There are no two thoughts that the pandemic has accelerated the adoption of digital tools and technology. Even the businesses that relied on manual (door-knocking) sales processes are now equipping their field sales reps with mobile apps to make their work more efficient. Door-to-door sales apps help field reps/agents to prospect, qualify leads, pitch products/services or onboard vendors, follow-up, and close deals on the go.
Understanding door-to-door sales and how to make it more efficient.
Before the advent of technology, the most popular method of selling a new product or service was going directly to their houses, knocking on their doors, making a pitch, and hoping they would buy. And that is what door-to-door sales is all about. But it is not as old fashioned as you may think.
In many ways, door to door sales still works. Instead of relying on marketing to create new demand, the salesman takes matters into his hands and tries to win over customers directly at their doorstep, literally!
Let us take an example. You are into a residential solar rooftop sales business. You have a team of field reps who meet homeowners to get solar panels installed in their homes. Now, as a manager, how will you ensure that the sales reps actually met the homeowners? How can you make your agent/rep more productive while they’re on the field?
For this, you will have to equip your field reps with a mobile app that can send them meeting reminders, show them the best route, help them add notes, register the work done, and more.
Fortunately, several mobile apps are available for this purpose. Let us see how to select the best door-to-door sales app by looking at their features.
Essential features of a door-to-door sales app
If your field sales agent is making 8-10 walk-ins a day, five days a week, expecting him to remember all of them off the top of the head is impossible. He needs a useful tool to track his walk-ins, responses, consequent follow-ups, and more. Now, this is where your door-to-door sales app comes into play.
Here are some must-have features you should look out for in a door-to-door sales tracking app.
Easy allocation of new meetings and tasks
When your salesman is going around from door to door, chances are he may have success at some and rejection at some. Some may even ask him to follow up later. It would be difficult for him to keep a manual track of all his tasks and meetings himself. Instead, he should be able to use a door-to-door sales app to create new tasks either for himself or for someone else in his team who he thinks is more up to the job.
Not just new meetings, but he should be able to create follow-up tasks and update the status of these tasks as they stand: completed, won, rejected, or evaluating. Keeping a tight check on all his activities will help him understand how close he is to his sales quota and plan better.
Automated day planning
The door-to-door salesman sometimes needs to follow-up on a lead multiple times before he can close a sale. Additionally, he is continuously traveling owed to the nomadic nature of his job. Imagine having to travel to point A and then point B, which is 10 miles from point A, only to come back to point C, just 2 miles away from point A. He would end up traveling 18 miles when he could have saved time and energy by stopping at point C on the way to point B.
Having to manually plan a travel route every day can be time-consuming and prone to error. Instead, if the field sales app could plan the day for him and show him the best way he should take, he would complete all his meetings with minimal effort and have time to push in a few extra appointments or walk-ins.
Geo-tracking and Geofencing
To get a clear picture of your field agents’ daily activities, you need to track their location as they go about their meetings. A good door-to-door sales app will do just that, letting you know when your agent started their day, the stops they made, the meetings that got canceled, and more.
Moreover, you should be able to stop your agents from duplicating or fabricating their meeting location. In other words, they should not claim that they attended a meeting unless they are at the place.
[Also read: How GPS tracking for sales reps improves sales performance]
Offline access
You cannot always expect your agents to have unlimited connectivity to the internet. Sometimes, they might have to travel to a remote location where network issues might be prevalent. In such cases, being dependent on a tool that cannot work without the internet would be counter-productive.
Your mobile sales app should also be equipped with offline access to avoid such situations. At the very least, you should be able to add a new meeting/task, add meeting notes or attach documents while offline.
360-degree visibility
To run a successful door-to-door sales team, you need to have real-time visibility into how they are performing. From the number of daily meetings per agent, completed/pending tasks per agent, revenue reports by agent, or productivity reports, all of this should be available at a single glance.
As a manager, you can then understand what is going right and what is going wrong. With detailed analytics, you can make informed decisions about activities that need a boost. You can also identify areas that need improvement.
Uberized Lead Allocation
Generally, salespeople handle specific zones/areas. With the help of a D2D sales app, you can assign new inbound inquiries to them in real-time based on their location. It will help the agent cover more ground and reach more people within the same timeframe.
In conclusion
Today, people are using mobile CRM apps to streamline their door-to-door or field sales processes. Selling directly to people works for these reasons:
- People like buying from people
- It is easier to tune out advertisements
- Easier to establish trust
- More direct ROI attribution
- It is easier to optimize selling strategies
You can make your field sales more efficient by equipping your sales reps with a door-to-door sales app, such as mobile CRM.
If you are on the lookout for a door to door sales app to empower your field agents, look no further. LeadSquared comes with a mobile sales software that helps your agents easily plan their day, track meetings, add meeting notes, add new tasks, and more.
