In today’s cut-throat market environment, companies must empower their sales force with automated sales process to help the sales executives increase their efficiency and convert more prospects into customers in a much lesser time. The sales representatives are the first persons of the company to get in touch with the customers and coincidently they are the most important people as they generate profit and revenue for the company.
The customer is not bound to purchase from a single company, it is his loyalty which stimulates him for repurchase from the same company despite uniformity of products across the competitors. So whether it is an old customer or a new customer, your company becomes disposable when the customer is not satisfied with your services. In such a scenario, no company affords to have a sales force which acts late than its competitors.
Technological advancements and more
Off late, the technological advancements have introduced CRM solutions on mobile devices to let your sales force manage the customer efficiently and effectively thereby increasing productivity at work. Fortunately, most of these applications come with a cloud based platform to avoid double entry across different devices. These modern day applications let you sell, service and market from your mobile device.
And there are loads of sales force automation applications available in the market with secure and password protected sign-in option for salespersons. Therefore, the time is ripe to use these technological benefits for sales executives, by using sales force automation on smartphones, tablets, PDAs, laptops and other Java, Windows, Android or iOS powered devices to streamline the tasks related to sales and achieve higher return on investment. Lastly, they have been tried, tested and adopted across various industries including FMCG, healthcare, insurance, confectionaries, financial and banking industries.
Key features of mobile sales automation solutions
Generate invoices and automatic reports – Mobile sales force automation systems equip the salesperson to generate instant invoices. It even helps them to generate automatic reports and dashboards on monthly sales pipeline analysis, sales opportunities by lead source and much more.
Direct customer feedback to management – It enables the management to have an instant review about customer feedbacks straight from the field. So when a new product is launched, you immediately get to know about first-hand customer response for your products.
Real time data sharing among salespersons – Mobile sales force automation arms your sales team with information about new salespersons joining the team and higher versions of these systems also facilitate automatic field updates, task assignment and email sending. What’s more, you can build mobile social intranets to connect your employees with RSS feeds, files, applications and important published information so that employees can stay up to date, aligned and more productive.
Route management – A sales executive is mostly in the field tracking down the appointments with its customers. Mobile sales force automation solutions help the sales reps to easily route their daily, weekly or monthly appointments. In case, there is any change in schedule of the meeting or appointment cancellation, it can smoothly reroute the appointments.
Inventory management – Customers are often impatient and expect quick response from sales persons. It is practically impossible to keep a track of inventory if the SKUs are huge. Not only this, it is extremely important not to book an order if the product became out of stock even a few minutes ago by another sales deal in a different territory. The central inventory database keeps all the sales persons alert about the current stock available and booked, right on their mobile.
Client management – Customers do get irritated when there is overlapping of communication by various sales persons. Most importantly, they get discouraged if they are asked to share the same information which they did last time with a different salesperson. Besides reflecting a lack of co-ordination among the salespersons it may turn into losing a potential customer. Mobile sales force automation maintains call records, history of previous purchase, client’s needs and remarks if any thus, keeping complete information handy for a new salesperson contacting the customer. Precisely, it rules out massive load of individual communication among the huge sales team.
Take orders and sales returns – Mobile sales automation system makes it easier for the salesperson to book the orders on-the-go and the same information can be accessed by the back office instantly that starts processing the order delivery. If there is any sales return by the distributors or dealers, the same can be updated in the mobile CRM software.
Significance of mobile sales automation solutions
For field sales force
Customer calls and order recording – Salespersons are better prepared to take customer calls and have instant access to complete customer information on mobile. It also gives them more time to be in the field than in the office. Orders booked are automatically recorded giving a comprehensive view of order history.
Monitoring dealers and distributors – Salespersons have a different set of understanding and relationship with different dealers that requires on their part to be careful while offering specific discounts and margins to them. All such credentials can be administered via mobile automated system. It even helps them by storing contact information of the dealer.
Managing sales territories – To shed the load of managing numerous territories, a salesperson is better equipped to access and manage information about different territories and customers, right with the tap of a finger.
Assists in generating proposals and quotations – As soon as the customer gives the requirement, the salesperson is expected to present the proposal with the relevant quotes. The software negates the manual formation of complex proposals.
Suggestions about product promotion – A company with a long product line catering to different market segments require the salesperson to use appropriate promotional campaigns. It gives a fair idea to the salesperson by suggesting a suitable option.
Update about new stores opened in the corresponding areas – The system is well-managed to alert the salesperson about new stores added in the area. It especially becomes more relevant for the company on the expansion spree by opening a series of stores.
For marketing persons
Better view into sales pipeline – It is but natural that the actual sale of the product adds revenue to the company’s kitty. The marketing professionals will get a transparent view of sales across different territories which in turn will help in knowing their cash cows and sales drivers. Besides comparing sales targets and achievements, it even facilitates them in evaluating the performance of salespersons and to fire the lagging cows.
Real-time track of market trends and customer behavior – This gives them the ability to twist and mould their strategies to deal with a set of customers and introduce market specific products. Sales force automated systems generate leads and responses from various sources such as marketing communication, email campaigns, website visits or outbound calls to track customer preferences. Further, it helps them to identify problem areas and the business can take necessary steps to cure the situation. Also, marketing campaigns can be adjusted or products can be improved.
Sales forecasting – The history of past sales is the best indicator of sales forecasting. The recorded past sales history in the system enable the marketers to forecast sales for different territories and set the targets accordingly.
Reports and analytics – It enables the marketers to generate reports on specific sales territories, sales representatives, geographical region or demographics. They can easily create bar diagrams and charts to view the information in graphical format and the same can be exported to MS Excel and PDF readers. Such information furnishes analytical insight into sales related data.
For back-office sales staff
Improves accuracy of order processing – As soon as the back-office staffers get order processing request from field staff, the action begins. Such is the capability of the system that it automatically gives the back-office team clear-cut information about orders thus avoiding ambiguity and manual sharing of order details.
Reduces interruption from field salespersons – As mentioned above, field sales person are just required to update the details in their handheld and the cloud based servers provide the back-office staff with an instant access to that.
Boosts back-office productivity – As it improves the co-ordination between back office staff and field sales force, their productivity rises significantly and the orders processed per unit of time increases.
