Ever since Covid -19 announced itself, the world as we knew it has never been the same. With ample time passing by, and with lockdown restrictions imposed, people and businesses alike have taken to a new way of life, not only surviving but have also shown signs of prevalence in these dark times. How did they do it? How did businesses adapt to a new world and improve selling through Field Force Automation Tool?
Impact of COVID 19
Trade and Commerce came to a standstill with counties around the world shutting down their borders. Businesses were shut down to bare bones creating shockwaves disrupting the supply chains. As per a statement issued by Nomura India Business Resumption Index, the economic activity fell from 82.9 to 44.7 and the nation saw a spike in unemployment rates, rising from 6.7% to 26%, all in a matter of 21 days! Close to 140 million people in the working class fell victim to job cuts or had taken salary cuts due to the pandemic. Close to 47% of the businesses were shut down costing the country almost 32,000crores in loss with results showing a 40% dip in the country’s GDP when compared to the last year.
Why is reinventing your sales force important
Most of the companies that were at the heart of the crisis were predominantly companies that thrived on sales. With their sales force completely taken down of its functionality, businesses were unable to gather leads and convert prospects into acquisitions. But as a wise quote was once foretold – Life always finds its way!. As the pandemic restrictions loosened up, organisations found themselves adapting to new ways, innovating ideas to keep themselves not only afloat but also thrive in these hard times. Just as companies found their sales force ineffective during the lockdown, the optimistic few found ways to evolve their field sales into something more different, in ways that were in need of the hour. Those who were successful found their footing once again and had relatively better numbers on their financials to put a big smile on their face.
Ways to keep your sales team upbeat
A case of “searching for the keys to an open door”. The success mantra is not very complex or something that has been invented. It is an instance of refinding the simple things that were often ignored or assumed a non-aggressive strategy for. Here are the five ways to keep your field sales team at their optimal best in these times.
Sales Force Automation
There has been a paradigm shift in the way companies have taken to their field sales activities. field force automation has already been adhered to by several businesses even before Covid 19. The ability to guide your sales force with such a mobile sales app has been proven to be time effective and also, helps the crew to stay focused without having to scatter around all over the place. Planning and managing an entire crew remotely through a remote and field staff management app is a prime way to keep your people attend to their sales responsibilities even while working from home.
Streamlining the Sales Pipeline
One of the biggest challenges your field sales force faces is the bottleneck in the pipeline. The crew would have more than the optimal number of objectives to work on every day and that would only halter their efficiency. Understanding the priorities, requirements and streamlining the tasks of the day through an integrated sales tracking software would help both the management and the sales team to manage their work efficiently and securely. This would help them reduce time on the field while still having a good turnaround time on their goals!
Keeping tabs on Data-based sales objectives
Businesses have learnt to function remotely, connecting through the internet, gathering updates and assigning tasks at a push of a button. The ability to keep track of data through field sales app have proven beneficial to push beyond new horizons of inter-departmental functionality. Data collected field assist app such as location of the customer and the location of the employee would help delegate work to the team better. For instance, it would only be right to assign a task on 6th Cross Street to Tom from 5th Cross Street rather than to assign it to Harry from 18th Cross Street. Such details help to manage resources efficiently and simmer downtime constraints to a maximum possible extent.
Adapt to your ever-changing customer needs
Customers are every business’s primary importance. The very soul of a successful business is to tend to its customer’s needs and keep them at comfort at all times. A happy customer is a sales agent by his right. Having a check on your customers through a field sales app would not only help manage them better but also help serve them in better ways. It may not be an tiresome task, but something as simple as answering their queries, responding to their emails on the most minuscule of things would go a long way in generating a referral lead that might prove to be rich dividends for your time spent.
Look for new opportunities arising in these times
The final piece of the puzzle – Always be on the lookout for opportunities. The key to success (not only for a business entity) is to be conscious of the possibilities of an opportunity lying in every nook and corner of any given situation. Things may look grim, but the seeds sown today are the fruit-bearing trees of tomorrow. Give a shot at everything that matches the services provided by you. It may be something you and your field sales team would probably know, but just thought a friendly reminder would help you rekindle your thoughts again!.
A Way Forward – Future of sales
As per reports about 39% of the businesses (mostly small scale) have no intention in going back to old ways of functionality having found the new way forward.
If you had asked someone prior to 2019, there would have been no one who would have told you that the world was going to change the way it has today. Businesses would have been working towards their 5 year plans as usual treating the upcoming years just as the same as any other year. But to have the ability to adapt to such dire situations through Sales Employee Tracking App and to overcome it is a symbol of flexibility, an evolution of sorts.
If you are looking to jump on the bandwagon before it’s too late, try visiting Happisales – A solution to all your sales force automation needs!