Mobile Sales App Considerations To Keep Your Team Focused
In today’s multi-channel customer marketplace, distribution sales have become more complex.
“Lone wolf” road warriors are few and far between, and selling is much more of a team sport.
CRM software and mobile sales apps have become essential tools for empowering modern distribution teams. The benefits of a mobile app are clear, helping sales reps stay connected to real-time insights, facilitating collaboration, and saving time by enabling faster follow-up.
As these solutions have evolved, however, many have added complexity by introducing too many irrelevant features that make it difficult for sales teams to find what they need. This slows sales reps down as they waste time parsing through information and app functionality that isn’t what’s most important to booking new sales out in the field.
Here’s a closer look at how information overload hinders sales processes and how to find sales tools that empower your team without overwhelming them.
When a Mobile Sales App Interferes With Team Productivity
Mobile apps have become a standard feature for CRM software.
However, many are just smaller, more responsive versions of the full solution, and they aren’t necessarily easier to use. As one sales leader wrote in a review, his hopes of mobile access to Salesforce “crashed and burned.”
“It’s pretty complex to use and not very straightforward to see where everything is and how to access (it),” he wrote. “Finding accounts in the desktop version is simple and accurate. With mobile, not so much.”
HubSpot CRM mobile app users also mention not being able to sort deals, see dashboards, or quickly access the most popular tabs.
When your sales team is under constant pressure to hit quotas, a mobile app that helps them find information fast and stay prioritized isn’t just a nice-to-have.
They need to quickly see which accounts have open orders or quotes, which ones may be at risk, and which products have been recent top performers so they can plan their day and their sales approach. When they visit a customer, they should be able to see the order history for the entire account, customer service inquiries, and recent interactions from marketing or the inside sales team to have the most effective conversations.
Why Distributors Need a CRM and Mobile App Built for Them
While the major player CRM solutions work well for many industries, the distribution business model is unique. The central nervous system for most distributors is enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, where the company manages everything from accounting and inventory to purchasing and pricing. Your ERP is a treasure trove of valuable data that can support your sales team, but extracting these insights is like digging through the sand, looking for gold without a metal detector.
Integrating general CRM solutions like Salesforce and HubSpot with your ERP software requires a level of customization most of those horizontal providers aren’t equipped to handle.
Other solutions that are built into existing ERP systems aren’t designed to support a sales team on the road. They offer limited functionality and don’t connect to other departments or solutions, leaving your reps with a narrow view of a much broader customer journey.
Key Features of the Best Sales Apps
In addition to being built for the distribution business, the best mobile sales apps are user-friendly, collaborative, and effectively combine business intelligence with action.
Here are a few factors to consider as you evaluate your options.
Ease of use
Can your sales team find all the options they need right from the home screen? Does the app have quick access tabs, or do they have to scroll through a menu of options and click several times to get to their destination?
User reviews can give you some insight, but the best way to assess this is to invite several team members to participate in a demo and share their input.
Built-in business intelligence
Without business intelligence, your sales team is having conversations with limited context. A good mobile sales app should display all the relevant details for every account and all the contacts associated with it. It should bring in insights from your ERP and organize them in a way that’s easy to see the most important details, including:
- Account and contact-level details, including ship-to locations
- Recent activities from your team
- Open quotes
- Open orders and late orders
- Total sales from the past 12 months
Action-oriented features
Booking meetings, assigning follow-up tasks to team members and taking notes should be simple and straightforward. The app should integrate with your team’s calendars to give them a clear picture of their day and the ability to act on any tasks assigned to them. It should include lead tracking and make closing deals a breeze.
Empower Your Sales Team with the White Cup Mobile App
We believe every distributor deserves a CRM built for them. That’s why our mobile app is built to give your sales team everything they need — and nothing they don’t.
With a quick glance, your team has a clear picture of their priorities, including meetings, tasks, ship-to locations and contacts.
They can see their accounts, contact records, and communication history from the rest of your team right from their mobile device as they’re getting ready for an on-site visit.
Instead of asking the IT department or a data analyst to compile reports on that customer’s purchasing history, open orders, and outstanding invoices, they can spend a few minutes reviewing a customer scorecard that consolidates all these details into a single view.
After the visit, they can speak into the app to record a few quick notes. They can assign a task to another team member to respond to the customer’s inquiry or resolve an issue before they return to the office.
In addition to managing orders for existing customers, they can see new opportunities in the pipeline and take the next step toward a deal.
With built-in business intelligence, they can see account trends, territory oversights and other potential opportunities to target.
This gives sales reps the insights they need at the right time so they can take action faster. If they notice a particular product is selling well for other accounts in the same industry, they can tag the marketing team and make recommendations for a broader campaign to bring in new leads.
At a time when your team has so much competing for their attention, a CRM and mobile app should eliminate unnecessary distractions and keep them focused on the activities that drive the most impact for your bottom line. The White Cup CRM and mobile app is easy for your sales team to use and designed to support your growth. With the infinite licensing model, you get all-in access, rather than paying to add new users. It’s built for distributors, with all the insights and features you need to see faster returns.
If you’re ready to win more by embracing a team approach to selling, watch a short demo video to get a closer look, or schedule a consultation to discuss your company’s needs.