Did you know? Field sales reps spend only 35.2% of their time actively selling, with the rest of their time being consumed by administrative tasks and dealing with internal paperwork [Source]. To increase the effectiveness and productivity of your field sales representatives, it's crucial to determine exactly where they are losing time and which tasks are causing delays. By identifying these areas, businesses can find opportunities for improvement and ensure that representatives are focused on activities that drive sales and add real value.
Field sales, put across in very simple terms, are outside sales. Field sales software helps streamline various business operations, especially those on the field. A field sales representative performs the following operations:
If your business model involves a lot of field sales and field services operations and your major concern is efficiency and how to improve field sales, then this is a must-read for you.
To scale and grow, businesses must figure out what their challenges are and how they can overcome them. Here are 5 common challenges faced by field sales businesses.
Field representatives often find pricing difficult. They rely on paper price lists to find the right price for customers and apply promotions, which can be confusing and time-consuming. Prices may change, and promotions may expire, making it difficult to keep the price list updated. This process gets even slower when they need to contact the back office for help.
Using field sales software with flexible pricing features allows real-time access to prices, making the sales process faster and easier.
Field representatives struggle to fulfil orders accurately due to a lack of real-time inventory visibility, which is essential for providing customers with accurate information.
They also face decision challenges like:
Integrating orders taken on the field with the back-office inventory management system software can provide visibility, enhancing overall customer satisfaction.
Manual entry of orders or customer data by field representatives is prone to errors, making it difficult to maintain accurate records. This could lead to a loss of critical details regarding customers or orders. This creates problems downstream when orders have to be accurately entered into an Excel or order management software.
Manually entering orders into Excel or order management software is time-consuming and error-prone, often leading to delivery issues like incorrect or missed orders. Such mistakes can damage customer trust, harm the brand’s reputation, and result in silent losses, as 96% of dissatisfied customers leave without complaining. [Source]
As a business owner, tracking a Field Sales Rep's route to ensure all calls are completed often relies on blind trust. Delivery management software solves this by offering real-time route visibility and historical data through detailed reports.
With a solid strategy, business owners can address key challenges in field operations effectively.
Here are the top strategies that can be implemented with ease.
Efficient field operations allow businesses to respond more quickly to customer needs, optimise resource allocation, and reduce waste or downtime. While many strategies can be implemented, we’ve picked out the top strategies that will help improve the efficiency of field operations.
With Routemagic software, flexible pricing strategies can easily be configured, making closing deals easy for field sales reps.
With the Routemagic Field Sales mobile app that is connected to the back office system, the Field Sales rep can do all of these:
Thereby, field sales reps can adjust prices in real time based on customer needs.
Research from Capgemini shows that integrated order and warehouse management systems lead to:
Imagine the peace of mind when your field sales rep knows exactly what’s in stock. Here are 3 major benefits of using inventory management system software like Routemagic:
Are your field sales reps or field representatives struggling to manage orders, inventory, and customer data on the go? A field sales mobile app, like the one from Routemagic, can simplify their job by eliminating the need to return to the warehouse or contact the back office for every detail.
All the field representative has to do is just focus on closing deals!
High-performing teams are 1.5x more likely to use data for sales forecasts. Data is invaluable for small and medium-sized businesses. Using data analytics of a field sales software like Routemagic generates reports on:
Get a good grip on customer data and field sales activities to improve field sales!
Here is an interesting story of how Bits N Bobs, an FMCG wholesaler located in Manchester whose product range includes household essentials, stationery, vaping products, and mobile phone accessories, improved their business operations.
Check out how RouteMagic helped their field sales representatives to utilise Spinner Stands and helped them in restocking and arranging them for optimal display.
