Many industries have a large field force deployed all over the place to perform tasks. This presents a challenge if the company has not automated operations with field force management software.
There are several operations and delegated tasks that employees and managers have to collaborate on. But the most important thing for the manager is to have a super efficient and productive team. This is tough to achieve in a manual management system.
There are multiple downsides to manually managing your field force and even more advantages to automating them. Let us find out more.
Disadvantages of Manually Managing Your Field Force
If you are a manager leading a team of field executives, you need to understand that field employees are the face of the company. Therefore, they need to be at the top of their game. But since many companies are still lagging, depending on manual systems caused a steep decline in the performance of their employees.
The manual system comes with a lot of disadvantages, such as:
- Room for Errors: to err is human, and since the managers are manually allotting tasks and recording attendance, there are bound to be mistakes. Correcting these mistakes is a time and cost-consuming process. In the long run, these errors will affect your business revenues and profits.
- Cost-Ineffective Operations: when you decide to manage your field employees manually, you are setting yourself up for a cost-ineffective method. Since the lengthy process is full of errors, managers have little time to form cost-optimizing strategies. And it is a well-known fact that long processes and completion delays drive up the operation cost.
- Dissatisfied Customers: a business needs happy customers to thrive, but unfortunately, that is hard for manual operation companies. Since managers fail to analyze their on-field employees’ expertise fully, they can send the wrong person. In addition, failure to provide proper service to customers can cause dissatisfaction.
- A decline in Productivity: manual processes can cause a decline in the productivity level of your on-field as they would be required to do time-consuming and repetitive jobs.
- Time Consumption: this is perhaps the main disadvantage of manually operating and managing your field force. Task allocation and execution can be long and full of errors when done manually. The excruciating hours can cause a decrease in employee satisfaction, motivation, and retention.
- Unhealthy Relations between Managers and Field Executives: often, the tasks taking a long time to be completed and deadlines being not met can cause managers to be disappointed. And the feeling that the manager is never being satisfied can creep up on employees. In addition, the manual process often has broken conversations. This can cause the relationship between the two to turn bitter.
Advantages of Automating Your Field Force Operations
Opting to automate your field employee management is probably the best decision you, as a manager, could take. Automation comes with a lot of benefits, especially when done with the help of good field force management software. Let’s read more about these benefits:
- Eliminating Errors: automating the process reduces human input, decreasing errors considerably. This is ideal for an error-free function and for managing field employees.
- Cost-Effective Functioning: managers can reduce the cost of operation with the help of automation as the errors are reduced to none, eliminating the excess time taken to execute tasks. And since the process has sped up, the cost can also come down.
- Customer Satisfaction: Automation gives managers time to manage their employees’ skills and potential properly. And because of this, they can assign the correct executive tasks. Also, the response time can be reduced through proper channels with the help of automation.
- Increase in Productivity: employees being assigned tasks that are just perfect for them helps them to complete their job on time and with quality.
- Time Optimised: automation plays a great role for managers and employees in time optimization as it eliminates the need to perform meagre, time excruciating, and repetitive tasks.
- Healthy Relation Between Managers and Field Executives: managers being able to delegate tasks on time and appropriately and employees being able to complete them timely and with quality leaves no scope of dissatisfaction between the two.
How can Field Force Management Software Help?
Automating through field force management software is a great way to optimize your employees’ skills and potential. The software is developed in a manner that will help in the smooth management and function of on-field employees.
- Remote Task Management: through this feature, managers, and employees can save a lot of time. It offers a bulk task uploading option where managers can assign a month’s tasks in one go. Later on, changes like editing, deleting, or addition of tasks can be made remotely.
- Geocoded Attendance: no more excuses from the on-field employees’ side as the field force software through geocoded attendance will only mark attendance when the employee reaches his one task location. This is great for collecting error-free and authentic attendance.
- Actionable Reports: field force management software automates insightful and real-time report generation. Detailed reports are beneficial for managers as they can precisely measure the productivity of their employees. In addition, the report offers insights into the strengths and weaknesses of his field force.
- Real-Time Location and Task Tracking: no more stressing over the whereabouts of your field employees. You can simply track them on your phone in real-time through the application. In addition, the software lets the manager track their task updates and location.
- Digital Documentation: field employees have difficulty managing physical documents on the road. Through the software, the employees can upload their documents to the cloud. And the custom forms eliminate the need to fill feedback forms physically. The custom forms can be modified and uploaded remotely.
Automate Your Field Force Operations with TrackoField
Now that you know the downsides of manually managing your field force. It’s the perfect time to switch to automating your operations with field force management software. This will let you manage your employees in a much better way.
TrackoField is a leading workforce management software in the market. The features and tools offered by the software can help you optimize your field agents’ potential. Get a demo now!