Many companies are looking for ways to improve their sales effectiveness or to increase the benefits of an existing sales automation solution. In either case, a mobile sales workbench can hold the key.

A mobile sales workbench is a tool designed expressly for salespeople. It aids them in performing their daily workflow without being intrusive. A portable solution, it gives salespeople access to critical enterprise data -- account background, inventory availability, product information and order status -- when they want it and in a useful format. Moreover, the mobile sales workbench is specifically designed to be easy-to-use and intuitive, shortening learning curves and increasing the likelihood that sales reps will use it.

The best part of a mobile sales workbench is the direct, tangible benefits it offers, from increasing revenues to decreasing costs, boosting compliance rates, enhancing cash flow and reducing turnover. Capturing even a fraction of these potential benefits is more than enough to justify the investment. To get an idea of what these benefits hold, consider the points below.

Revenue depends on the performance of a company’s sales representatives. A mobile sales workbench makes sales reps more efficient, knowledgeable, responsive and proactive, increasing overall company revenues in three important ways.

• Increase total number of visits

Mobile sales solutions make sales reps more efficient by allowing them to use downtime during the day to update files, plug in expense information, answer emails or generate follow-up letters. Time otherwise spent on administrative chores can be used to schedule more visits with customers. More visits mean more opportunities to close sales.

• Increase the probability that a visit will result in a sale

An informed sales rep can help customers make buying decisions on the spot. A mobile sales tool enables a rep to respond to customer queries and handle objections in real-time without having to go back to the office to research answers. With the customer ready to buy, the rep can provide an immediate quote or proposal and even submit the order on site, locking in the sale while simultaneously locking out the competition. The easier a sales rep makes it for a customer to buy on the spot, the greater the likelihood the sale will close.

Each customer visit is an ideal opportunity to cross-sell and up-sell other products or services. A mobile sales tool enables a sales rep to better match customer needs with company solutions. Insight gained from background account information allows a sales rep to recognize sales opportunities. Access to the company’s product portfolio expands a sales rep’s repertoire of possible solutions. Selling more per visit increases revenue without increasing sales overhead.

Any reduction in the cost of sales directly increases profitability. Better insight into spending helps to direct remaining expenditures to highest payback activities. A mobile sales workbench is a cost-effective tool that makes sales reps more self-sufficient and keeps sales managers better informed.

• Reduce expenditures

Supplying sales reps with tools, marketing materials and training can be a costly proposition. A mobile sales workbench helps reduce these expenditures in three ways. It helps lower the Total Cost of Ownership of sales rep equipment by replacing expensive laptops with a combination of less costly handheld devices and desktop PCs. It swaps static, printed product collateral for more dynamic, flexible electronic copies. It trades on-site training for online access to tutorials, FAQs, and institutional knowledge, keeping sales reps in the field and trimming training and travel costs.

• Reduce labor costs

It takes an army of people to support your sales force, handling everything from entering paperwork to answering account questions and looking up product features. With a mobile sales workbench, your sales force becomes more self-sufficient. Capturing data electronically reduces back-office paperwork and manual data entry, cuts out extraneous process steps and streamlines administrative operations. Online access to enterprise data reduces calls to service centers, lowering overall support costs.

• Optimize future spending

Knowing how and where sales expenses are incurred allows managers to better direct their spending. Using a mobile sales workbench, sales reps submit account and expense data in electronic format to support a range of management analyses. Tracking and tying expenses to particular accounts helps avoid low-payback expenditures by focusing efforts on the most profitable customers.

To the disappointment of many companies, large-scale sales force automation (SFA) solutions often remain underused, with low utilization levels producing only a fraction of expected benefits. A mobile sales workbench can boost compliance rates, allowing companies to capture the full value of their current investments. Unlike typical SFA solutions that appeal primarily to managers, a mobile sales workbench takes the opposite tack, reasoning that the more appealing a solution is to frontline users, the higher the compliance rate. Designed expressly from a sales rep's perspective, the mobile sales workbench is a portable, easy-to-use solution, giving reps access to all the enterprise data they need, when they want it and in a usable format. By enhancing the performance of the sales reps' daily work, the mobile sales workbench encourages high levels of utilization. And, when used in conjunction with existing solutions, it lifts overall compliance rates and allows companies to capture the full benefits of their SFA solutions.

Cash on the books isn't the same as cash in the bank. Cutting steps out of the billing process and speeding collection cycles improve cash flow. Given the right tools, sales reps can shorten the gap between closing a deal and billing the customer. A mobile sales workbench enables sales reps to submit orders on the spot, capture customer signatures and even create invoices on site. It helps sales reps wrap up deals more quickly by reducing reliance on the home office to forward paperwork to customers. By empowering sales reps to perform more steps to close a deal, and forwarding data in electronic format to back-office processes, a mobile sales workbench helps trim paperwork, reduce the steps involved in lengthy billing and approval cycles, and speed collections. Customers are billed sooner, which means the company gets paid sooner.

Losing a sales rep means losing revenues. Sales turnover imposes significant direct and indirect costs. Not only must companies spend time and money to recruit and train new sales staff, but unfilled positions mean customer relationships go unattended and sales opportunities slip away. One way to staunch turnover is to give sales reps tools that help them meet or exceed their quotas, increasing their financial rewards and improving job satisfaction. A mobile sales workbench assists sales reps in performing their work, closing more business and driving in sales. An easy-to-use mobile sales workbench that allows sales reps to prep for visits, appear more knowledgeable in front of customers, respond more readily to queries, and more tightly manage accounts will result in increased financial success. The greater the job satisfaction, the greater the likelihood that sales reps will remain, lowering overall turnover rates and their associated costs.

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If you would like to capture the benefits of a mobile sales workbench, or are looking for ways to extract more value from current sales automation investments, consider ArcStream Solution's Mobile Sales Workbench. The Mobile Sales Workbench consists of a set of building blocks and tools designed expressly for salespeople to give them better access to a range of enterprise data and stronger account management. ArcStream would be pleased to work with your company to assemble a customized, yet cost-effective mobile sales solution based on the tried and tested capabilities in its Mobile Sales Workbench.