Every manufacturer and distributor wants to get the best results from their B2B sales teams and to help them succeed, you need to give them the best mobile sales tools. The best tools will depend on what your sales reps need to do – not all software applications are the same, and not all teams have the exact same needs. The sales apps you need will depend on how your team is structured, but here are some of the apps that most sales reps can’t live without.
- Automated order-taking app
The 1990s are gone, and no one should be taking orders with pen and paper anymore. Manual inputting is time-consuming and prone to errors, with 27% of salespeople spending an hour or more on data entry each day. Every sales rep needs an automated order-taking app. All customer and order information is captured in real-time and automatically sent to your back-office. No need for the rep to go to the office or even contact anyone there – they simply move onto the next customer. Your customers receive their products much quicker and you eliminate manual errors and bottlenecks causing delays.
2. Attractive and user-friendly e-catalog
Back in the day, sales reps had to rely on strong muscles to transport their thick paper catalogs, portfolios, and product samples to showcase their wares to customers. Thankfully, today, there is an alternative. An e-catalog presents your inventory in high-res images, bringing your products to life. Use videos, detailed product specs and multiple view options to help your sales reps present your products to your customers via any mobile device they might have – iOS or Android. Find an app which is fully operational while your mobile is offline – so online connectivity or performance is never a worry.
3. Mobile CRM
By providing your sales team with relevant relationship data, they can accelerate sales with excellent customer knowledge, warm introductions and enhanced collaboration. A mobile CRM sales tool provides real-time visibility into sales orders, purchase history, credit status, outstanding invoices and more. This allows your reps to identify issues, resolve customer problems without wasting time and up-sell and cross-sell with ease. Speeding up the sales cycle, creating larger deal sizes and enabling your team to close more deals all lead to an increase in revenue.
4. Sales route planner
For sales reps spending the majority of their time on the road, travel efficiency and scheduling visits based on business considerations can have a huge impact on their sales performance. A sales route planner like Route4Me is a must for them to save traveling time, see more customers in a day, and ultimately make more sales.
Adjusting customer visits in real-time if there’s a sudden change of plans, like a cancellation or an urgent delivery, will keep your sales reps in control. When connected to a mobile CRM, reps are armed with all the necessary tools they need to prioritize visits and lots more.
All these tools are vital for successful mobile sales and getting them to work together and in sync in order to get a consistent B2B sales process for field, office, and customers are very hard to achieve. Providing your sales team with a sales platform is the way to go.