6 Reasons to Invest in a Field Force Management System

Check out 6 major reasons why you should invest in a field force management system and how it can help your business.

Imagine, manually handling a field workforce of a hundred employees. Sounds like a hassle, right? Well, it is! Manual field force management is difficult to undertake, is time-consuming, and can be prone to errors. In this day and age, relying on manual methods to manage your field workforce is not practical.

Instead, you should implement a good field force management system. It can oversee your field employees’ tasks, orders, and expenses while monitoring their activities in real time. It can transform your field operations substantially.

Read on to learn six key reasons to invest in a field force management system.

Why Should I Invest in a Field Force Management System?

While we can think of endless benefits your business can achieve by investing in an employee management system, here are the ones we believe top the list. From monetary gains to higher productivity, your business can do it all with software aid.

1. Up-to-the-minute Data Collection

We are shifting towards a world that will operate on data exchange, making it the new currency. This shift is already quite visible with businesses in possession of data ruling their industry. Better tomorrow than now, your business also needs to adopt such practices for a brighter future. Employee tracking software can aid this process, making it tenfold easier.

With manual management methods, not only is data collection inefficient but also has a huge margin for errors. What use is data with incorrect information? Automation bridges this gap easily, reducing human involvement. The two types of data-collecting procedures the system executes are:

a) Documentation

Every employee working for the company is registered on the application. This makes their information easily accessible to managers. The managers have a definitive number of executives working under the company. This makes it easy to keep track of their productivity as well.

b) Report Generation

Reports generated by the system aim to highlight all the shortcomings of a business’s operations. They compare data and present it in an easily comprehensible manner for managers’ understanding.

Studying this data opens up the opportunity for managers to make changes to their business as per the requirement.  After studying performance reports, managers can also devise training programs for their executives, working on their shortcomings. Thus, they can build a strong and reliable workforce.

Both these forms of data collection help build a well-defined database for the business. This database forms the groundwork for any other operational optimization that takes place using this software.

2. Automated Task Allocation

Managers assigning tasks to each employee is the first step in a field force business’s functioning. But this process cannot be done at random. Managers need to allot tasks only after understanding the strong and weak points of their employees. But this procedure is time-draining, costing businesses’ overall performance.

This is why the task management solution allows managers to assign personalised tasks to employees after proper study of their productivity reports. Managers can also assign tasks based on employees’ location and availability. This ensures no employee is over or underworked. With optimised task allocation, field agents that are free and close to the client site will be preferred over those far away from the site.

Moreover, field managers can use calendar scheduling to assign tasks in advance and upload them in bulk as well.

3. More Strong Customer Relations

Good customer relations are built with a lot of effort but can be deterred by just a single bad experience. A customer who has experienced bad service is three times more likely to share their account with others. This comes at the expense of a business’s reputation. So how can businesses ensure that their field force meets the expectations of their customers?

“Customer service should not be a department. It should be the entire company.” – Tony Hsieh

A prompt workforce is the face of a good and responsible business. Using the field force management system, managers can ensure that their employees reach task sites on time. They can also moderate their quality via constant communication.

The field force management system also allows feedback collection using customisable forms. Executives can add personalised fields to them, not having to stick to any pre-made templates. Employees also save time on paperwork and can take digital signatures of customers.

4. Smooth Workflow

 “Time is really the only capital that any human being has, and the only thing he can’t afford to lose.” – Thomas Edison

It can be challenging to maintain a smooth workflow in a field business. Many factors can disrupt the workflow, lead to delayed customer service, and increase workforce inefficiency.

Common factors that affect the functioning of your field business are communication, payment, salesforce operations, and travelling.

• Communication: In-built chatboxes ensure that employees do not have to switch to third-party applications. This conserves time and also keeps their information safe within one platform only.
• Payment: Traditionally, payment requests go through many steps of approval. This can be the reason for frustration among employees. The expense management solution is thus designed to automate this process and reduce the number of steps involved.
• Travelling: A major chunk of the task completion process is the travelling executives do to reach task locations. Added travelling to offices for marking attendance is a burden and also wasteful. This is why the attendance management system uses geospatial data for automatic attendance marking, eliminating the need for in-person appearance.

5. Employee-Employer Relations

Employees are essentially who execute tasks for businesses, being the face of the company that works with their customers. This is why managers need to find a good balance between the needs of their employees to eliminate dissatisfaction.

An employee who receives clear and easy instructions for task execution will be more productive on the field. They will not have to constantly contact their managers for instructions and doubts. Task management solution makes this possible. For employees who receive a commission for every task they complete, this can be a huge encouragement.

The field force management software promotes visibility between employees and managers. This means hard work never goes unnoticed. Executives can open up their chances of earning incentives and promotions as well.

6. Remote Working

Have no means to contact your workforce? This field force management software is here to rescue you. Through its live tracking feature, managers have access to their employees’ locations in real-time. This feature can eliminate the need for constant questioning from both the manager’s and the employee’s end.

Even mundane tasks like attendance marking required employees to travel to the office, demanding more monetary expenditure. This system also forces executives to spend a major chunk of their time travelling instead of focusing on their tasks.

Using the attendance management feature of the system, employees can cut down their travelling and instead mark their attendance right from their task locations. Even in regions with a low network, the system continues tracking the employee’s location which becomes visible to the managers once the signal is recovered.

Conclusion

We hope you have now realised just how beneficial investing in a field force management system can be. Not only does it help you manage your employees better, but also steadies the company to be profitable. So what are you waiting for?

Check out TrackoField, the leading field force management system in the market. Its dynamic solutions can help your labour force function much more efficiently. With all these tools to optimise, managers get a lot of time to focus on other operations of the business as opposed to earlier when their entire focus was on managing their workforce.

FAQs

• What are the salient features of a field force management system?

  A field force management system offers the following features to your business. These help maintain a smooth workflow and maintain staff productivity.
  - Efficient task scheduling and resource allocation
  - Real-time employee monitoring
  - Sales order management
  - Automated expense reimbursement

• Who should invest in a field force management system?

  Any business that employs field workers needs to use a field force management system. It can automate many repetitive operations and improve employee efficiency. The following industries have the most need for FFM software.
  - Field sales and after-sales
  - Logistics and transport
  - Health and Pharma
  - Maintenance and Repair
  - Home appointment services
  - Facility management