Boost Business Communication With Field Force Management

In a traditional workplace, if you have a doubt, you can simply bring it to your superior. Plus, the flow of information is quick and direct, unlike in a field business where there isn’t much face-to-face communication between employees and managers.

But you have to maintain discipline in your workforce and ensure they are working to their full potential. Employees and managers also need to be able to communicate efficiently. There is no scope for delays in businesses like retail or sales that rely on fast customer service.

As such, you need a system to streamline internal communication in your organisation. Field force management software is one such way to accomplish this. It allows employees and managers to easily contact each other and solve issues in real time.

Streamline Internal Communication With Field Force Management Software

If you’re a field business manager, what do you want the most? The likely answer is real-time monitoring of your employees and the ability to impart information to them without delays or other difficulties.

As for field executives, they also want immediate assistance in case of problems along with quick approvals for leave and expense requests. The entire point of field force management software is to reduce manual employee monitoring and frequent communications using texts, emails, or calls.

Here are some key features of field staff tracking software and how they improve internal communication between employees and managers in your organisation.

1. Real-time Staff Monitoring 

This is the primary feature in any field force management software and is the most important tool for streamlining communication. After all, knowing where your remote employees are and what they are doing basically solves half the job of managers. This allows them to better 

A typical employee tracking system is equipped with GPS technology and an integrated map-based dashboard. It allows you to:

• Monitor field executives in real time.

• View staff’s location with pinpoint address and geographical coordinates.

• Check employees’ activity status—busy, idle, or on a break.

• View the network and battery level of your staff’s devices.

• Check every employee’s total order or expense value of the day.

• Track task status of field executives—pending, completed, rescheduled.

All this information reduces unnecessary communication and makes it convenient for managers to maintain a continuous workflow.

2. Internal chat

The next key method that field force management software uses to streamline communication is using an in-built chat platform. This allows field staff and managers to talk to each other easily and in real time without using a third-party communications app. 

The result is faster, more efficient, and more secure communication. Plus, top field force management software even has the option of sharing live locations, voice notes, and media files.

3. Job Planning

One of the main benefits of seamless communication in the workplace is to ensure proper task planning. Sometimes urgent tasks are assigned to employees without notifying them. Task overlap and repetition are also common in field businesses. They can cause confusion among the employees and affect their productivity.

With field force management, however, you can optimise the task management by:

• Assigning tasks based on executive availability and proximity to customers.

• Integrating barcode scanners to simplify the POD process.

• Tracking the task status in real-time

• Linking tasks to attendance via geofencing.

• Creating ad-hoc tasks and uploading tasks in bulk.

• Scheduling tasks in advance so that employees can make the necessary preparations promptly.

• Letting employees self-allocate tasks.

4. Updates and notifications

When all the employee field operations like attendance, tasks, and expenses are managed using a software solution, notifications and reminders become crucial to prevent confusion. If you have assigned an ad-hoc task to an executive, what is the point of the urgency if he doesn’t receive the task details and updates in time? That’s why notifications play a major role in improving the efficacy of field force management software.

You can configure the notifications and alerts feature for any module. This lets you notify employees in case of:

• Missed deadlines

• Shortage of work hours

• Long break times

• New changes in tasks or orders.

• Overspending

• Being offline or switching off the GPS

Employees too benefit from this feature as they remain vigilant and updated about their daily tasks. Plus, the processes of self-allocating tasks, requesting leaves or expenses, and creating new orders also get easier as managers are immediately notified of the requests. 

Also, employees don’t have to provide elaborate reasons for their requests and wait a long time for request approvals.

Conclusion

Communication is essential in any business. But it’s even more important and hard to maintain when your business employs a mobile workforce. Not only do you have to communicate the tasks and organisational updates to your staff, but you also have to monitor their activity. This may sound like a humongous responsibility, but that’s not the case. 

You can streamline your company’s internal communication with field service management software. It comes with useful features like real-time employee tracking, instant alerts and notifications, optimised task allocation, and internal chatbots. 

This can prevent miscommunication and confusion among your employees. Plus, it’s beneficial to boost workforce productivity. If you’re looking for the best field force management software platforms in the industry, visit TrackoField.