Empower Your Field Agents & Sales Staff: A Guide
All staff members are special in terms of how they progress your business vision and work within the operational framework you’ve designed. They care about the details, and fulfilling all the terms of their contract with you. Over time, and with enough investment in their capabilities, staff are often the best investment you will have ever made in your business life.
However, while office personnel are of course unbelievably important, there’s something to be said for field agents. They’re braving the elements and in-person clients around the clock. They assume the role of expressing your brand values and communicating its capabilities on a daily basis, and at their best, they showcase the hopes of your business planning at their highest standard.
As such, we can benefit from trusting and empowering them a little. In this post, we’ll suggest various methods you can use to ensure this outcome is secured. Without further ado, please consider:
Equip Them With The Best Tools
It’s important that your team feels supported by the gear they use every day. As such, they appreciate it if you provide high-quality phones or tablets that won’t freeze up, lose signal or just look ancient when they’re with a client. This shows you value their time and presentation, and it certainly reduces friction in their day, which is the ultimate goal here.
If you provide them the most appropriate tools to seamlessly process any client interactions they have, they’ll be better able to focus entirely on the person in front of them. Work with them to determine what they need, and any provisions you could offer to help them alone, such as fuel cards for their truck so they don’t have to keep providing receipts to your accounting to, or using a portable and secure credit card reader, so the client can easily pay right then and there. Remember that if you empower them, you empower yourself, which will always reflect well on your entire business.
Give Them Autonomy In Decision Making
You should trust your field agents to handle at least small issues on their own. Just as you might offer a customer service support agent more autonomy in how to solve tickets, if field agents can work through issues with their experience and insight, it’s beneficial for everyone. For example, perhaps you’re giving them the power to offer a modest discount and not call back to the main office for approval, or set their own timelines in their appointment book. Those are just two examples, but they continually suggest to your staff member that you trust them. If you do that, they’ll want to prove you were right in that trust.
What’s the value of trust in such circumstances? Well, it makes a field agent feel respected as a competent professional. It also prevents delays that might frustrate the client. Of course, you’re within your rights to set a clear boundary for these decisions beforehand, perhaps setting a financial limit, but the freedom to operate within that parameter is often greatly appreciated by your team.
Streamline Reporting And Communication
The paperwork and reporting that happens after a field visit should be kept as simple as possible. It’s useful to use digital forms and apps that can be quickly filled out on the spot instead of requiring them to fill out overly lengthy reports back at the office. This cuts down on their administrative burden dramatically and they can better invest that energy in your clients in-person.
You can ask any staff member of any department – if the reporting process is complicated, it often cause people to feel burnout or to give rushed, incomplete entries. A system where essential client notes and sales figures are quickly logged means your team spends more of their workday focused on clients and less time staring at a screen filling out fields that might not even be looked at later on. To fix this, it’ wise to have a specific communication channel too, so questions can be answered quickly while they are on the road, instead of having to go through a ten-step process.
Value Their Direct Client Insights
Your field team sees your products and services used in the real world every single day. Because of this, their observations about what clients like or dislike aren’t just something to listen to half-heartfelt, but could be absolutely vital to your planning. As such, we’d recommend you develop a structured way for this insight to be gathered and reviewed by the planning team.
With this advice, we hope you can continue to empower your field agents and sales staff in the best light.
