For most sales managers, this is a daunting challenge: ensuring their sales reps are equipped to sell with sales pitches that align with the right product positioning and messaging, handle objections, and craft personalized sales outreach messages, etc. This requires continuous coaching and training. Companies that provide quality sales coaching are going up and beyond 7% annual revenue growth.  

But as you deal with increasing sales numbers and quotas on a day-to-day basis, you barely have any resources or time left to coach your reps. A good sales coaching software can help offload this responsibility from your shoulders. 

In this article, we will understand the need for sales coaching software and list the best ones available in the market.

Why do you need sales coaching software?

Traditional sales coaching methods can be time-consuming, subjective, and challenging to scale, particularly with teams spread across different geographies. Here’s how deploying a modern sales coaching software can help your business. 

1. Less reliance on subjective feedback

Traditional coaching often relies heavily on a manager's subjective feedback during the reviews, which leads to biased feedback rather than objective data. A manager might give feedback based on their personal observations and interactions, potentially overlooking a representative's improvements or challenges in areas not directly witnessed. This subjective approach contrasts sharply with data-driven coaching software, which leverages objective data, such as call analytics, email response rates, and deal closure metrics. 

Sales coaching software solves this by automatically analyzing call recordings and transcripts. It identifies coachable moments and points of friction and pinpoints areas like filler words, talk ratios, question handling, and more—all based on big data rather than subjective opinions.

2. Standardized coaching process

Without a coaching framework, different managers may take varying approaches to offer coaching to their teams.

Sales coaching software provides features to standardize the process like:

• Custom coaching templates aligned to your sales methodology
• Automated workflow triggers for scheduled coaching check-ins
• Centralized coaching content libraries with selling scenarios, role plays, etc.
• Ability to share annotated call snippets directly from recordings

This ensures reps receive quality training regardless of their manager.

3. Easily coach remote employees

Geographically dispersed teams make in-person coaching challenging. Time zones and long call reviews create inefficiencies. Sales coaching tools offer real-time coaching capabilities letting managers provide real-time personalized guidance. This includes 

• AI-powered suggestions 
• Script compliance checklist 
• Real-time call shadowing and collaboration 
• Role-play scenarios and more 

This allows for continuous, contextual coaching for remote teams without logistical hassles.

4. Conveniently create sales training resources 

Sales coaching software automates the process of building sales training material. This helps save a significant amount of managers’ time spent on building and managing a sales training repository including templates, scripts, and a library of role plays, winning calls, and best practices. This adds self-guided training resources to the AI-powered and automated personalized coaching.

7 best sales coaching software for 2024 

Let's quickly compare the features, pricing, and pros and cons of the 7 best sales coaching platforms available for your sales team in 2024.

1. Happysales - Best AI sales coaching solution

Happysales is one of the most smartly engineered AI sales coaching software. It is an all-in-one solution that helps your reps with everything from training and research to pitching to prospects. The AI recommendations empower your reps to excel at every stage of the sales cycle.

Features

• AI-based prospect roleplays to practice based on prospec trole’s and challenges
• AI sales coach feature that offers recommendations to handle objections, improve pitches, etc.
• Conversation starters to break the ice
• Role-specific AI messaging for prospects 
• DISC profiles to customize communications 
• AI-generated prospect and account intelligence 
• Accurate AI recommendations on approach, messaging, and persona

Pros

• The only product that offers AI prospect roleplay based on real prospect profiles
• Instant call summaries and feedback (based on the 4 P framework) for your sales rep to identify and work on improvement areas
• A forever-free starter plan that provides access to 5 LinkedIn profiles a week

Pricing

If you’re just starting, Happysales offers a forever free plan to keep trying out the platform. When you are ready, you can transition either into their essentials plan ($25 per user/month) or advanced plan ($35 per user/month) depending on your needs. 

Best used for

Happysales is perfect for SaaS businesses using legacy software like SalesLoft and ZoomInfo. 

2. Gong.io - AI-powered sales engagement platform 

Gong.io is a comprehensive revenue intelligence platform. For sales coaching, Gong’s product Engage gives you a complete view of customer interactions allowing you to capture, understand, and act accordingly. It includes the following features for sales coaching.

Features

• Dialer with AI-generated call outcomes
• Create high-quality emails with inbuilt AI
• Outreach flows to engage with prospects 
• Live AI-based contextual recommendations
• Single view of the company’s complete account history
• Track reps’ prospecting activities, conversion rates, and email performance 

Pros

• AI call summaries to highlight key points
• Integrates with the most popular tools

Cons

• The user interface is not intuitive 
• Existing users say that it is an expensive solution 

Pricing

Gong’s pricing is not available publicly. You have to request a quote. 

Best used for

Gong is best for teams with advanced use cases requiring everything on one platform. 

3. Clari copilot - Conversation intelligence & coaching platform

Clari’s copilot allows you to discover insights from every sales interaction. It helps sales teams with a complete view of the pipeline offering actionable insights and real-time coaching to close more deals. 

Features

• Real-time battle cards and monologue alerts
• RevAI for call summaries, next steps, and suggested actions
• Game tapes for winning behavior snippets  
• Team insights dashboard  
• Avg. call duration, talk-to-listen ratio, and call scores   

Pros

• Doesn’t require training to use the platform 
• Identifies keywords on calls 

Cons

• Inaccurate transcriptions 
• Some integrations are glitchy 

Pricing

Clari’s pricing is not available on their website. 

Best used for

Clari’s copilot works well for teams that are starting with a coaching software. 

4. Avoma - AI meeting assistant & conversation intelligence

Avoma is an AI-powered meeting assistant that records, transcribes, and analyzes your conversation to provide summaries and actionable insights. It automates the mundane tasks for reps and gives them recommendations for core selling activities, 

Features

• Playlists of top reps’ talk tracks
• Speakers & topics identification
• Interaction intelligence including 
• Automatic recordings and transcripts
• AI-generated summaries and scorecards
• Activity dashboard for a consolidated summary of all conversations

Pros

• Quick to respond support team 
• Makes identifying trends easy 
• Affordable compared to other solutions in the market

Cons

• Limitation with foreign languages
• Inaccuracies in transcriptions and summaries

Pricing

Avoma has four pricing plans including a forever free ‘Basic’ plan. The paid plans start from $19 per user/mo to $129 per user/mo, billed annually.

Best used for

Avoma is suited for revenue and other teams, especially the ones focused on appointments and meetings. It also helps in cross-collaboration. 

5. Mindtickle— Coaching program platform 

Mindtickle is a platform that hosts hours of ready-to-use programs and templates for your sales reps. You can choose different modules, content types, or contests for your team and set benchmarks for reps, regions, and teams against top-performing skills and behaviors. 

Features

• Secure feedback sharing 
• Libraries for winning calls/deals
• Sales coaching forms and scorecards
• AI-based call scores, themes, and trackers
• Gamify experiences like leaderboards, live challenges, etc
• Role-play & bite-sized exercises for pitches, demos, and more

Pros

• Easy to use and intuitive platform 
• Gamified experience is engaging for reps

Cons

• Integrations can be cumbersome 
• The mobile app experience is not at par

Pricing

Mindtickle’s pricing is not visible on their website. You need to contact their team to know the same. 

Best used for

Mindtickle is best for leaders who want to gamify the coaching experience for their reps and make training engaging. 

6. Salesken —AI-based sales training software

Salesken uses AI to turn your reps into champions. You can use it to identify the best discovery questions, and convincing responses to customer objections to replicate it in your sales calls. The platform also finds cues and shares them with the team to help them ace sales conversations. 

Features

• Prospect evaluation 
• Post-call pitch advisory 
• Call library to access and evaluate calls 
• Automated and AI-powered progress reporting 
• Real-time call assessment across 14 dimensions 

Pros

• Friendly support team 
• AI and ML of the platform are effective 

Cons

• Talking points/cues need some improvement 
• Onboarding can be time-consuming 

Pricing

Salesken’s pricing is not explicitly mentioned on their website and you have to ask for a custom quote.

Best used for

This platform is perfect for sales managers who want to get into the nitty-gritty of every customer conversation. 

7. Saleshood —All-in-one sales enablement platform

Saleshood is a sales enablement solution that improves the productivity of your team, reveals the sales readiness of your customers, and helps reps execute sales similar to your top performers.  

Features

• Customize reporting
• Buyer insights & sentiment
• Sales training content marketplace
• AI coach to onboard and train reps 
• Test, assess, and reward your reps 
• Visualize results by role and automate leaderboard sharing

Pros

• Step-by-step video lessons 
• Comprehensive resource library 

Cons

• There is a steep learning curve for newbies 
• Limited customization and integration options 

Pricing

The pricing plans start at $50 per user/month. If you want to know the cost of each plan, you have to contact their team. 

Best used for

Works well for tech-savvy and technical teams. Beginners and newbies might find it difficult to navigate. 

Key features to look for in sales coaching software

As you deploy sales coaching software, it is important to make the most of the hard-earned revenue you invest in it. To make the right choice, consider these factors.

1. Call recording and transcription

Go with a sales coaching system that offers accurate call recording and speech-to-text transcription. Ensure easy access to recorded calls and transcripts, allowing you to review and analyze every customer interaction easily. You can use these insights to identify coaching opportunities, successful talk tracks, and areas for improvement within your team.

2. Real-time call coaching 

Imagine guiding your team while they are on the call and instantly rescuing them from a tight spot. Sounds convenient, right? 

Your sales coaching solution must allow managers to monitor live sales calls, whisper suggestions/feedback without the customer knowing, and jump in to take command of the conversation. This helps reps overcome objections and close deals. 

3. AI-powered conversation analytics

AI takes sales coaching to the next level. It can analyze call conversations as they happen, providing insights into customer sentiment, objections, and top-performing talk tracks. 

The software you choose should offer real-time prompts and recommendations to reps based on the AI's analysis of the conversation. This helps them navigate the call more effectively and increases the chances of a successful outcome.

4. Integrations and user-friendliness

The ability of the sales coaching software to adapt to your team’s existing workflows and tech stack is crucial. Your chosen tool must integrate with your CRM, dialers, and other tools for a smooth flow of data and reduced manual effort. 

A user-friendly interface makes onboarding, setup, and navigation on the platform for both reps and managers a breeze significantly improving the adoption rate of the software.

5. Reporting and analytics 

if you can't measure it you can't improve it. It is essential to have comprehensive reporting and analytics for continuous improvement. 

Look for sales coaching software that provides detailed visual reports on team and individual performance, highlighting areas of strength and weakness. The platform should also have call scorecards to gauge the call outcome accurately and take the next steps. Ta-da! You are ready to transition from manual sales coaching to a tech-driven sales coaching solution. Remember to try out different solutions before investing in one. Start with Happysales’ free trial and see its significant impact on your sales.