#fieldactivitymanagment

For every manager, in every area of business, complacency is the enemy. There are few things more frustrating to business owners and entrepreneurs than unrealized potential, and it is possible for even the best salesman or field representative to fall into that trap. If you have restructured your goals for field teams time after time, and your proven representatives are still falling short of expectations, it might be time to change your territory management system.

What managers should take into consideration is that no matter how well-suited each representative was for their designated territory when it was decided upon, demographics and consumer opinion are constantly changing, and for businesses to thrive, they must evolve alongside their customers. As a general rule, businesses should evaluate their territorial plans at least once per year, and make adjustments to accommodate changes in existing territories. This gives customers enough time to build up a relationship with representatives, but can prevent the switch in mentality that occurs when consumers and representatives decide that they are negotiating with a personal friend, and not a business partner.

While it may illogical to remove existing relationships from your existing customers, studies suggestthat in the long-term, representative rotation can have a positive effect on the customer interaction with the business. As long as higher-volume customers are notified of the changes in advance, the rotation can go off without a hitch, and give your customer interaction a new spark of energy. While things like team morale and the level of customer comfort with representatives can be extremely hard to quantify, having someone with a deep understanding of the business set benchmarks based on these criteria can help to pinpoint the best time for rotation. So how exactly do you collect that hard to quantify data? There is a plethora of field management software available to managers which makes it easy to collect information on customer satisfaction, geographic location, and any other data you could possibly want—all in real-time.

If each territory is measured by the same set of criteria, then areas of weakness will quickly become apparent, and you should be able to re-assign field representatives as you see fit. By playing to their strengths and utilizing all of the data and tools available, you can make sure that your team and customer are happy, and your goals in the field are met. Remember, complacency can creep up on you—remaining vigilant about changes in field performance will ensure you’re never caught off-guard.

If you want to learn more about territory management, download our complimentary Territory Management Template Toolkit.

1.) Disorganized/ No Record Keeping

“Today I have the meeting with the guy at that store and he always orders that drink and wants to know the status of the thing.”  Field reps deal with many different people, in different industries, with different needs. Assuming they will be able to remember them all off the top of their heads is unreasonable. That’s why it is so important to keep up to date records on all clients and transactions. Not having to track down this information prior to a sales meeting can save your salespeople and your business time, and better, bring in money when sales reps don’t have to wing it at the meeting. Make sure that there is an efficient and organized system in place for your reps to catalogue important client records to avoid experiencing this problem in the future.

2.) Awaiting Approval

Coming in at number two on HubSpot’s list, waiting is a big time waster for field reps. This is usually a result of inefficient communication with managers. When meeting with clients who have special requests, reps generally have to check in with managers to ensure they are capable of following through on them. If reps have to wait around to hear back from a manager, they are wasting time that they could be using more effectively elsewhere. To address this, make sure that you have an effective, instant communication system in place. Emails can stack up and be ignored, as can phone calls. Consider a mobile instant messaging app that you can use at work to ensure you and your reps are able to be in constant, quick communication with each other.

3.) Administrative Tasks

After field reps visit their client locations, they typically have to fill out orders, reports, and audits; this is followed by organizing ,packaging, and sending the physical copies to their managers to keep on record. This is inefficient in multiple ways. First, if reps are filling out all of this paperwork and completing administrative tasks, they are not spending enough time on their clients. Next, there is a delay between when the rep sends the forms and when the manager receives them. Lastly, if the rep sends the records away to management, he has no records  to consult the next time he goes to visit that client. Using digital forms is a clear way for field and sales reps to save time . They can fill forms out on their mobile device on the spot, managers receive them immediately, and the record can still be accessed by the rep even when he has already sent it to the manager. To save time in the future, implement a software tool that allows for easy form creation and transferral.

4.) Transportation

As it is, field reps spend a lot of their time traveling from client to client. To maximize time spent with clients rather than time spent on the road, have reps map out customers’ locations in a logical progression so they are meeting all clients in one area before moving on to another. Doing this can save reps time in one of their most time consuming daily tasks.

5.) Poor Scheduling

Having an organized schedule is vital to having a productive day. To fit the greatest number of meetings into one day, have reps plan their schedule around their travel route and the amount of time each meeting generally takes. As mentioned above, by mapping out client locations and scheduling visits based upon proximity, reps can minimize travel time and optimize time spent on client visits. Additionally, if reps keep track of how long each meeting takes, they can know how long to schedule it for next time. This will save time when reps schedule two hours for a meeting that will take one, or are running behind when an hour meeting goes and hour and a half. Log meeting times in with the other records of each client to have a good idea of how much time a rep may need.

You hire field reps to visit clients, keep them happy, and sell your product. If reps are subject to an inefficient internal system, the time they spend actually fulfilling these tasks diminishes. Find a solution to these five big time wasting issues and make sure it is simple and comprehensive. A small learning curve will ensure there is little confusion and improvement will begin immediately to keep your team on target.

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Types of Information Lost

Unfortunately, lost data can result in strained relationships with clients. When a field rep resigns and is replaced with a new hire, the rapport that the former employee cultivated with customers is disrupted. This can result in client frustration since new employees are unfamiliar with customers’ needs.

Types of data that can be lost during an employee transition include information about clients’ personalities, habits, and expectations. Hard data, such as purchase order history and visual merchandising audits, can potentially vanish as well. Furthermore, without an effective documentation process, information regarding potential leads that the former employee was gathering can disappear. Without this array of data, new field reps will not be fully informed when going out on client visits.  

Benefits of Field Activity Management Software Solutions

Businesses in any industry should consider developing strategies for combating employee turnover. For those industries where turnover is practically inevitable, having a system of data loss prevention is critical. Many cloud-enabled software solutions exist which can store valuable data that a field rep has captured over time. With certain Field Activity Management solutions, each piece of data mentioned in the above paragraph can be easily documented, stored, and shared in real-time. Some technologies are also able to save high-resolution photos, which create excellent visuals to supplement text. New hires who have access to data collected by a former employee are well-equipped to tackle visits with clients and can pick up exactly where the former rep left off.

Another benefit of utilizing certain mobile software solutions is the ability to communicate with back office managers in real-time with instant messages and photo sharing. Managers can use the communication functions of a software solution to coach new employees when they are on the job without the lag time of phone calls and emails. The bottom line is that strong communication practices within organizations lead to increased employee engagement, which in turn boosts productivity.

Employee turnover is a challenging facet of business operations that organizations are forced to deal with. The expenses and lost knowledge associated with it can be especially troubling for companies that employ field teams. By taking advantage of a software solution that documents and stores relevant data, new employees will catch up to speed faster than usual. What’s more, relationships with clients will suffer much less, if at all, with such a documentation system in place.

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