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Field sales teams are a crucial part of many businesses, as they are responsible for meeting with clients, negotiating deals, and closing sales. However, managing a field sales team can be challenging, especially in the current business landscape where technology plays a central role. Here are a some strategies I learnt while working with Australian auto clubs, which I later used at Treasury Wine Estates to improve the performance their B2B field sales team.
An Optimized Customer Relationship System
Mobile sales tools, such as sales apps and CRM (customer relationship management) systems, allow field sales teams to access important information and update customer records while on the go. These tools can also help sales reps stay organized and track their progress, which can improve their productivity and effectiveness. The focus must be to ensure that sales team get access to the right information with minimum clicks or taps on the device. The CRMs and other sales systems must be optimized to deliver the information they need with minimum clicks.
Mobile Friendly Sales Tools
One thing field service do well is their mobile strategy for their field service teams. Having worked with field service teams at Club Assist I was able to use those learnings to design the mobile toolkit for Treasury Wine’s B2B sales team. We ensured that mobile optimised versions of all the sales apps are introduced to allow field sales teams to access important information and update customer records using mobile devices. These tools can also help sales reps stay organized and track their progress, which can improve their productivity and effectiveness.
Sales Automation Systems
A sales automation system can help field sales teams streamline their workflow and eliminate manual tasks, such as data entry and scheduling. This can free up more time for sales reps to focus on more valuable activities, such as prospecting and closing deals. With more and more CRM solutions introducing their own workflow management capabilities, the sales teams can use these capabilities to automate operational processes to improve their productivity while in the field.
Access to Data Analytics In the Field
Providing field sales team access to sales performance and customer data can also help them with making right decisions while in the field. To create true field sales experience, the team must have access to accurate sales and customer data in real time, without having to come back to the office or contact sales support staff.
Going beyond just providing them access to insights, technologically capable organizations go further, but capturing field sales team movements and activities in the field to identify areas for improvement and enable managers to implement targeted training and support to boost team performance.
Foster Collaboration and Communication
One of the all time challenges for field service teams is to improve the collaboration among the team members. With teams spending time in the field by themselves, the feeling that they are part of a time can be foreign at times. With the introduction of tools such as Salesforce chatter, Microsoft Teams can be used to facilitate collaboration and communication within field sales teams. Based on what I’ve seen these tools can help sales reps stay connected and collaborate with their colleagues, even when they are working remotely.
Provide Consistent Training and Support
Finally, it’s important to ensure that your field sales team has the skills and resources they need to succeed. Providing training and support through technology, such as online courses and access to technical support, can help sales reps stay up to date on the latest sales techniques and technologies, which can ultimately improve their performance. One of the best strategies I would recommend here is to introduce champions (train the trainer approach) among sales team members. Instead of IT training sales staff, get other sales team members to reach out to their champions for issues and get champions to ensure that team is using the tools the way it is designed.
The six strategies highlighted here are based on my experience working with field service teams at Club Assist where we worked with field service teams from all the auto clubs in Australia. Later on I’ve used these learnings to substantially improve the field sales experience for BDMs at Treasury Wine Estates, when they hired me to do their digital transformation strategy for their B2B sales business.
About Author
Dasun Premadasa is the Founder and CEO of DASCX, the premiere B2B CX consulting firm for manufacturers in Australia. With over two decades of experience including four large CX and digital transformation programs at 4 different manufacturing and automotive firms in Australia, he's one of the best business technology experts for B2B customer experience.
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