4 Must-Haves of an Effective Field Sales Management App

One of the main concerns of field sales managers is the little oversight they have of their reps' activities throughout the workday.

For this reason, many businesses have been adopting field sales management apps as a way to increase rep accountability as well as mentoring tools. By knowing what is going on in the field, managers can identify areas of opportunity and properly coach their teams.

However, as the market offers several solutions, the options and tools might be confusing. As with any software, there are some features that are mandatory while others that are not so important. In this post, we highlight which capabilities of a field sales management app managers should look for when deciding on a solution to implement.

The must-have features of an effective field sales management app include:

• Visit scheduling and planning from both sides: If the software is to be an effective solution for managing and mentoring field reps, it must allow the scheduling and planning of visits both from the manager’s and rep’s side.
• GPS tracking and route optimization: For managers to be sure that reps properly carried out the scheduled sales calls these must be verified via GPS. Route optimization allows reps to save time and fuel by calculating the shortest route for their day.
• Real-time access to field data: The true benefits of a field sales management app can only be achieved with faster decision-making and real-time access to field data allows issues such as out-of-stocks or urgent orders to be addressed as soon as they are detected.
• Easy reporting and data exchange options: In order to please all inside and outside stakeholders – that might include data-heavy departments such as planning – an effective field sales management app must be able to exchange data in various formats, from exporting spreadsheets to allowing BigQuery access.

VisitBasis field sales management app offers all of the above features and more. See how it works for your company: Sign up today for a free trial, no credit card required!

Merchandising Software is More Important than Ever for In-Store Execution

Brick-and-mortar-only businesses have greatly been affected by social distancing measures put in place due to the Covid-19 pandemic. While many have adjusted and implemented online and mobile order interfaces, fluctuating demand allied to irregular shipment patterns means that there is an increased risk for out-of-stocks to derail sales forecasts.

It is important, therefore, to step up in-store execution and increase shelf monitoring, as well as have expedited access to data in order to fast-track decision-making.

Merchandising software is the best solution for handling large amounts of data coming from many different stores. With merchandising software, brand and category managers can customize their retail execution activities to comply with their strategies and requirements while reps and retail auditors perform in-store tasks and answer checklists on their own mobile devices.

By adopting a merchandising software solution, brand and category managers can implement strategies that include: 

• Shelf monitoring, so no sales forecast is derailed due to out-of-stocks.
• Launching promotions with in-store tasks configured to assist on sets and resets, display setup, and signage placement.
• Checking for KPIs that include competition and seasonality.
• Monitoring of promotional and brand compliance in order to verify successful strategy implementation.
• Tracking brand/product/promotional coverage at the stores in order to make sure that they are appropriately distributed and clearly visible.

VisitBasis is a comprehensive merchandising software that allows managers to create the in-store tasks and checklists necessary to effectively implement their retail execution strategies. See what VisitBasis can do for your business: Sign up for a free trial or schedule an online demo.