Salespeople are a critical part of the conversation when it comes to your buyers and driving sales. Whether it be taking orders in person, over the phone or via email, salespeople will hear from their buyers in a variety of ways, and being able to create a formalized process that is efficient and works regardless of the scenario is one key way you can make your sales team more efficient.
A sales rep app such as the Zoey App is a perfect way to place the power of managing various buyer needs in your salesperson’s hands, while ensuring that the data is managed in a consistent way. Best of all, when it can tie into a self-service platform, both your buyers and your salespeople can have all information centralized in the same system.
There are a number of ways a sales rep app can improve productivity, including:
- Take Orders Anytime, Anywhere on Any Device
- Information At Your Fingertips
- Faster Capture and Processing of Orders
- Centralize Orders in One Location
- Take Orders Online or Offline
- Integration With Other Systems
Let’s take a look at each topic in turn.
1. Take Orders Anytime, Anywhere on Any Device
The first key benefit of an app for sales reps is the ability to unshackle your sales team from their computer, while still giving them a reliable way to take orders while they’re in the field. Sales rep apps can ideally work on both tablets and smartphones, so regardless of the device your salespeople have, they can leverage the solution wherever they are.
Having an app that works on their mobile devices can further facilitate quickly capturing info for an order without having to resort to other forms like pen and paper (where data transcription errors can later occur when inputting into the system, for instance).
A Sales Rep is primarily focused on facilitating the order, so it should be simple, uncluttered and focused on the job at hand.
Here are some ways a salesperson app can be leveraged out in the field.
Selling Out in the Field
Many salespeople visit their customers and work with them to place new orders. A mobile sales app is perfect for this scenario. Salespeople can replace a laptop, or pen and paper, with a phone or tablet. A customer’s specific pricing can be reviewed and orders can be recorded.
If a salesperson needs authorization captured before an order, they can create a Sales Quote and submit to the customer for their approval, or capture a signature on-site through the app.
An app makes the process quick and easy, without requiring manual data entry after the visit. All information is accessible in the palm of their hand. If you’re selling a product that you have on you, a barcode scanning capability can make building an order even easier.
At Trade Shows, Conventions or Conferences
Similar to traveling in the field, trade shows, conferences and conventions put face time at a premium. People tend to be walking around convention centers, meeting rooms and so on so having easy access to information is helpful.
For times like this, a mobile app with an offline capability becomes a must. Internet can be shaky when there are so many people in one place at a time. With an offline mode, information such as product and customer data is cached. Plus, orders recorded can be synced back when the internet is more reliable again.
At the Office or Home Office
While it may seem appropriate to leverage a desktop or laptop computer in the office, a wholesale app can also facilitate in-office sales. Take Milkhouse Candle Co., which uses the app to speed up the capture of orders by their sales team:
“When a customer calls, the sales team would have an iPad open on behalf of the customer, as fast as they could rattle it off, and put the order in the system. As the customer hangs up, they get an email of the order.”
Eric Sparrow, President, Milkhouse Candle Co.
Meanwhile, the sales reps can use their computer to look up other information or have customer details on screen. Being able to leverage technology to its best potential will improve your sales team’s ability to sell.
2. Information At Your Fingertips
Along with being able to capture orders, a sales rep app can facilitate getting buyers the information they need.
- Catalogs (including images) can easily be pulled up to answer questions or show a customer the information they need to know, avoiding blockers that may delay the capture of an order.
- Pricing can be verified for a given buyer with accurate information based on what pricing they qualify for, another common hurdle for instant order placement
- Order history and other common data such as purchase frequency can be verified to see what purchases have been made in the past, how much and how long ago.
All of these can accelerate conversations with buyers to ensure that orders can be verified and submitted quickly and easily.
3. Faster Capture and Processing of Orders
A salesperson-focused app is traditionally honed to make standard transactions quicker and easier than on a computer, so it would make sense that for sales reps using the app wherever they are, it can facilitate capturing the order quickly and easily.
Since that order is going into your central ordering system, it also means that it will get moved along that much faster in every way – accounting, processing, fulfillment and more can be more quickly accelerated vs. orders that have to be entered into a system later, for instance.
Zoey customer Milkhouse Candle Co. uses Zoey’s app to facilitate order capture over using a web solution. Compared to previous methods, their sales have increased by 73% and the time spent per order has decreased by 43%.
4. Centralize Orders in One Location
Building upon the previous benefit, a sales rep app is ideally either part of a more complete solution or tied into your larger system to ensure that orders taken on the app are paired with orders captured in other formats, such as self-service orders placed on the web, to have a complete picture of all the orders coming in from every avenue.
For your team, you can easily see a roll-up of all orders placed, to better manage order fulfillment, customer service and sales. For your buyers, they can look up order history that incorporates orders from all methods of buying, track statuses, see which items were purchased and more.
5. Take Orders Online or Offline
A sales rep app that’s truly functional for a sales team isn’t reliant on an internet connection to capture orders in the field – an offline mode should be possible to allow for orders to be taken, and product/pricing information to be cached. Syncing can then happen when a salesperson is back in a location with reliable internet.
Many locations where sales can take place, like busy conference floors and less populated areas, don’t always have reliable connectivity and while mobile devices tend to be reliant on it, your business shouldn’t have to be. The cost of a solution that doesn’t factor in all of the options can be very expensive and time consuming.
6. Integration With Other Systems
Your sales rep app is likely just one component of your business, and you may have other tools that you leverage to get things done, whether it be accounting software like QuickBooks or larger data management solutions like NetSuite.
If your salesperson app, or the larger solution that app fits in, can connect with other business systems, that further improve the data portability and reduces any redundant data entry or management by having a solution that can connect with your other systems, moving helpful information back and forth as required.
Our Sales Rep App Can Support Your Growth
Higher productivity means the ability to take on more customers without needing to grow your team. Zoey can help you achieve this with a targeted investment in your future. Contact us to learn how Zoey can help your business:
