Partner Scoring

What is partner scoring?

Partner scoring is a way to evaluate the performance and potential of your channel partners. Just like you would score your sales leads to determine their likelihood to become a customer, you can score your partners to better understand which partners are most valuable, productive, and aligned with your business objectives.

This scoring system can help you make more informed decisions about resource allocation, incentives, and the future of your strategic partnerships.

Get started with partner scoring by:

• Defining specific goals and objectives for your partner program, such as sales targets, customer satisfaction metrics, or market penetration
• Determine the criteria you’ll use to evaluate partners, which should be aligned with your objectives
• Assign a weight or importance factor to each criterion to reflect its relative significance
• Establish minimum performance levels or benchmarks that partners should meet or exceed to be considered successful
• Collect relevant data and metrics related to partner performance, such as sales figures, customer feedback scores, conversion rates, lead generation numbers, and any other data points that align with your scoring criteria
• Use the established criteria, weightage, and benchmarks to calculate scores for each partner, and next steps for each
• Continuously monitor partner performance and update scores periodically to identify areas for improvement

Partner scoring is a valuable exercise only if you do something with your data. To start, decide how you’ll use the scores. You can use them as a basis for incentive programs or rewards, with high-scoring partners receiving additional benefits. Also offer customized support and resources based on their specific needs and capabilities. For partners scoring below the established benchmarks, develop performance improvement plans that outline specific actions, resources, and support that will help the partner enhance their performance.

Then, provide partners with feedback on their performance scores. This can help them understand their strengths and areas that may need improvement.

By scoring your partners, you can identify your top performers, provide targeted support to those who need it, and make more informed strategic decisions. Remember, partner scoring isn’t a one-time task. Regularly update your scoring system and reevaluate your partners to ensure the data is current and meaningful.

Related content:

20+ Channel Partner Metrics and Analytics to Track | Partner Reporting | Partner Segmentation | Partner Tiers