How Field Force Tracking Apps Help EdTech Counsellors Tackle Workflow Challenges

Use field force tracking app to tackle EdTech counsellors’ work challenges and optimise their workflow, improve customer service and boost sales.

EdTech field agents or counsellors serve as the bridge between EdTech companies and prospects looking for educational solutions. These reps help clients choose relevant coaching solutions for students.

They do so by visiting various locations, often remote, to pitch and sell courses and onboard potential learners. In parallel, you as an EdTech manager have to maintain a smooth workflow.

You need to ensure counsellors reach prospects for demos on time, mark attendance accurately and complete assigned visits or targets remotely. This is all impossible to do without field force management software.

Dive in to learn how field force tracking app provides the antidote to your EdTech ops challenges.

What do EdTech Counsellors Do?

EdTech is a vast domain. It caters to students of all age groups. The main products of most EdTech companies are educational courses and study materials. This applies to both online websites or offline coaching centres.

Field agents help sell these courses by visiting parents or schools and conducting in-person educational seminars. They also provide counselling services, onboard clients, gather market data and collect orders.

• Need a personalised coaching solution?
• Want at-home career counselling?
• Want help choosing between offline and online coaching?
• Ready to finally order your course?

EdTech counsellors do it all!

5 Major Challenges Faced by Edtech Companies

Here are the top 5 challenges faced by EdTech companies especially in managing their on-ground counsellors.

1. Low Visibility into Field Operations

EdTech companies often have dozens or hundreds of counsellors or sales reps visiting potential customers. These reps pitch courses, conduct presentations, resolve queries, and more. Since it all happens remotely, it can be hard to know who is doing what, where and when.

You’re left asking questions and frequently bothering your workforce for updates.

• Are my sales reps at the correct location?
• Have sales reps updated their task status?

Poor visibility into ground operations and reps’ activities further leads to:

• Inaccurate reporting
• Delayed decision-making
• Missed client appointments
• Poor customer experience

2. Unreliable Attendance and Productivity Monitoring

Field counsellors in the EdTech industry work flexible hours remotely. They need automated system to mark attendance and log their work hours. Paper-based punch cards, WhatsApp or spreadsheets to mark attendance are not reliable methods and prone to errors.

Some agents may even indulge in time theft and misreport their attendance. This leads to lost revenue. Also, inaccurate attendance data can affect payroll calculation as well.

3. Inefficient Task Scheduling

EdTech field agents often struggle with overlapping consultation visits & tasks and double bookings. Repeat task allocation, assigning tasks without notifying agents and no option to modify tasks are other challenges counsellors face.

For EdTech companies, this means lost productivity, a frustrated workforce and dwindling revenue.

4. Poor Customer Onboarding or Enrollment

Sales is one of the core operations of EdTech companies. But it is often mismanaged due to a lack of system to contact customers directly and send reminders.

Instead, employees end up wasting time manually sending follow-ups and miss potential client calls. Letting leads go cold can reduce customer enrollments.

5. Poor Field Data Collection

Analysing on-field data is essential for ed-tech companies to make informed decision and without field agents’ inputs, it can be difficult. EdTech companies can benefit from customer feedback and market research, but they struggle to collect and analyse this data. This can be due to poor document management, no performance evaluation or manual data entry and analysis.

Check out this insightful carousel to know how TrackoField solved a leading career institute’s field force tracking challenges.

 

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How Field Force Tracking Apps Streamline Edtech Counsellors’ Workflow

Now that you know the challenges of EdTech companies, let’s discover how field force automation tools can overcome them and revolutionize EdTech field agents work.

1. Live Tracking of Counsellors Visits & Meetings

With field force tracking apps, managers can see where counsellors are in real-time. So, no more calling and texting to get updates and goodbye micromanagement!

Here’s what managers can do with real-time location tracking.

• Verify that agents visited the right customer
• Monitor movement live across the assigned zones
• Re-allocate urgent tasks to the nearest available counsellor
• Check activity status of EdTech counsellors – available, absent, break
• Check task or visit status – pending, completed, rescheduled

2. Smarter Task Assignment & Scheduling

Instead of manually managing visits via spreadsheets, managers can use the field employee tracking software to:

• Assign EdTech counsellors’ tasks by priority, region, or type (demo, follow-up, survey etc.)
• Add detailed notes, documents, or voice memos for better task understanding.
• Set reminders and follow-up tasks with automated reminders.

This prevents task overlaps and ensure counsellors work with clarity and efficiency.

3. Smart Beat Planning

When travelling is involved in work, it requires optimisation to save staff time and fuel costs. Many field force tracking apps offer beat planning features. EdTech companies can leverage this to:

• Minimize fuel costs by suggesting the most efficient travel route.
• Cluster visits together based on geography, type or priority customers.
• Eliminate redundant back-and-forth travel for reps.
• Check traffic or poor road conditions.

Software like TrackoField also allow managers to playback route history of EdTech counsellors. This can reveal any discrepancy in location tracking and help make better beat planning decisions for the future.

4. Offline Reporting of Field Events

What is the use of using automated software if it only works with internet connection? You’ll still end up calling or texting your field agents like before.

That’s why Field workforce management apps allow EdTech field agents to log this visits, mark attendance and access tasks update logs offline as well. They can continue working like before and the data is synced in the app once the mobile device regains connectivity. 

5. Geotagged Attendance & Visit Verification

It’s important to log accurate work hours of your EdTech counsellors. It is used to create accurate timesheets and thus, calculate correct payroll hours. Field force tracking apps use geofencing and GPS to ensure all counsellors mark their attendance remotely from the right locations. 

Managers can also demand timestamped and geotagged selfie upload for added verification. They can also track the work hours and adjust shift timings of their mobile workforce.

These features increase transparency among EdTech field teams and help authenticate proof of visits.

6. Digital Data Collection & Reporting

EdTech field agents can use field force tracking software to collect data from clients for the following reasons:

• Gather market intelligence.
• Conduct surveys to know student preferences or challenges.
• Upload relevant document or pictures and store them digitally.
• Take digital signatures for quick verifications.
• Collect feedback about a product or sales rep behaviour.

This data helps learn what career line is popular among students and what they expect from a coaching course. That way, coaching institutions or EdTech companies can better optimise their sales strategy and make informed decision in the future.

Field force tracking apps like TrackoField automate this process by using digital forms. These can be shared directly with customers via QR code or links for faster and accurate data collection.

7. Productivity & Performance Analytics

EdTech companies’ main goal is to expand and that requires 100% efforts of all their employees. Thus, EdTech managers use field force tracking apps to evaluate their teams’ performance. Here’s what the app dashboard can display:

• Daily target visits vs completed visits
• Time spent per client
• Distance travelled in a day
• Number of demos given
• Enrolments closed
• Feedback or survey forms collected

These field service metrics and KPIs helps spot skill gaps, identify and reward top performers, and inculcate accountability in counsellors. 

Conclusion

EdTech industries thrive on digital coaching solutions. But they still need field counsellors to sell or market these solutions. Counsellors visit various clients to pitch personalised coaching solutions, collect survey data or ensure more enrolments.

These operations can be difficult to perform, especially without field force tracking apps. Challenges like low staff visibility, misreported workhours and bad customer service are common. EdTech companies end up losing clients to competitors and suffer revenue loss.

But thanks to field force tracking software like TrackoField, EdTech managers can streamline their field agents’ workflow and get more student enrolments.

So, what are you waiting for? Book a free demo of TrackoField today.

FAQs

• Can field force tracking work offline?

  Yes. Many apps like TrackoField allow offline task access, data entry, and attendance. The data syncs once internet connectivity returns.

• Can field force tracking apps help improve sales and demo conversions for Edutech brands?

  Yes, field tracking apps can significantly boost sales and demo conversions for EdTech brands. They do so by:
  - Streamlining counsellor scheduling
  - Ensuring timely follow-ups
  - Optimizing travel routes
  - Providing real-time visibility into field activities
  This leads to more efficient visits, better customer engagement, and higher conversion rates.

• What are the main field-level challenges faced by Edutech companies?

  The main on-ground challenges faced by Edutech companies include:
  - Poor visibility of counsellor activities
  - Missed or delayed demo appointments
  - Inefficient lead follow-ups
  - Manual reporting delays
  - Difficulty in tracking productivity across locations.