterly calls replaced monthly calls.

The uncomfortable conversation

Nobody likes hearing that their belief doesn’t match reality. Sales directors have spent careers developing judgment about where reps should focus.

But judgment without data is opinion. And opinion accumulates errors over time.

The question isn’t whether your reps are calling on the right customers. The question is: how would you know?

If you can’t overlay actual call patterns onto customer value, you’re trusting. Trusting is fine for personal relationships. It’s dangerous for commercial decisions.

The face I make

That sceptical face I apparently make? It’s not doubt about the person. It’s doubt about the claim.

“My reps are calling on the right customers” is a statement that can be verified. In my experience, it’s verified less often than it’s assumed.

The directors who impress me aren’t the ones with certainty. They’re the ones with questions. “Are my reps calling on the right customers? Let’s check.”

That humility is the starting point for every improvement we’ve made.

Trust your reps. Trust your judgment. But verify your assumptions. The data is usually more honest than any of us.