Real-time visibility. Contextual intelligence. Immediate Actionability. That’s a magical Superpower.
Frontline is where the to-be-buyers interact with the representatives of the product or service that they intend to buy. The frontline sales reps could either be employed by the principal company directly, or in most instances for multi-tiered distribution channels, they are employed by third-party channel partners, retailers, agencies, dealerships, etc.
So far, these frontline sales reps have operated without any direct oversight or any intervention from the principal company who expected the channel partners to manage and enable their own reps. And the channel partner’s first instinct has been to throw people at the problem and let them figure it out for themselves, without much guidance on how to meet their targets, else they are eventually replaced.
Now equipped with mobile apps that facilitate structured enablement and institutionalizing industry best practices, the frontline sales reps are ‘expected’ to self-learn, stay well-prepared, and diligently perform their tasks every day. This is a BIG change in their working culture.
You need a Change-Maker. That is your Frontline Manager.
Equip them with a Manager ‘Action’ Centre on their mobile apps, not a mere dashboard. In real-time they can witness each frontline team member going through their day, even if they are100’s of miles away.
Now bring in contextual intelligence. Instead of a data gush, imagine being alerted only about the outliers that need immediate corrective action. For instance, getting alerted at 10 am about which of the reps haven’t yet reported for the day is important for the managers to know within the first hour so they can reallocate resources in their territory. Thereafter getting hourly notifications on the number of customer interactions, sales achieved et al, once again with the outliers highlighted to direct their attention for immediate actionability, rather than poring through long details and then deciding who and what needs chasing up.
With their incentives linked to their team’s performance, all frontline managers must be good capability builders too. Here too, the Manager Action Centre gives them the superpower to know who is not salesready and get them prepared. For instance, at the start of the day receiving a notification about who are yet to begin the new product training module, and at the next click send them all a personalised chaser notification from the Action Centre, with the system thereafter auto-reminding the laggards until everybody completes and are ready to sell.
That’s when Magic happens on the field!
The frontline manager with his new superpower is now ‘all-knowing’ and cannot be fooled with the usual excuses from their reps. He has newfound respect within the team.
The sales reps too soon realise that following the structured path makes them more productive and boosts their incentive earnings, more consistently.
The channel partner and the principal company both benefit from better ROI, improved sales, customer satisfaction and, not to forget reduced frontline sales rep churn.
Eventually, everybody WINS!
With a well-enabled manager at the Frontline.
