Managers should score one or two calls per rep each week, chosen because a live deal has an important conversation coming next, and leave routine coverage to an AI scorer that has been checked against their own judgment.
Calls per month is the wrong unit
A scoring cadence measured in calls per month assumes every call is worth the same. Gong's help center suggests teams "start with having managers score 1 call per rep per month" when rolling out scorecards. That works as an adoption target. As coaching, it means the scored call is rarely the one in front of the deal that decides the quarter.
Time is the constraint. Avoma's page on call reviews claims "sales managers review less than 1% of all sales calls". The workable answer is targeting. A manager's scoring time goes to the calls where a coached next step changes a deal, and the rest is measured in bulk. The full approach is in the AI call scoring guide.
Which calls to score
Pick from the pipeline. For each rep, look at the deals that move or stall this week and score the latest call on each one that has a next meeting booked. A first discovery call with a new buying group, the call before a pricing conversation and the last call before a champion goes quiet are the usual candidates. If a rep has no deal in that state, score their most recent discovery call against the discovery scoring method.
- 01Open the pipelineDeals with a meeting booked this week
- 02Score the latest callOn each deal that has a next meeting
- 03Pick one skill per call
- 04Coach before the next meeting
- 05AI scorer covers the restChecked against the manager's rankings monthly
Why one score is a thin sample
A single manager scoring a single call is less reliable than it feels. In our research program (August to October 2026, more than 5,000 tests and more than 250,000 scoring decisions, with blind marking by PeerLab's trained assessors), trained experts disagreed with each other on 18% of scores (field guide). Managers without that training are unlikely to agree more often. So one scored call a month tells a rep little, and a trend built on twelve of them a year tells a leader little more.
A checked AI scorer changes the arithmetic. Our final setup ranked calls in the same order as the experts at 0.89, and the setup changed 1.7% of its scores on a re-run, measured on different things from the experts' disagreement (field guide). That only holds after you test the scorer on your own calls; Can AI score a sales call? covers the test.
One manager's week (illustrative)
The figures here are illustrative. A manager runs four reps. On Monday she opens the pipeline and finds seven deals with a meeting booked this week. She scores the latest call on five of them, about two hours of work, and skips two where the last call was admin. For each scored call she picks one skill to work on. One rep left a call without asking who signs; before Thursday's follow-up, the rep talks the deal through on a call with Caty and leaves with the question to ask. The AI scorer covers every other call, and she checks its rankings against her own once a month.
Setting the cadence
Start next Monday from the pipeline: list the deals with a meeting booked, score the last call on each, and pick one skill per call. How to score a discovery call runs the method on one call type, and the AI call scoring guide covers the bulk coverage underneath. If you want the rest of the call log scored and checked against your own marks, talk to us.
FAQ
How many calls should a manager review per rep?
One or two a week is enough when the calls are chosen from deals with a meeting coming up. The number matters less than the choice: a scored call before a pricing conversation is worth more than four random calls. Use AI scoring for coverage across every other call, once it has been checked against your managers.
Should managers score calls themselves if they have AI scoring?
Managers should still score a few calls themselves each week. A manager's own scores are what the AI scorer is measured against, and the act of scoring keeps the manager close to how reps run deals. Our research found trained experts disagree on 18% of scores, so a manager's scores also show where the scorecard needs clearer wording.
How long does it take to score a sales call?
Plan on a little longer than the call itself. The manager listens or reads the transcript, sets a level for each skill and notes the quote behind each level. A short scorecard built for that call type keeps the work proportionate, and the managers who score most often get faster because they stop re-reading the level descriptions.