For your B2B wholesale or distribution business to grow, you need to increase your sales year on year. There’s no doubt this is getting harder as global competition escalates. How can B2B sales rep software help make this happen?
Here are some areas in which a mobile sales solution for sales reps can create opportunities for improvements specifically in time management, customer buying experience and sales growth.
Ways to grow your B2B business with sales rep software
1. Easy ordering process
Sales rep software provides the ability to take customers order in the field – presenting them with stunning e-catalogs and the latest promotions to your new and best-selling items or special end-of-season or end-of-life offers.
It lets reps duplicate and manipulate past orders, search for items in catalogs and use a barcode scanner for speedy ordering and less inputting. It also streamlines the order approval process, so managers (or other team members) get involved only when specific conditions are met.
That way reps can focus on interacting with customers and build relationships, rather than spend their limited time on technicalities.
By integrating your sales rep software with your ERP system, reps are equipped with all information needed to make smart sales decisions (e.g. up-to-date inventory levels) and orders are immediately sent for processing, minimizing order-to-cash cycles.
The best mobile sales app work both online and offline. Offline mode means no downtime – ever. When connectivity is back, the app auto-syncs with your back office, so you never miss an opportunity to sell.
2. Appointment scheduling software
One of the most time-consuming tasks for any sales rep is travelling to see their customers. Scheduling appointments with customers wasn’t easy for sales reps out in the field. With the advent of sales rep software loaded on their mobile device, sales reps now have the freedom to map their appointments through sales route planner software integrated with a GPS solution.
By using sales rep software on mobile devices, they can minimize their travel time meaning more customer appointments in a day, more time for order-taking and increased revenue for you.
3. Quick extraction of sales information
It’s vital for your sales reps to have as much relevant customer knowledge as possible before they even approach your customers. In the past, although the customer data was there, it was difficult to access without carrying around ring binders full of paper or making frequent calls to your back-office.
Sales rep software now acts as a magical gateway to a quick and easy way to retrieve whatever data is needed. More time is saved, customer queries are easily dealt with and opportunities for increased sales are maximized.
4. Working in real-time
We know how quickly things change and the B2B wholesale and distribution industry is no exception. Customers cancel appointments, inventory levels change by the minute, and new products are introduced.
By having access to these changes in real-time, your sales reps are in a great position to react immediately and respond accordingly, saving time on the road, preventing backorders and up-selling and cross-selling your new products as soon as they’re released.
5. Sales rep order tracking software
Selling begins with knowing your customers. What are their needs, their pain points, the problems they want to solve?
Sales order management software can help answer questions you may have about your customers by providing comparative analysis reports. These make it easy to obtain a high level of sales intelligence looking at average order values, best-selling products, buying behavior and more.
You can forecast future demand, provide best practice advice, create cross-sell and up-sell deals, all based on your reports.
6. Efficient internal communication
The main line of communication within a B2B business is often focused on the relationship between the sales reps and their customers.
But interaction between departments is just as important for your business to function well. Sales rep software helps by providing clear and open channels of communication between sales and management, accounting, IT and marketing, all of which are necessary cogs in the sales order cycle.
Efficient communication between departments leads to customers feeling valued, rather than being passed around to any person that might know the answer.
7. Finally – make sure your sales rep software fits YOUR business
By choosing software that is flexible and can be easily changed to match your business, you can make the switch more seamless. Look for software that uses workflows and rules, so you can easily set it up the way that suits your business and make changes as and when needed without resorting to using coders.
The right sales rep software puts you in control, giving you the business agility to make changes as and when needed.
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