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Role · Sales / Commercial

Inside Sales / Sales Coordinator

Runs the paperwork spine of the chain: enquiries in, quotes out, orders checked and entered, deliveries chased, customers told. The role that notices things — and the one most often mistaken for administration.

Also called: Sales administrator · Customer service coordinator · Order administrator · Internal sales · Sales support

Sits in
Sales / Commercial
Reports to
Sales manager or commercial manager
Owns these steps
Receiving an RFQ, Receiving the customer's purchase order, Order entry
Measured on
Quote Conversion Rate, On-Time Delivery (OTD)

What the job actually is

The coordinator is the continuity in a chain where everyone else sees only their own step. They log the enquiry, chase the missing drawing revision, get the quote out before the deadline, check the purchase order against it when it arrives, enter the order accurately, and answer the customer when they ask where it is.

It is described as an administrative role and priced as one. In practice it is the only role that reads both the quotation and the purchase order, which means it is the only role positioned to catch the mismatch between them — and that mismatch is where most of the chain's cost sits.

The good ones are distinguished by what they notice: the revision that changed, the quantity that fell below the price break, the delivery date that arrived from the customer's MRP rather than from a person.

Responsibilities

  • Log every enquiry with a reference, a customer, a value and a deadline.
  • Chase clarifications so the estimator is not waiting on the customer.
  • Issue quotations on time, complete with assumptions, validity and terms.
  • Follow up quotations and record why orders are won or lost.
  • Review incoming purchase orders line by line against the quotation before acceptance.
  • Enter sales orders accurately — particularly the customer's purchase order number and the schedule.
  • Issue order acknowledgements confirming the date and the terms.
  • Track the order book and chase internal progress against promise dates.
  • Tell customers about delays before the customer asks.
  • Maintain customer master data: contacts, addresses, invoicing routes, part cross-references.

A typical day

A realistic one, including the interruptions.

  1. 08:00Work the shared inbox: log four new enquiries, forward two that landed in a colleague's personal email.
  2. 08:45Check overnight portal submissions — one customer's system has issued an amendment to an order already in production.
  3. 09:15Contract review on three purchase orders. One has a drawing revision that does not match the quote; it goes back to the estimator.
  4. 10:00Enter two clean orders, acknowledge both with confirmed dates.
  5. 10:45Customer call: where is order 4500-887-2261? Check with planning, get an honest answer, call back with a date rather than a promise.
  6. 11:30Quote follow-ups — six from last week. One is lost on lead time, which gets recorded.
  7. 13:00Issue two quotations approved at this morning's review.
  8. 14:00Order book review with planning: which promise dates are at risk this month, and which customers need telling.
  9. 15:00Chase a customer for the amended order needed before a job can be released.
  10. 15:30Update customer master data after a shared service centre migration changed three invoicing addresses.
  11. 16:30Check tomorrow's quote deadlines and flag the one waiting on a subcontract price.

Documents they handle

Systems they work in

  • CRM or enquiry log
  • ERP sales order module
  • Customer procurement portals — Ariba, Coupa, Jaggaer and a long tail of bespoke ones
  • Shared mailbox
  • Document control, for drawings and revisions

Skills that matter

  • Accuracy under interruption — the defining requirement of the role
  • Reading a purchase order critically rather than processing it
  • Enough product and process knowledge to know when something looks wrong
  • Telling a customer bad news early and clearly
  • Working several systems that do not talk to each other
  • Holding a queue of open items without losing any of them
  • Saying no to an internal request to enter an order that has not been resolved

Who they work with

  • Estimator / Cost Engineer — Enquiry completeness, deadlines, requotes when the order does not match the quote.
  • Account Manager — Which enquiries matter, follow-ups, concessions agreed verbally that need to reach the order.
  • Production Planner — Realistic promise dates, order progress, which jobs are at risk.
  • Credit Controller — Credit status before accepting an order, and the purchase order references an invoice will need.
  • Despatch Coordinator — Special packaging, certification, delivery bookings and part shipments.
  • Customer purchasing — Clarifications, order amendments, delivery dates and every piece of bad news.

Where the job leads

  • Coordinator → Senior coordinator → Internal sales manager
  • Coordinator → Account manager or field sales, for those who want the customer-facing side
  • Coordinator → Estimating, which the contract review work leads into naturally
  • Coordinator → Planning or operations, using the order book knowledge
  • Coordinator → Sales operations or ERP systems roles, for those who end up fixing the process rather than working around it

Questions this role gets asked at interview

Useful from either side of the table.

  • 01A purchase order arrives with a price 12% lower than the quotation. What do you do?
  • 02How would you check a purchase order before entering it? Walk me through what you look at.
  • 03A customer's order says '5,000 per year'. Why might that matter, and what would you ask?
  • 04Production tells you a job will be two weeks late. What do you do, and in what order?
  • 05How do you keep track of open quotations and know which to follow up?
  • 06Describe a time you spotted an error before it became a problem.
  • 07You are asked to enter an order the customer has not confirmed in writing. How do you handle it?
  • 08How would you find out why the company lost an order?

Common questions

›What is the difference between inside sales and a sales coordinator?

The titles overlap heavily. 'Inside sales' usually implies some responsibility for winning work — following up quotes, converting enquiries, sometimes carrying a target. 'Sales coordinator' or 'sales administrator' usually implies the process side without a target. In most small and mid-sized companies the same person does both, whatever the job title says.

›Is this an administrative role?

It is treated as one and it is not. The coordinator is the only person who reads both the quotation and the purchase order, which makes them the only line of defence against the mismatch between them. Companies that staff it as pure data entry get orders entered faster and disputed more.

›What is the hardest part of the job?

Being the person who delivers bad news they did not cause. The coordinator tells the customer about a delay production created, on terms sales agreed, against a date planning set. Doing that early and honestly, repeatedly, is the skill that separates the role.

›What single thing most improves this role's output?

A written contract review checklist applied to every order before entry — price, quantity, revision, date, terms, credit. It converts the job from reacting to problems into preventing them, and it takes about five minutes per order.

›Where does the role lead?

Almost anywhere in the commercial chain, because the coordinator sees all of it. Account management and estimating are the two most common moves; planning and sales operations are the two most underrated ones.

Tools this role uses

Built for exactly this job — downloadable, self-contained, and no account required.

Reviewed 2026-08-15. Job titles, reporting lines and scope vary widely between companies — this describes the work rather than any one organisation’s job description.