Tag: field sales

The Power of Sales Reporting App: How Our App Boosts Your Revenue

As a business owner or sales professional, you know that sales are the lifeblood of your company. Without sales, your business cannot survive. But simply making sales is not enough. To truly succeed, you need to understand the patterns and trends in your sales data. This is where a sales reporting app comes in.

In this article, we will explore the power of sales reporting and how our app can help you boost your revenue.

First, let’s define what sales reporting is. Sales reporting is the process of analyzing and interpreting sales data to gain insights into your business’s performance. This includes metrics such as revenue, units sold, conversion rates, and customer demographics. Sales reporting can help you identify trends, strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities in your sales process.

Now, let’s look at some of the ways our app can help you boost your revenue through sales reporting.

1. Understand your customers: Our app provides detailed customer data, including demographics, purchasing history, and behaviour. This information can help you tailor your marketing efforts and improve customer retention.

2. Monitor your sales pipeline: Our app allows you to track your sales pipeline in real-time, from initial lead to final sale. This information can help you identify bottlenecks in your sales process and make necessary adjustments to increase efficiency.

3. Forecast future sales: Using historical sales data and trends, our app can help you predict future sales and revenue. This information can help you make informed decisions about inventory, staffing, and marketing budgets.

4. Measure the effectiveness of marketing campaigns: Our app can help you track the success of your marketing campaigns by analyzing the impact on sales. This information can help you optimize your marketing efforts and improve ROI.

5. Analyze customer behavior: Our app can help you understand your customers’ behavior and preferences, such as their buying patterns, purchase frequency, and average order value. By analyzing this data, you can tailor your sales strategy to better meet their needs and increase customer loyalty.

6. Optimize pricing strategy: With our app, you can analyze pricing data and compare it to your sales metrics to optimize your pricing strategy. You can identify which products are underpriced or overpriced, and make adjustments to increase sales and revenue.

7. Identify upsell and cross-sell opportunities: Our app can help you identify opportunities for upselling and cross-selling to increase revenue per customer. You can analyze purchase history data to recommend complementary products or offer discounts on larger orders.

8.Monitor competitor performance: Our app can help you monitor your competitors’ performance and pricing strategies. You can use this data to make informed decisions about your own pricing and marketing strategies, and stay ahead of the competition.

9. Improve forecasting accuracy: Our app can help you improve the accuracy of your sales forecasting by providing real-time data on sales trends and patterns. This can help you make more informed decisions about inventory management and staffing, and avoid stockouts or overstocking.

But how do you get started with sales reporting and our app? Here are some tips:

1. Define your sales metrics: Before you start analyzing your sales data, it’s important to define the metrics that matter most to your business. This may include revenue, units sold, conversion rates, and customer acquisition costs.

2. Set up data tracking: To get the most out of our app, you need to ensure that your sales data is being tracked accurately and consistently. This may involve setting up integrations with your e-commerce platform, CRM, or other sales tools.

3. Analyze your data: Once you have your sales data in our app, it’s time to start analyzing it. Look for patterns, trends, and outliers that can help you make informed decisions about your sales strategy.

4. Take action: The insights you gain from sales reporting are only valuable if you take action on them. Use the information you’ve learned to make changes to your sales process, marketing campaigns, and overall strategy.

5. Set goals: Before you start analyzing your sales data, it’s important to set goals for what you want to achieve. This could be increasing revenue, improving conversion rates, or targeting a new customer segment. Having specific goals in mind will help you focus your sales reporting efforts and measure your progress.

6. Customize your reports: Our app allows you to customize your sales reports to fit your specific needs. Take advantage of this feature by creating reports that are tailored to your business and sales goals. This will help you gain deeper insights into your sales data and make more informed decisions.

7. Collaborate with your team: Sales reporting shouldn’t be a one-person job. Involve your team in the process by sharing reports and insights, and encouraging discussion and feedback. This will help everyone stay on the same page and work together towards your sales goals.

8. Continuously monitor and adjust: Sales reporting is not a one-time task, but an ongoing process. Continuously monitor your sales data and adjust your strategy as needed. This will help you stay ahead of trends and make proactive decisions that can have a positive impact on your revenue.

In conclusion, sales reporting is a powerful tool for businesses of all sizes. By using our app to track and analyze your sales data, you can gain valuable insights into your business’s performance and make informed decisions that can help you boost your revenue. So why wait? Start using our app today and take your sales to the next level!

April 4, 2023
4 Reasons to Boost Your Customer Support with Field Sales App
When it comes to the success of any organization, two factors top the list: (i) customer retention and (ii) acquiring new customers.

And the prior relies heavily on customer satisfaction and support. To achieve that, organizations have to try out innovative measures.

As the sales team is one of the teams that interact closely with the customers, next only to the customer support/service team, they need the right set of tools and technical assistance to negotiate the customers’ support and service-related challenges.

Only offering consistent support and service operations can satisfy and engage customers. With such an approach achieving 100% customer retention won’t be a painful process.

But, the real problem for most companies today is that they don’t have the proper mechanism to manage sales, field sales, and support activities. This impacts customer satisfaction, leading to an increase in customer attrition rate.

To avoid that, the sales team must be powered with cutting-edge tools to improve customer satisfaction and support.

Field sales application is one exciting tool that can take your customer service and support operations to the next level.

Want to know how the field sales app can help?

According to the latest report from Marketwatch.com, the Field Force Automation market revenue was $Million USD in 2016, grew to $Million USD in 2020, and will reach $Million USD in 2026, with a CAGR of $during 2020-2026.” (Sic)

Field force applications have started to impact the sales operations for many companies, and this trend is set to continue over the next 4-5 years at least.

This post will walk you through how field force automation solution transform customer service and support.

Negotiating real-time data lack

The most common reason for client disengagement is delayed service or late responses to queries. As most field sales and sales team professionals don’t have the correct data at the right time to deal with customer feedback or questions instantly, they face the ire of customers directly.

Negotiating this challenge of data lack is critical for improving the business and customer retention.

A field sales app is a potential option to negotiate this challenge. The app provides professionals with real-time customer data and enables them to take immediate action. The entire process becomes transparent; customers and sales professionals can track the responses quickly and efficiently in real time. This saves time for both and helps improve the satisfaction rate.

Improving customer retention won’t be an uphill task for many with this approach.

Collecting customer data accurately for marketing

Accurate data is critical for marketing efforts. It is the data collected by sales team that marketers mostly use to improve optimizations. If the information provided is inaccurate and has manufactured errors, then targeting the customers with innovative and personalized campaigns won’t be fruitful for companies.

With a field sales tracking app in the process, the field sales team can deliver goods/render service to customers and collect data accurately, as the entire process is automated, to share with marketers. This saves much time for both. Marketers, on the other hand, can use the correct data to create campaigns that win customers’ trust.

Updating accurate information in the CRM

Data plays a critical role in any organization’s improvement, which is why most call data king of organization. Without a proper system to collect customer data, field sales executives collect data from customers manually and update the same in the CRM the same evening or the next day. The process takes a long and impacts the sales cycle.

If the data entered is incorrect, the chances of serving the customers with the proper techniques may fail significantly.

A reliable field service software makes interacting with customers and collecting accurate data a breeze. As the field sales team is powered by a mobile-friendly tool in the form of a field sales app, they don’t have to wait for the complete day; rather can update the customer data instantly in the CRM without hassle. Other departments can use the data to serve the customers better.

Assessing customer queries/feedback instantly

The best way to satisfy a customer is when they need the business’ support, especially in situations when they run into a roadblock. Most manual systems won’t have any provision to address such scenarios.

Assessing customer feedback for product delivery or resolving tickets can be grueling if the field sales team doesn’t have any data instantly. Manual data collection and analysis takes time and delays customer support operations, leading to customer fury.

Implementing a field assist app for the sales team will simplify the process significantly. A mobile application during travel and delivery to customers will help them discover queries or feedback instantly and pass it on to the relevant teams immediately to take necessary actions.

The entire process of responding to customer queries is expedited, leading to quick solutions for customers and improving their trust in the business.

Other benefits of having a field sales application

Below are some benefits for organizations using field sales applications to boost their sales operations.
- Unparalleled sales operations and customer experience
- Advanced Customer Relationship Management
- Improved field sales performance and efficiency tracking
- Route optimization and on-time delivery
- Optimized sales strategy for rapid business growth
- Room for marketers to cross-sell and up-sell
- Faster decision making
- Faster customer service
- Improved customer satisfaction
So, by all means, a sales tracking software can transform the entire sales process to improve customer service and support operations. On the other hand, the app also simplifies the field sales activities and the sales manager’s day-to-day chores.

Above all, it provides the entire team with accurate real-time data to expedite customer service operations and contribute to improved customer satisfaction and retention.

Wrapping up

Field sales apps do come up with a plethora of benefits for organizations. Nevertheless, many companies still haven’t leveraged the tool’s potential as they fear implementation challenges.

Partnering with the right vendor matters to enjoy the complete benefits of the tool.

Companies must do the proper groundwork before finalizing field sales app implementation partner as the idea can rock or ruin the business depending on the vendor selection.

Looking for a reliable field sales app solution partner? Get free consultation now.

Want to explore the features of the app?

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October 17, 2022
The Significance of Field Sales App for FMCG Sector

Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) is one of the faster-growing sectors that contribute to the revenue of any country. The FMCG market in India is expected to increase at a CAGR of 14.9% to reach US$ 220 billion by 2025, from US$ 110 billion in 2020. The Indian FMCG industry grew by 16% in CY21 a 9- year high, despite nationwide lockdowns, supported by consumption-led growth and value expansion from higher product prices, particularly for staples. (Source: IBEF)

FMCG-based businesses have to deal with a wide array of distributors, retailers, and dealers daily. Performing all the activities manually takes time, effort, and cost.

Obsolete data and lack of coordination between departments are a headache for companies. Tracking sales operations, updating sales data, and improving the overall sales operations are laborious when performed manually. Companies are under pressure to deliver the goods to customers using manual efforts.

Post Covid-19, FMCG-based companies have realized the impact of digital transformation solutions and advanced mobile applications to manage their operations, especially their sales operations.

Of the many solutions, mobile field sales application has gained significant momentum over the past few years and is a potential game changer in field sales and other related operations.

In this post, I have highlighted some of the key benefits of field sales mobile app for FMCG sector.

#1 – Centralized sales tracking

Obsolete or dispersed data will never allow any company with insights to improve. Having the data of different processes and processing the information can be backbreaking for companies. Lack of accuracy and man-made errors can add more salt to the injury.

Companies are looking for a solution to store and access data from a centralized system, and mobile field service software helps the workforce and top management access real-time data from anywhere and anytime from a centralized repository.

Implementing field sales apps in FMCG related companies can simplify the data management and accessibility challenges.

#2 – Access to real-time operation data

The manual access to sales data often hampers the production and sales cycle massively. Top management faces the challenge of making quick and smart decisions based on the data. Without real-time data from field sales reps and internal teams, predicting the trend and improving the business is hard.

Empowering the field force with an advanced mobile app will help them to make faster decisions based on real-time data. Field sales app simplifies the process and enables the automatic data collection from field sales operations. The app brings transparency to the entire process and helps the top management to make better decisions based on the accurate real-time data amassed.

#3 – Process data quickly and efficiently

While amassing data is challenging for FMCG companies, processing the data for faster decisions is even more demanding. This is where Cloud computing technology kicks in. Mobile Sales App are powered with Cloud technology to process the data. Updating and retrieving data are simpler with Cloud; you can process the data in no time to make intelligent decisions.

Another massive benefit of using Cloud in the field sales app is it allows sales reps to up-sell and cross-sell products to customers when needed. Based on the individual customer histories and preferences, sales reps can delight them with personalized offers to customers.

#4 – Digitalize the distribution, retail, and sales operations

Manual coordination of distributors, retailers, and sales is often daunting and requires time and effort. The lack of accurate data makes tracking companies’ sales operations even more challenging.

Tracking the complete workflow is simple with the help of the mobile field sales app. The field sales application helps the companies to track retailers and sales operations in real-time and provides accurate data. Empower your workforce with real-time data to collaborate better and render a best-in-class customer experience.

#5 – Increase in business RoI

It doesn’t matter what kind of process or technology you adopt, if the initiative is not providing you any revenue, it’s of no use. Many companies have realized this. This is the obvious reason why most FMCG-based companies are insisting on digital transformation solutions like file force apps to streamline processes, collaborate better to improve revenue.

Field sales applications have significantly improved the performance of businesses over the years due to its ability to scale and improve operations significantly.

The field force automation market size was $1,196.9 million in 2019, and it is projected to record a CAGR of 20.9% during 2020–2030. The strongest growth drivers for this market include the increasing smartphone and mobile internet penetration, surging focus on leveraging advanced technologies, such as cloud computing, the internet of things (IoT), and artificial intelligence (AI), in field force automation solutions, and soaring requirement for automating repetitive activities. (Source: psmarketresearch)

#6 – Optimized route planning

Route optimization for meeting distributors, retailers, and customers every day is a headache to both managers and sales reps when performed manually. The entire process can go for a toss if the route planning is unsuccessful. Optimizing the route perfectly with automation software is desired to reduce the challenges of meeting the stakeholders.

Field sales software enables sales managers to optimize routes quickly and helps sales reps to meet customers on-time. The managers can also switch routes if they have to alter them based on climate or transportation difficulties.

Wrapping up

Field sales applications are transforming how FMCG companies operate, and smart leaders have already started to implement digital advancements to improve business efficiency.

If you’re looking for reliable field sales software for business growth, I recommend you.

With the real-time data acquired, companies have improved their business growth massively. Happisales can be your ideal solution to simplify field sales operations and amplify business growth. The advanced field sales app will help your sales rep to facilitate collaboration and data sharing between departments.

Want to empower your sales team with advanced field sales applications, try happisales now. As the name suggests, the application will delight your sales reps and internal teams dealing with sales data.

Want to explore the features and benefits of happisales?

Request a free trial now.

October 11, 2022
Implementing Field Force Software: Simple and Painless (with Right Strategy)
The advancement of technology, smartphones, and mobile applications have significantly transformed the field sales operations over the past five years.

The Field Sales Software market has grown from USD million to USD million from 2017 to 2022. With a CAGR of this market is estimated to reach USD million in 2029 (Source: Market Watch).

Yet the top management teams of many SMEs hesitate investing in field service software, fearing implementation failures.

I have listed some challenges that stop SMEs from field sales management software investment.
1. Is it a must for the business
2. Time taken to implement the solution
3. Post-implementation support
4. Unsure about the complete benefits
5. Employee buy-in
6. Finding the right implementation partner
They are right so. But, in practice, implementing the field sales automation software is simple and seamless, provided the project is handled by the right team with the right strategy.

Still not convinced? In this post, I have come up with some interesting pointers that might help you experience a seamless and effective field sales implementation journey to take your business to the next level.

Before getting started, let’s sneak peek at what field sales software is and why businesses should implement one for their business.

What is field sales software?

Performing all the field sales operations and reporting to the managers on the same day manually consumes much time for executives and managers. This impacts the business’s productivity, sales cycles, time, and RoI.

Automating the field sales operations with mobile sales app simplifies the woes of the managers and executives. The software eliminates the unnecessary delays in the process and expedites the sales cycle, saving time for both and helping improve the RoI of your business staggeringly.

Now, it’s time to focus on the core, that is, why implementing field sales software is a breeze for some businesses and a headache for many.

Why you need a field sales automation software

It’s a good practice to ask why before investing in any technology, and field sales mobile app isn’t an exception. Of all the factors that impact any business and operations, RoI and customer experience top the list.

You can meet your business goals and satisfy your customers with manual operations. Yet, what if you can increase your customer experience and RoI multi-fold? Yes, you can, with field force automation software.

Automation can simplify many processes, improve staff collaboration, and bring transparency to the complete sales cycle. What else do you need? You can safely invest in field force automation.

Time taken to implement the solution

Most companies fear this part. The cost and time taken for software implementation. Unlike other digital transformation solution implementations like IoT, AI, or RPA, deploying a field force software won’t take long. It is just a matter of hours to get the complete setup installed.

Depending on your requirement, you can implement the app in Cloud (monthly billing) or on-premise (one-time billing).

Also, the cost of implementing the solution is less than what you will get back after deployment.

Post-implementation support

Many SMEs fear this. No denying the fact that it is critical for the seamless business operations of a company. The answer relies in the vendor you’ve picked for your implementation part.

I will help you with how to find the best field sales software implementation partner in the upcoming sections.

Most reputed companies often package their product with post-implementation support and have their support team ready 24/7 to help their clients.

So, you don’t have to worry about the support after deployment.

Unsure of the field sales software benefits

If you fear investing in a field sales app because of not having a complete idea about the benefits, I have listed some of the benefits of field sales software.
- Efficient scheduling and dispatching
- Streamlined productivity
- Personalized customer experiences
- Optimized route planning
- Improved inventory management
- Faster deal closures
- Faster payment processing
- Real-time data sharing
- Seamless integration with CRM and other systems
Employee buy-in

Another exciting challenge that can’t be overlooked. Yes, it is a must for any business investing in new technology to get its employees’ consent before signing the project.

Your field sales team will use the solution; if they are not inspired, there is no point in deploying in one. Why do you need a solution that no one is interested in? It will produce only catastrophic results for your business.

The key to mitigating the above challenge partially relies on the internal and implementation team. This is why partnering with a best-in-class implementation provider is all-important.

The internal and external team should interact with the field sales executives and managers to help them realize the unlimited potential of the solution and how it might simplify their day-to-day operations to improve their efficiency.

Also, you can talk to them about the solution’s reward system, which will help employees perform well for the month or week.

Interact with the implementation partner to get the employees a free trial of the solution to understand how it works and helps them. This plays a massive role in getting their approval.

Providing such valuable information helps everyone in the company to understand the solution better and pushes them to make positive decisions.

So, you don’t have to worry about the employee buy-in challenge.

Partnering with top fields sales software implementation vendor

The most important and tricky part that most businesses falter.

Your business is like a sinking tank if you can’t partner with the right vendor for your implementation efforts.

On one side, you’ll be losing quite some money on the implementation front, and you won’t have their consistent support with respect customer related issues in the future if they don’t have the right experience and talents.

Tips for finding the reliable implementation partner
1. Find a full-stack app development company
2. Check their years of experience
3. Check their clientele, ask for case studies and references
4. Interact with their technical talents to understand their abilities
5. Ask about the knowledge they have with similar clients
6. Check customer testimonials and feedback online, including on websites and social media
7. Ask about project cost and implementation time, get a roadmap
8. Ask for a free trial, and ask your internal team to use the app
9. Talk openly about post-implementation support, analyze their terms and conditions
With this approach, you can partner with the suitable vendor to implement your solution.

Summing up

Implementing the field sales app is simple and seamless if you take the right approach.

The RoI and customer experience always contribute to the faster growth of any company.

And, field sales automation software can quickly multiply your customer’s experience and skyrocket your RoI.

Have any queries? Want to know about field sales software? We are experts.

Want to see how the solution works?

Visit: https://blog.happisales.com/
August 23, 2022
Field Service Management: How to Simplify Business Operations
A common challenge that most SMBs face today is the insufficient time leading to declined productivity. Of the many factors that contribute to productivity lapse are manual processes, systems, and tools.

Still, many companies rely on manual processes believing they are cost-effective and easy to use.

But, in practice, they’re not. Manual systems and tools often need much money for management and hamper employee productivity.

Just imagine, what if your field service teams have to spend nearly 3 hours every day inputting the field data to the report sheet. With such activity, it makes no sense to blame the employees for the delay in the customer meetings and task completions.

Field service manual operation challenges
1. Time-consuming and labor-intensive
2. Inaccurate data
3. Delayed scheduled appointments
4. Difficulty in field sales route planning and tracking
5. Poor data integration to the CRM
6. Expensive to maintain and manage
7. Chained to desktops to input data
8. Production delays
9. Unhappy customers
10. Negative RoI
When such things happen in a company, a possible outcome will be below-par customer service and experience. What could this mean to your business? Of course, you’ll be losing many customers in a quick interval of time. Remember, when a customer moves to another brand, chances are less that they will revisit your brand.

Business processes and systems in a company should be in a way that they not only help your company deliver unparalleled customer experience. It also present your company with new revenue-boosting opportunities.

Looking for options to overcome the field service employee shortcomings and productivity hampering?

This post has covered a widely deployed solution to accelerate your productivity and field service operations.

Digital advancements have transformed almost all departments of SMBS, and field sales is no exception.

Of the many solutions, if there is one solution that boosts the field sales operations of many companies today, it is field sales management software.

Let’s discuss how the emerging software helps the field sales team and accelerates their operations.

Simplifies field sales operations with real-time data sharing

Field service employees leave the business premises every day to meet customers. The manual routes and task allocation sometimes hamper productivity.

The challenges are that the routes may not be feasible for transporting due to bad weather and roads. This can delay the customer meetings, leading to frustrated customers.

Also, updating the field service data after customer meetings is daunting as they have to enter every piece of information in the evening. There are two problems: (i) collecting the data from customers without any mistakes and (ii) interpreting the same data without any errors in the CRM.

Both are challenging when performed manually. Think how better it would be if your field service team could update the customer data in real-time from the customer place to CRM without breaking a sweat. This could save much time for your service manager and field sales executive.

Yes, this is possible with the help of field service management app.

Syncs service managers and field service executives using real-time tracking

Another massive challenge that every service manager and field sales executive faces is collaborating and communicating with each other while they are out for customer visits.

The manual processes often hamper the communications between the two, and mostly, phone calls connect them. It is hard for someone traveling to understand and execute the information flawlessly.

Well, what if your field force manager can instantly collaborate and communicate with the team through an application and get instant replies from them.

This could save much time for both. Using the real-time data sharing feature in the field service management app, accelerating the field service operations won’t be backbreaking for businesses.

Helps track field service team out for visits from anywhere, any time

Tracking the field service agents out for customer places is demanding for service managers. Unless the agent updates the details, it is hard for any service manager to track the route and customer meeting details.

The service managers are blindfolded to such details, which impacts overall productivity badly. As they don’t know where every field service agent is, they don’t have complete control over the entire process. With no data to act upon until the end of the day, they don’t have any other option but to wait till they hear from a rep.

But, the complete blinded folded process can be easily improved with the help of field service Software.

The app-enabled software automates the complete process and brings transparency between the field service and managers.

The managers can monitor and track every movement of the rep, and the latter can update the details to the managers without any difficulty. In this way, both can expedite the process and productivity rate significantly.

Expedites decision-making process with accurate CRM data

Data plays a critical role in the growth of any business. You’re gone if you don’t have the correct data to analyze and act.

The manual processes and operations often lead to manufactured errors, reflecting on the data part. The false data entered into the CRM can easily delay or divert you from making the right decisions. It will help your business grow faster.

To avoid this, you need software to help you with 100% accurate data. Field sales mobile app can help you with this.

The tool captures the accurate data from the field sales team and allows to input the data into the CRM instantly.

The service managers and C-level executives can leverage the data to make faster and better decisions that contribute to the company’s growth.

In a nutshell, the automation software will help you save time and the cost of your business while paving the way for new opportunities and revenue streams.

Final thoughts

Automating the process with suitable systems and tools can significantly improve business performance, operations, and growth.

Invest in the right field service management software today to improve yours.
August 16, 2022
Field Sales: #4 Tips to Boost Your Sales Team’s Weekly Productivity

Be it a small, medium, or large company, and if your sales team is not performing to the mark, then there are chances that your competitors will outsmart you.

Effective sales operations are critical for the success of every business. And, it is a must to understand the sales team’s needs to improve their efficiency.

Mostly, defective planning, inadequate goal setting, lack of preparation, imperfect execution, and inferior team handling leads to sales rep’s production decline.

Also, not presenting them with the right tools and technologies can play a critical role in the decline of operational efficiency.

Let’s analyze each challenge in detail in the sections below.

Tip #1: Inadequate to near-to-perfect goal setting

Every sales rep must have a specific goal for the long-term and short-term to boost the business bottom line. In reality, what happens is the lack of goal setting or setting up unrealistic goals that are challenging to execute.

Goals should be realistic and should be discussed with the sales rep beforehand. Many factors like the number of customer meet-ups in a day, status updates, attendance, leaves, and reporting have to be analyzed ahead.

However, performing all the tasks manually consumes much time, and it might take a day or two to develop a realistic goal. This can affect the sales rep’s weekly productivity and impact overall sales goals and cycles.

How to set goals in a short period?

The best way to improve the goal-setting is by implementing field force automation solution. Mobile app-enabled automation software will simplify a sales manager’s woes in setting feasible goals.

The exact help the workforce to work on the goals, check the progress, and adhere to the deadlines to ensure that both the sales team and they are on the same track.

Setting up goals in the automation software is relatively simple, and you can easily do it without a sweat.

Another fantastic benefit of having field service software is the reward system. For every short-term goal achieved, every rep can be rewarded with a gift or incentive that boosts his confidence and morale to perform better for the upcoming weeks.

And, sales managers don’t have to spend much time assessing and rewarding the systems with the help of the software.

Tip #2: Defective to practical sales rep tasks and planning

Without a specific plan and action items, it is hard for any sales team to meet the deadlines.

With sales being the heart of the enterprise, having a defective plan for the week can quickly derail your entire sales process.

Defective task planning is primarily due to manual operations and status updates from sales reps. A sales manager can plan anything, but everything does not need to be executed by the representatives.

Starting from route planning to customer meetings setting up the right tasks for a day is vital to improving the customer service and business bottom line.

How do you improve defective task planning?

Leveraging the tools and technology is the best way to improve field sales efficiency. Setting up a realistic plan with a field sales tracker and mobile app is never difficult.

It takes only a few minutes for the sales reps to update their daily status about customer meetings and for managers to set up tasks and routes for the sales force.

The app simplifies both the challenges effortlessly. With the updates in hand, tracking the number of meetings and tasks closed is seamless.

It helps in long-term planning and task allocation. The field force tracker enabled with Google Maps can also help the reps identify alternate routes during natural calamities or avoid roads not destined for traveling.

Tip #3: Lackluster to well-defined preparation

Most often, the sales reps out for meeting customers don’t have the right tools to list their to-dos. With manual notebooks or pieces of paper, it is hard to track and stick to their plan.

Also, it is ubiquitous for humans to miss out on an essential piece of advice or suggestion from the management and customers. As they don’t have the right technology tool to capture customer feedback, satisfying them will be challenging.

How to improve lackluster planning?

On the other hand, if you have advanced field service management app with an inbuilt to-do-list feature, it is easy for your reps to prepare well in advance.

It won’t take much time to record the customer feedback/suggestions. Also, they can easily take notes using the mobile app, digitally authenticate customer signatures, etc.

With this approach, the sales reps can save time, won’t miss any details, and perform their best to their potential.

Tip #4: Inferior to the superior team handling

Handling a team of sales reps is always challenging for most sales managers. Without the right tool or system in place, managers have to deal with many papers to evaluate every sales rep’s performance and efficiency.

Every detail of the day’s updates from a sales rep must be studied before sitting with the representatives for a weekly meeting.

Inaccurate or missed data leads to chaos and creates disengagement between a rep and sales manager.

For sales managers, understanding the challenges of reps, day-to-day closures, and the progress of weekly planning is backbreaking.

How to improve inferior team handling?

A simple field force software powered by a mobile app can simplify the above challenge for your sales team.

The app helps the reps update every detail on the go, and the complete data is captured in the CRM without manual effort. The sales manager must process the data, discover the best rep of the week, and reward handsomely.

With this approach, handling the team becomes seamless and improves the operational efficiency of both the sales managers and reps.

Final thoughts

From the above discussion, it is evident that field service software can transform the way the sales crew works. By saving time and boosting your sales team’s operational efficiency, the business can experience skyrocketing outcomes with improved customer experience.

Is your organization facing the challenges above? Is your sales team performing to their potential? If not, it is high time to rethink your strategy.

Invest in the right automation software to improve your sales team’s efficiency.

Want to experience the power of our field force automation software? Start your free trial today.

July 25, 2022
A step-by-step guide to create ideal rep profiles: Create killer rep profiles and turbocharge your targeting

It is a common notion in sales circles that 20% of the reps generate 80% of the total sales of the concerned organization. This notion drives sales leaders to pin all their hopes onto top performing sales reps.

The fact however remains that sales is a science and not exclusively an art. There’s a clear cut recipe to nurture your salespeople into high performers and the recipe involves a holistic combination of knowledge, skills, and attitude.

While the recipe varies based on organization and role, the underlying method that defines the attributes that make sellers successful remains the same.

That being said, let us first define what the term Ideal Rep Profile means, and why you need one in the first place!

What is an IRP and why do I need one?

An IRP defines and benchmarks top competencies – a combination of knowledge, skills, and behaviors – that reps must possess in order to attain success on the field.

It is important to document and encode your IRP where you can measure skill development and its impact on business outcomes.

As you make your own IRP, keep these things in mind:

Knowledge: Reps need to have a good grasp of certain information and knowledge to be successful. For example, a seller needs to have solid product knowledge, as well as a great understanding of competitors’ products.

Skills: Sellers must master key skills to be able to close deals. For example, if a rep has strong discovery and objection handling skills, they’re more likely to be successful than those who struggle in this area.

Behaviors: Knowledge and skills are the foundation for success. But the real test is how a rep applies what they know when in the field.

Certain in-field behaviors can make or break a sale. For example, successful reps listen more than they talk and limit their use of filler words.

The competencies included in an IRP aren’t simply a laundry list of what sales leaders think reps need to be successful.

Rather, they’re the competencies possessed by the best sellers – and those correlated with positive sales outcomes.

How to create an ideal rep profile: A 3 step framework to build your IRP

Determine IRP roles

The competencies required for success vary based on the role of the individual. For example, while discovery skills are very important for an account executive, they’re less important for customer success teams.

As such, it’s a best practice to create a separate IRP for each key role. The first step is to determine the roles for which you’ll create IRPs.

Typically, companies define IRPs for their go-to-market (GTM) or customer-facing roles. According to a popular research undertaking, the top 5 roles for which organizations define their IRPs include:

Account executives

Business development representatives

Channel sales

Customer success

Sales engineers

Identify goals and competencies

After identifying key roles, the next step is to identify the goals for each role.

For example, a goal for a sales engineer is to perform structured demos, while one for a customer success manager might be to minimize churn.

Then, it’s time to determine the required competencies for each role. These should be the knowledge, skills, and behaviors each role needs to possess to meet their goals.

This list shouldn’t be created based on gut feeling. Instead, it should be a list of competencies possessed by the best sellers and each competency should be correlated with sales success.

According to a popular study, organizations with an IRP define at least 15 competencies per role, and you would be well-advised to emulate the same in your company.

Rank key competencies

The typical IRP includes several competencies that are crucial for sales success. However, some carry more weight than others.

After identifying the knowledge, skills, and behaviors for each role, it’s important to assign a rank to each.

Harness the power of IRP to supercharge sales rep performance

Of course, simply creating an IRP doesn’t guarantee better sales results across the team. However, it should serve as the north star of the organization’s sales readiness program.

Once there’s alignment on the knowledge, skills, and behaviors necessary for sales success, sales and enablement leaders can strive to develop onboarding, training, and content programs that focus on these key areas.

In addition, organizations can measure each rep’s competencies against the IRP on a regular basis to nurture the reps’ growth. Completion of training modules and performance on assessments and quizzes can enable you to gauge the progress of your reps and throw light on the kind of support they require in order to reach their full potential.

But, organizations must dig deep to measure how their reps are actually putting their knowledge and skills into practice in the field. Gaining this intel might involve sitting in a rep’s call or leveraging conversation intelligence to see where reps are shining, and where things need improvement.

By regularly benchmarking the performance of reps against the IRP, organizations can identify competency gaps early on. This allows managers to deliver targeted and personalized coaching to close these gaps.

Then, they can measure improvement on key competencies and analyze how these improvements are impacting sales outcomes.

In a nutshell

By establishing an IRP, you can overcome the limiting belief that 20% of reps generate 80% of the sales results in your organization.

You can ensure that all your reps reach their full potential and drive sales success for the organization. If you’ve enjoyed reading this article, stay tuned to find out more!

We will be publishing a host of illuminating articles over time to help you optimize your sales and drive growth. If you’d like us to shed more light on a particular topic, feel free to reach out to us by mailing sales@happisales.com!

July 15, 2022
Field Sales: Simple Solution to Engage and Drive Your Team
Of the many factors that decide a business’s success, employee productivity and efficiency are skyrocketing top of the list. Managing the field sales team and tracking their efficiency can be a headache.

Making the complete sales team (sales managers and field sales) focus on the tasks and work efficiently doesn’t rely only on the CEOs and CTOs. Giving them the right tools and technical assistance can help them overcome the challenges and deliver their best.

Before getting started, let’s dive deep into understanding the challenges and factors distracting or annoying the sales team.

Top challenges that disengage field force
1. Attendance/permission/leave approvals
2. Task allocation/collaboration
3. Route planning/task switching
4. Meeting customers at the right time
5. Reporting to managers
The same can happen to the heads of your sales as well. It doesn’t matter whether your field force or sales heads get annoyed/disengaged. The result remains the same, a drop in productivity.

Top challenges that disengage sales managers
1. Monitoring field sales executives away
2. Assigning routes, tasks
3. Following up for updates
4. Updating reports at the end of the day
5. Tracking efficiency of field sales executive
6. Reporting to management with data
What should businesses do to engage field sales and accelerate productivity?

Most field sales teams of different companies confront the above challenges. The ONE reason for all the challenges is either lack of complete automation or partial automation software implemented by the businesses.

Even today, many field sales executives report to the managers in the morning and start their day-to-day activities. The process takes some time, and the sales executives have only a few hours to meet the customers on time.

After completing the daily chores, they report to the sales managers in the evening to provide updates on the customer meetings.

On the other hand, the managers are clueless whether a sales representative has met the customer at the specific location until he updates/reports to the office. The process lacks transparency and results in a productivity loss for field sales executives and sales managers.

The total productivity loss from the sales team hits the business’s bottom line hard and leads to the de-branding of the company.

If your sales team faces the above challenges, you’re not alone. The above-shared challenges can be mitigated with the help of field service management software.

Top benefits of leveraging field sales app
- Transparency to the entire process
- Seamless route planning and task allocation
- Live-tracking app
- On-the-go reporting
- 100% accuracy/faster decision making
- Peace of mind
Let’s discuss each benefit in detail in the sections below.

6 Ways field service automation helps your sales team to boost productivity

Brings transparency to the sales cycle

A significant problem most sales team faces is the communication between field sales executives and sales managers. Often, sales managers don’t get any updates from the field sales team.

Similarly, the field sales team is let down by managers sometimes. Lack of transparency in the process hurts the sales performance and customer experience.

With field service management software in place, sales managers can quickly discover where the field sales executive is and can instantly communicate with sales managers regarding customer meetings.

Often the software comes up with a field sales app. This simplifies the communication and eliminates the communication block between field sales and sales teams, improving operations and efficiency.

Seamless route planning and task allocation

Assigning tasks and planning routes for field sales is often a headache for most sales heads. Even more challenging is tracking the field sales team when they are out. On the other hand, field sales face challenges if there is a problem in the route assigned to them.

This leads to a dilemma and slows down the sales cycle.

On the other hand, the field sales management software helps the sales team assign tasks and plan the routes without any discomfort. Even if there is a change in the route, the field sales team quickly updates the sales managers so that they can reengage another field sales person near the vicinity to get the meeting done.

This saves time and improves operational efficiency.

Live tracking of field sales activities

Tracking and monitoring the day-to-day activities of sales persons is a massive challenge for sales managers. Sometimes they don’t even know whether the scheduled appointment is made or missed until the field sales executive updates at the end of the day.

The lack of daily updates causes a delay in the sales cycle.

Sales managers can track every field sales person for customer meetings without using field sales automation software.

The live field sales tracking feature helps the sales heads to track the activities of the field sales team live. This gives them a quick update on the scheduled meeting progress.

On-the-go reporting

Updating the sales data from the field sales at the end of the day is one hell of a task for field sales managers and the field sales team. On the other hand, no matter how long it takes, field sales have to update their reports to the managers at the end of the day.

Both processes consume much time and bring down the sales cycle.

Field sales can use the on-the-go reporting feature of field service management software to update their activities from anywhere, at any time. Similarly, the sales manager doesn’t have to wait till the end of the day, saving their time.

The automation software for the field force simplifies the entire process, leading to faster sales cycles.

100% Accuracy and faster decision making

What if you have sales data updated daily, which is inaccurate? It doesn’t make any difference. Without automation, manufacturing errors are always possible, impacting the performance and efficiency of field sales activities and sales cycle.

Above all, with false data in hand, decision-making becomes an uphill task.

The field force automation software eliminates the possibility of errors in the data entered, which helps make faster and more formidable decisions. The accurate data depicts the exact picture of the sales activities and their impact on the business candidly.

Peace of mind

As most of the process is automated with the help of field sales software, the sales manager and field sales team don’t have to sweat out a lot when performing the day-to-day activities.

Both teams can complete the tasks well within the stipulated time, which gives much time to get a good night’s sleep and spend time with their families. This helps them to focus and deliver better.

Final thoughts

Providing the sales team with the right tools and technology is the best way to engage and delight them. With best-in-class field service management software, both teams can perform and deliver to their best.

Do you have the right tools for your sales team? Still, is relying on outdated systems disengaging your workforce and team’s performance?

It’s time to re-evaluate your strategy. The competition is brimming, and you must act fast before your competitor does.

Looking for suggestions or got queries about field sales improvement or software? We are all ears.
July 11, 2022
8 strategies to optimize the performance of your field service team: Increase profits, enhance customer loyalty and boost productivity
If you wish to see a plant grow into a full-fledged tree, you need to set up the right atmosphere to nourish it. Simply wishing is not going to make things happen.

You need to till your garden and prepare the soil, add the right compost and fertilizer, provide protection from pests and diseases, water the garden bed regularly, and ensure ample sunlight as well as fresh air to help your plant blossom.

The same holds true for your field service team: simply bombarding them with goals and objectives isn’t going to transform your team. You need to create certain conditions to help your team thrive.

Before exploring these conditions, let’s explore the attributes associated with a high-performance team. High-performance team players consistently show high levels of collaboration and trust. They are also:
- Highly skilled
- Goal-focused
- Innovative
- Produce superior results
To empower your team to live up to these traits, you need to ensure the following conditions:

Process

A process sets up the foundation of how your field service team interacts with your business, office, and customers to transform an input into output. Field teams must be:
- Provided with a workflow that is well-connected, transparent, short, free from roadblocks, and designed to cover a wide spectrum of what-if scenarios. The workflow should support collaboration with cross-functional teams and internal users to ensure seamless performance.
- Equipped with essential resources at each milestone such as information, tools, and enough time at hand to complete repairs and simultaneously build positive relationships with clients. Field teams empowered with audio-visual communication and tracking and monitoring tools are highly likely to coordinate event logistics and perform jobs more efficiently.
Training

Field technician training encompasses three aspects:
- Skills: Your technicians should be trained to effectively diagnose the problem, determine the solution, and successfully perform installation, repair, maintenance, and test tasks.
- Communication: This aspect involves both internal and external communication. It could be properly communicating any foreseeable problems to the authorized personnel at the earliest indication. Likewise, communication with external stakeholders like customers or other teams helps build a positive brand experience.
- Safety: Your technicians must be trained to operate safely, following all the procedures and protocols in place.
With the advancement of technology, delivering such training isn’t cost-intensive and can be a fun-filled experience for your teams. Upskilling employees at regular intervals can also help you foster better relationships with them.

Hiring

There are many preferences that dominate hiring decisions. The most common one is that the candidates must have experience in a similar domain; the best is to have worked with competitors. Another is to have exact skills as required to fulfill the job criteria.

While these factors offer a shortcut to measure the candidates’ knowledge and experience, they are regressive and restrict the entry of fresh candidates.

Maintaining a fair ratio of fresh talent and those that possess deep technical knowledge has proved to be an effective hiring strategy for service businesses across industries. While training these fresh faces may seem daunting from financial and other perspectives, its long-term benefits far outweigh the efforts.

Tech Enablement

Empowering technicians with futuristic technologies such as IoT, AI, mobility, communication tools, cloud solutions, and data analytics can not only improve their efficiency and overall profitability but also nurture a positive brand image.

Purpose

High-performing teams are synergistic social entities that work toward the achievement of common goals—short-term and long-term. They often exemplify a total commitment to work and to each other.

Team members do better work when their roles are clear: They know how to do their jobs and why they are doing them. Each member must understand and support the meaning and value of the team’s mission and vision.

Clarifying the purpose and tying it to each person’s role and responsibilities enhances team potential. Consider setting up a goals meeting with the team as a forum to discuss key priorities. This allows them to have some input in the development of objectives, and they will likely be more committed to achieving them.

Leadership

High-performing leaders generally accompany high-performance work teams. Essential leadership qualities include the ability to:

a) keep the purpose, goals, and approach relevant and meaningful

b) inspire commitment and confidence

c) ensure that team members constantly enhance their skills

d) manage relationships from the outside with a focus on the removal of obstacles that might hinder group performance

e) provide opportunities for others without seeking credit

f) get in the trenches and do the real work required

Effective team leaders focus on purpose, relationships, and an unwavering commitment to results that benefit the organization and each individual.

Trust

Trust is at the heart of any successful team. Without it, teams will be unable to progress due to fear of conflict or lack of commitment.

Establishing trust between team members can help take the team from satisfactory performance levels to outstanding results.

Being open and honest about strengths and limitations in workplace behaviours is an excellent way to help generate trust between team members.

Create a culture of transparency, innovation, and collaboration. Encourage your team members to brainstorm and present new ideas, cultivate their problem-solving skills, and train them to make the best decisions in any scenario.

Incentives

Both monetary and nonmonetary systems that encourage high performance have a positive impact on the implementation of business goals.

Over the long term, intrinsic motivators such as personal satisfaction at work and working on interesting projects provide the greatest impact on performance.

In addition, a belief in one’s self and abilities encourages people to take more strategic risks to achieve team goals.

In a nutshell

Taking care of the factors mentioned above can turbocharge the performance of your field service team. Supporting your business with a robust field service management software is another excellent way to boost the performance of your field executives.

Happisales is a neat and elegant field force engagement platform that allows you to perform sales, collection, order, and service in a synchronized way.

Designed to enhance collaboration between managers and field reps, Happisales allows managers to assess and maximize the performance of field executives.

Schedule a free consultation and talk to our experts today! Take your first step towards field service transformation.
June 15, 2022
Top strategies to reduce Field Service Operation Costs
One of the paramount concerns for every field service organization is its high operational costs. In recent times, most organizations are striving to reduce them without compromising the quality of the services offered.

At the crux, to achieve a competitive position in the service industry, one needs to remain profitable while fulfilling customer expectations and keeping them satisfied.

To achieve this, it is essential to deep dive into these issues and address them. Let us look at some of the strategies that can be implemented to reduce the costs-
1. Improving the effectiveness of the technician’s first visit – A lot of the field technicians complain about the lack of proper information available to go in for the initial visit.
This leads to more follow-up trips, thereby increasing the cost of fuel expenses and resources. To prevent this, you should find out the customer’s issues along with their expectations in advance.

This way you can send the right technician along with the appropriate equipment to solve the issue in the first visit itself.

Further, a follow-up should be initiated with the customer to ensure that the task has been accomplished to the customer’s satisfaction thereby improving the trust and goodwill of your organization.
1. Optimizing the Inventory– It is never a good idea to overstock or understock inventory because holding too much inventory can eat away the profits whereas understocking leads to losing potential customers.
You need to strike the right balance between the two. To achieve this, you need to evaluate your business needs and requirements and find the right inventory management tools that provide the real-time status of the inventory.

These tools will aid in improving inventory management and cashflows, saving storage costs, and retaining customers.
1. Ensuring scheduling is up to date- Poor scheduling practices often lead to internal conflicts within the team, low productivity, and high field service operation costs.
To avoid such conflicts, you can employ a smart field service software that can help in assigning tasks based on the technician’s skills, in other words, putting the right person for the right job, tracking the location of the technicians on a real-time basis to improve efficiency, and optimizing the routes to save travel time and fuel costs.
1. Reducing costs of Training and Recruitment – Ideally, hiring new candidates and providing them with the necessary training involves a huge cost.
One of the effective ways to save such recruitment and training costsis by retaining the best talent. To do that, you should motivate the employees by recognizing them periodically.

This recognition should be data-driven and not be fuelled by any biases. By using the right software, you can build a performance evaluation profile for each technician based on the metrics such as the number of work orders assigned and finished in a day, type and current status of the task assigned, inspection, and validation of the task, etc.

You need to set optimal performance metrics to perform at the best productive level. The performance profile of each employee can be evaluated against these metrics to determine appropriate rewards and compensation.
1. Going Digital- About 50% of the field service organizations still operate using manual methods. Such methods are neither cost-effective nor efficient.
If you have hired people to perform tasks such as scheduling and planning the work, it is time to automate it. Using a filed sales management software tool allows you to gather important information such as invoices, billings, business contracts, attendance and leaves of the employees, etc leaving no room for errors.

This way the employees can now focus more on meaningful tasks. So, the first step is to identify the business processes that are redundant or dependent more on paper, examine the cost associated with people performing such tasks, and then plan to automate them in order to save on such expenditures.
1. Customer-centric support solutions: Customers often experience unnecessary wait times even for issues that can be resolved online.
Innovative solutions can be provided to handle such issues. You can implement AI-enabled Chatbots that can handle redundant customer queries.

Customer rating can be captured for all the AI-resolved issues. Technicians can further review the ratings and update the AI resolution mechanism on a regular basis.

A ticketing system can be used to report issues that are not resolved through AI support. All such issues reported by customers through tickets can be reviewed for online resolution by interacting with the customers.

Technicians can be assigned for field resolution only on a need and priority basis. In this manner, you can create a better customer-centric experience and also utilize the technician’s time more efficiently and effectively.

In a nutshell

Optimizing field service costs is imperative if you are running a field service organization. Digitizing and using relevant field service tools can help you achieve your goals while remaining at the top of your game.

The above-mentioned strategies are some of the ways that can help you cut down on costs, and focus on elevating customer satisfaction.
June 8, 2022