Top 10 Advantages to Real-time Reporting

1. Sales Rep Buy In and Improved Information From the Field

Sales reps don’t want to do sales reports, they want to spend their time selling.
In order for sales people to do reports in real-time – the system HAS to be fast and easy to use. Being able to complete a report in 60 seconds will drive usage and provide more information from the field. Information critical to a companies success.

2. Improved Productivity

Sales reps spend more time selling and less time doing administration.
A sales rep that does 10 sales calls per day would take 10 minutes of their work day to submit reports. Reports can be submitted from any mobile device. For ex: While waiting at the elevator, or walking to their car. For a medical rep as they are moving from one area of the hospital to the next.

3. Improved Accountability

Every report enters the system seconds after it is submitted and every report is date and time stamped.
Management has complete visibility into all sales rep and client activity and can respond to client and sales reps needs much quicker. Executives and management become more involved as they can see things as they are happening. It takes the mystery out of the sales efforts and gives the transparency so badly needed. Accountability will also impact productivity.

4. Provides Lead Indicators

The information that comes in is real-time information.
Real-time information gives companies  the lead indicators they need to make decisions looking forward. Sales call activity, competitive insights, product issues, forecasts, products presented, close ratio, pipeline development, customer needs are all examples of lead indicators. Imagine if you had this information in real-time how improved your decision making would be.

5. Improved Team Selling

Real-time information can be made accessible to the designated sales support personnel.
Often this could include employees responsible for, samples, literature, pricing, inventory, issue support, marketing,  order desk, and more. Having this real-time information available impacts response time, better customer service, sales rep support, marketing insights, and openness and accountability to the whole sales support team.

6. Improves Marketing Insights

Real-time  information allows marketing insight into all prospect activity.
Every real-time report  includes a date and time stamp and allows marketing to audit a prospects journey from creation to first contact through development and close. Giving marketing access to real-time sales reports enables marketing to get the feedback they need to be more effective.

7. Empower Sales Managers

Sales managers will have real-time insight into all sales rep and client activity.
Insights into identification of best practices, skill development needs,  sales process adherence, issue support, performance recognition. This information available in real time  can help turn a sales manger from cheerleader to a coach and leader.

8. Improved Information Integrity

Sales reports done immediately after a client interaction are still fresh in a sales rep mind thereby enhancing data integrity when submitting a report.

9. Geo-Location

Real-time reporting submitted by a smart phone allows for GEO location of the sales reps location a the moment the report is sent.
A map is provided that shows a sales reps journey through out the day. The map would include both the sales reps location via GEO location overlaid on a map of the accounts visited that day.

10. Mileage Tracker and Validation

Real-time reporting with GEO location can provide a map with mileage insights between accounts visited.
A report is generated that includes time stamps and mileage travelled.