The Ultimate Win/Loss Analysis Template for RFPs

To analyze win-loss data, you must first start to record (or write down) win-loss insights.

You can do this by gathering insights from your sales team after each deal cycle closes. It’s important to gather an equal amount of data from deals that you win, as well as lose (to understand both your strengths and weaknesses).

Once you’ve recorded the reasons why you win or lose—using a template, like the one above—you can then start to analyze the data you’ve collected. (At a minimum, we recommend collecting insights over a period of 3-months to set a baseline.)

When analyzing your data, there are four critical areas to look consider:

1. Understand the reason for the sales opportunity itself. Why did the customer initially come to you?
2. Examine their criteria for selecting a vendor. What was pivotal to their decision-making process?
3. Learn about their overall customer experience. Do your internal stakeholders say they had a good experience with your team? Or were there challenges along the way?
4. Look for patterns in your win rates. Why are you winning deals? What do those prospects have in common in terms? This can help you build your ideal customer profile (ICP) for future deals.

The ideal format for a win-loss record is a shared document, or a spreadsheet (like this template) that your whole team can contribute to.

Use your win/loss template as a step-by-step guide to document the outcomes of sales opportunities.

Critical details to include for each win/loss record are:

 
✓ Your prospect’s name, position, and company

✓ The sales representative involved in the deal

✓ The prospect’s evaluation criteria (for their decision-making process)

✓ And identifying where your team excelled against the decision criteria (or needed improvement)

Win-loss interviews can generally be conducted in three different ways.

1. One-on-one interviews: Have someone from your team schedule a one-on-one buyer interview to understand their perspective, personally. Prepare open-ended questions and avoid leading the conversation with assumptions from key stakeholders on your team.
2. Programmatic win/loss interviews: If your team has a budget put aside for your win/loss program, you may choose to outsource the responsibility of win/loss interviews to another vendor. For example, Clozd offers win/loss interview services, as well as a platform to analyze the data all in one place.
3. Survey questions: If you’re short on time for conducting buyer interviews, consider putting together a simple survey that can be released to prospects every time your sales team closes a deal. For example, Qualtrics offers a helpful survey tool that can be triggered directly from your CRM, like Salesforce. In a pinch, Google Forms will work nicely too.