In this increasingly mobile world, apps have become an integral part of both personal and professional life. Familiarity with the consumer apps available through iTunes and the Android marketplace is pretty common, but lately there has been great strides in development of mobile apps for the enterprise space as well.
This buzz of activity is particularly prevalent in sales, where reps are always on the go. The following list highlights some of our favorite mobile app features and why they are so valuable to the mobile sales force.
- Address book.
With a mobile sales app, accessing a complete – and accurate – address book is just a login and password away. Having sales reps tediously enter account address, phone and email information, spending dozens, perhaps hundreds of hours manually keying details is fine... for your competitor.
A beneficial mobile sales app should automatically sync with your device’s calendar, email and phone – and because it’s integrated with the organization's ERP system, sales reps will never have to worry about keeping the data current.
- Price catalog.
Historically distributors published a catalog once, maybe twice per year. A worthy mobile sales app will be capable of archiving an illustrated price catalog available any where, any time.
If your ERP system already contains an image associated with an item then your mobile sales app should be able to display that along with pricing – and even warehouse quantities available.
With a new ERP-driven price and product catalog, sales reps will be able to keep themselves and customers current with unprecedented accuracy.
- Order and history inquiry.
A mobile sales app gives both outside sales reps and executives the ability to prepare for the next meeting by looking at all of the open activity and past history of a client right before. Knowledge is power, and the informed sales rep is a confident sales rep. A confident sales rep closes deals.
- (Almost) Instant gratification.
The well equipped mobile salesperson can enter all of the details of a quote or an order right on the spot. You may even wish to capture the signature of the customer or accept their payment.
Why is this important? By getting the order now you can:
1) Accelerate delivery;
2) Establish yourself as a modern company that "walks the walk";
3) Ensure accuracy.
At Klear Systems, we believe that people perform best when they are confident, informed, and have a high level of trust in the tools they use.
If the ERP data of your organization tells the story of both your customers and your inventory, isn't it in the best interest of the company to equip the sales team to have that information at their fingertips?
We have seen many of our clients thrive by utilizing the mobile apps that accompany Acumatica Cloud ERP as well as SugarCRM.
If you would like more information or recommendations on the software and apps best suited to your organization, please contact us today!
