Field operations are undoubtedly one of the most crucial and challenging processes for businesses of all sizes. The 4 main challenges in field operations that we have summarized to enlighten this issue show that the biggest burden is on the shoulders of the field management teams.
Field managers have many responsibilities in the background, from following the field operations, responding to e-mails and meetings, responding to customer demands, and producing instant solutions to possible disruptions. Although it seems that it basically focuses on increasing sales and the business revenue. It is not always easy to keep all this going trouble-free, and field management is confronted with various challenges. Well, what are these challenges in field operations? How to handle these challenges? We have summarized 4 challenges and solution methods in field operations for you.
4 challenges in field operations
Sales teams spend almost half of their days to fulfill routine responsibilities such as mail tracking, meetings, and editing documents, rather than increasing sales figures. Although these background responsibilities to ensure that all processes related to sales run seamlessly, failure to eliminate certain challenges negatively affects the performance of sales teams.
The 4 challenges in sales operations can be listed as follows:
1) Excessive responsibilities
The responsibilities of field teams are mainly based on turning potential customers into permanent buyers. These require a series of actions to encourage customers to buy. These range from sales performance analysis, developing sales incentive strategy, sales force automation and customer management, and technical support. At this point, excessive responsibilities per field sales representative result in underperformance.
2) Not knowing your customers well
Today’s technology has made it extremely easy to get to know customers. It has become possible to access potential customers through many data from their interests to demographic features, from the products they use to their purchasing habits, to. This plays a determining role in the development of sales strategies and actions to be taken by field teams. This is because all these data provide a better chance to know customers and thus, improve customer satisfaction.
However, insufficient customer data or not analyzing the obtained data correctly turns the tables on, causing the field teams not to know the customers well enough and not to satisfy them. At this point, it would be useful to mention an article published by Harvard Business Review. According to the article, 64% of customers tend to stay away from that brand in their next purchase if they are not satisfied with their experience with the brand.
3) Inability to respond quickly to instant demands
There are some challenging points in field operations that are not in the works. The most important of these is customer demands. Although it is possible to predict in advance when and for which problems customers will seek support from field representatives, it is difficult to respond quickly to each demand that may develop instantly in the daily workflow.
However, this directly affects customer satisfaction, and as a result sales. The inability to respond quickly to instant demands and leave the customer unsettled can change the course of all plans that businesses design for their sales processes.
4) Inability to integrate with the right technologies
In the digital age, technology has become a must for all businesses to survive in their field of operation, regardless of their size. In this context, it is necessary to digitalize many business processes and to be integrated into the rapid change of the digital age. Digitalization of field operations is one of the most vital processes.
Failure to integrate technology ends with insufficient process performance in the rapid change of the age, failure to achieve customer satisfaction and sales objectives. To prevent this, automation solutions play a critical role, ensuring that all departments work in coordination with each other, automatize the responsibilities of field teams that disrupt the efficiency, and facilitate sales operations with digital tools.
Fieldscope integrates your sales processes into the digital era
Fieldscope designs your retail sales processes from scratch by reviewing your needs in the field for you. It facilitates all the challenging stages by integrating your sales processes into the digital age thanks to its end-to-end automation solutions.
Provides real-time sales management
Fieldscope allows you to manage inventory in real-time through its control and analysis mechanism. Many field operations tasks such as stock information, product delivery, customer information control, assigning field tasks can be managed from a single hub through Fieldscope.
Provides data-driven measurement of your company’s success
It allows you to manage all data regarding your sales processes on a single platform. Many tasks such as KPI (Key Performance Indicator) measurement, customizing reports and current data control over the field data is one click away through Fieldscope. Furthermore, it paves the way for highly efficient and sustainable field management by providing a data-driven measurement of your company’s success.
Enables you to define your priorities in your customer relations
Fieldscope solutions allow you to see the variables of when and how often your field teams visit customers, so you can easily manage field teams. In this way, you can specify the task lists of your field members, save money and minimize the chance of visit cancellation or delay that will negatively affect customer satisfaction.
Offers meaningful insights
Fieldscope makes it easy to assess performance through the data you get from the field. Plus, it helps you develop data-driven strategies. It allows you to easily plan operations that will improve customer satisfaction by specifying your needs in the field with reporting, operation, information sharing and competitive efficiency measurement.
Allows you to access all your assets with one click
Fieldscope allows you to remotely control all your assets, whether portable or fixed. Thus, you can track all the needs of your assets and you can immediately make the necessary interventions.
Allows an integrated sales communication
Fieldscope allows control all of your sales channels from distributors to dealers. In this way, you can establish an integrated sales communication and provide open integration to ERP, CRM and accounting as well as your B2B processes. Helping you avoid all the challenges in adapting to corporate software.
Provides instant access to your information from anywhere any time
Fieldscope allows you to access all your product information on a mobile app. In this way, your field teams can access all data such as scheduling, tasks, customer details, product pricing and stocks. With automatic sync, they can transfer the information from the field whether they are online or offline through FieldScope’s mobile friendly app.
Contact the Fieldscope team now if you want to improve the efficiency of your field operations by easing the burden on field teams.
