B2B salespeople in the consumer goods industry are always on the go. It only makes sense that they have an app to match their style. This is where mobile order management software comes in.
What is Mobile Order Management Software?
In simple terms, mobile sales order management software enables salespeople to manage their sales order cycles more efficiently. It includes digital order taking and management, back-end system integration, as well as valuable insights and analytics - ultimately leading to increased productivity, reduced order-to-cash cycle, and improved customer experience.
Critical Aspects of Mobile Order Management Software?
- Ease-of-use
If it’s not easy to use, then it won’t be used! Mobile order management software must be extremely intuitive - salespeople will be using it every day, checking it more often than they check their personal messages. It’s designed to make salespeople's’ lives easier in all aspects, including user experience. Plus, it’s available on any device and any mobile operating system (iOS, Android, Windows), meaning there are no constraints!
- Flexibility
If your company is growing, then it’s important to use tools that can grow with you - both in scale, but also in terms of functionality. Your order management software should be able to handle large amounts of data and support a growing number of sales staff. As importantly, you should be able to easily configure your mobile order management software to change the workflows, forms, business rules, and dashboards, as quickly as your business changes -- and all without writing any code.
- All Information at your fingertips
It’s typical for salespeople today to rely on various applications to conduct business, from ERP systems to best mobile CRM app platforms. It can be overwhelming to constantly jump back and forth between technologies. A well designed mobile order management system is able to collect relevant data from these back-office systems (ERP, CRM, accounting, etc), mobilize it, and present it in an intuitive manner to the field sales representative. This way, he doesn’t have to dig for it in multiple systems or call the back-office staff for help. Rather, the order management software consolidates all the important product and customer information into a mobile application, making it quicker and easier for salespeople to excel. This helps the sales rep better plan for meetings with clients, as well as make more informed decisions while engaged face-to-face with them.
How Can It Help Me?
- More Sales
There are several ways mobile order management software can help salespeople increase sales. First, such software increases sales rep productivity by automating manual tasks. This means salespeople will have more time to focus on their sales game rather than wasting time filling out order forms by hand.
Second, the software helps salespeople maintain long-term relationships with customers. How? It enables reps to personalize orders, discounts, special offers, price lists, and invoices per their customers’ specific needs. Lastly, sales order management analytics enables sales management to analyze and optimize sales results by identifying opportunities for improvement -- pricing, promotions, sales channels, sales rep performance, customer profitability, and more.
- Reduced Operational Costs
As they say, time is money. If your sales team is like most others, they’re probably wasting precious time writing orders using paper order forms and catalogs, following which your back office staff has to work through the hand-written forms (back-and-forth with the reps) and key them into your ERP or accounting systems. Mobile order management software, on the other hand, means everything is online, paperless, accurate, and well, mobile.
- Order Accuracy
Merging the sales order cycle with order management technology means minimizing human error. It’s not uncommon for orders to be shipped to wrong addresses, for wrong items to be sent, or for back orders to occur due to insufficient inventory levels for ordered products. This hurts both your reputation with your customers as well as your pockets - someone is paying for those wrong orders, after all. But, with mobile order management software, less mistakes are made as the entire process is digital.
- Faster Orders
With such software, salespeople become integral to a flawless order fulfillment “machine”. Specifically, mobile order management software is able to centralize orders across all warehouses by supporting multiple distribution centers, multiple shipping addresses, and being able to split orders by date, source, and destination. This means order fulfillment is quick and speedy.
Clearly, mobile order management software can improve your company’s sales performance. By automating manual tasks as well as providing the right tools and functions for increased sales and improved customer experience, mobile order management is a must for any company, big or small.
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