So you want to actually help your sales team improve—without spending your life listening to old call recordings or chasing “AI-powered” dashboards that promise the moon. Good. This guide is for sales managers, enablement folks, and team leads who want to use conversation intelligence tools like Avoma to get real, actionable coaching moments out of all those sales calls.
Let’s be honest: a lot of “insights” platforms just add noise. But if you set up Avoma right and know what to look for, you can actually help reps get better—without making it another annoying process.
Here’s how to skip the fluff and use Avoma to coach your sales team for real improvement.
Step 1: Set Up Avoma to Capture the Right Calls
Before you can coach, you need the right data. Avoma records and transcribes your sales calls, but it’s only as good as what you feed it.
What to do: - Connect your calendar and conferencing tools: Avoma integrates with Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, and your CRM. Make sure every sales call gets captured—especially discovery, demos, and closing calls. - Set up call recording permissions: Double-check your team’s (and customers’) consent policies. Avoma can automate this, but don’t skip it. Nothing kills a coaching program faster than legal headaches. - Tag meetings by type: Use Avoma’s tagging features to mark calls as “Demo,” “Discovery,” “Negotiation,” etc. It’s worth a minute of admin time up front. Otherwise, you’ll drown in a sea of random calls.
What to skip:
Don’t bother recording every internal sync or daily standup. You’ll just make it harder to find the calls that matter.
Step 2: Define What “Good” Looks Like (Don’t Skip This)
You can’t coach what you can’t define. Before you even open a transcript, nail down what a great sales call should include for your team.
How to do it: - List your key moments: What do you want to hear in a call? Examples: clear agenda-setting, open-ended discovery questions, handling objections, confirming next steps. - Share these criteria with your team: Coaching shouldn’t feel like a pop quiz. Make sure reps know what you’re listening for—and why. - Customize Avoma’s trackers: Avoma lets you set up keyword trackers (like “budget,” “decision-maker,” “timeline”) and moments (e.g., “Objection Handling”). Set these up to match your playbook, not some generic template.
Pro tip:
Don’t get lost in the weeds with 30 different metrics. Pick 3–5 things that actually move deals forward, and focus there.
Step 3: Use Avoma’s Conversation Insights—But Don’t Blindly Trust the AI
Avoma’s “insights” are only as smart as your setup—and your review. The platform highlights things like talk-to-listen ratios, keywords, and competitor mentions, but take them with a grain of salt.
How to use insights (without losing your mind): - Scan for red flags: Look for calls where reps talk way more than they listen, or where key topics never come up. - Listen to key moments, not whole calls: Use Avoma’s topic segmentation to jump to the parts that matter (like pricing or objection handling). You don’t have time to listen end-to-end. - Read transcripts, but check for errors: Automated transcripts are good, not perfect. Always double-check before quoting a call back to a rep.
What to ignore:
Don’t obsess over “filler word” counts or talk ratios alone. Context matters. Sometimes a rep needs to explain something in detail—that’s not a coaching fail.
Step 4: Give Feedback That’s Specific and Actionable
This is the heart of coaching. Avoma makes it easy to leave timestamped comments, share snippets, and even set up coaching playlists. Use these features, but keep it real.
Best ways to coach with Avoma: - Leave comments on specific moments: Instead of “be better at discovery,” try “At 04:12, great job digging into their pain. Next time, ask about timeline, too.” - Share call snippets for peer learning: Build a playlist of “gold standard” moments. Let reps hear what good sounds like—from each other, not just you. - Track progress over time: Use Avoma’s dashboards to see if reps are improving on your key metrics, not just on any random stat.
Pro tip:
Don’t just use Avoma to point out mistakes. Highlight what’s working—people tune out if all they hear is what to fix.
Step 5: Make Coaching a Habit, Not a One-Off
The best insights and feedback don’t help if they sit in a dashboard or a once-a-quarter review. Build Avoma into your team’s regular routine.
How to keep it going: - Schedule regular call reviews: Weekly or biweekly, not just when a deal goes sideways. Keep it short—review 1–2 calls together, max. - Encourage self-review: Have reps listen to their own calls in Avoma and self-assess before you weigh in. Helps them build awareness (and saves you time). - Measure what matters: Check if call quality is improving—more next steps booked, better qualification, less “ghosting.” Don’t just look at surface stats.
What to skip:
Don’t turn every meeting into a call review. Coaching works best in small doses, regularly.
Step 6: Watch Out for Common Pitfalls
No tool is magic. Here’s where most teams trip up with Avoma and conversation intelligence:
- Over-automating feedback: Don’t let the AI auto-score every call and call it a day. Sales is still a human game.
- Trying to “catch” reps: If your team thinks you’re just looking for mistakes, they’ll game the system or clam up. Make it about learning, not surveillance.
- Chasing vanity metrics: More insights ≠ more deals. Track what actually helps close business.
Quick FAQ: What Avoma Does Well (And What It Doesn’t)
What works: - Saves you a ton of time finding coachable moments. - Makes it easy to share best practices across the team. - Helps spot patterns (good and bad) you’d miss otherwise.
What doesn’t: - Transcripts aren’t perfect—especially with accents or noisy calls. - AI “insights” still need human review. You can’t fully automate coaching. - Doesn’t replace spending real time with your team. It’s a tool, not a manager.
Keep It Simple and Iterate
Don’t let Avoma become another thing everyone avoids. Start with a few key behaviors you want to coach, use the platform to save yourself time, and keep the process lightweight.
You’ll get more value from a handful of well-coached calls and honest feedback than from a mountain of AI-generated charts. See what works, tweak as you go, and remember: the best coaching is regular, direct, and actually helps your team get better—not just busier.
Ready to actually help your sales team level up? Grab a few real calls, follow these steps, and skip the hype.