Mobile Business Apps for doing the paperwork
It’s always smart business practice to get close to your customers. That’s why Leading Edge employs 60 mobile sales consultants throughout New Zealand. Operating from Spark’s local business hubs, their job is to help business people make the most of Spark’s business offering – from landlines and mobiles to the latest data connections.
Being switched on to the possibilities of mobile data, Leading Edge wanted to cut down the mountain of paperwork generated each day. Every new customer contract or provisioning form had to be filled in laboriously by hand. Then the rep had to bring it back to the office to be processed.
Ryan Koppens, the General Manager (Retail) at Leading Edge, put his finger on the pain points.
“Our sales people were being swamped by the volume of paperwork,” he said. “We wanted to find a way to keep them out in the field, looking after customers and making sales.
“We needed to eliminate that end-of-day visit to the office.”
Turning piles of paperwork into a timesaving app
Leading Edge realised its business forms and contracts could be reinvented as an app that ran on the reps’ tablets. Using the AMS platform, they created a sophisticated app to capture all the information sales consultants needed to turn a prospect into a signed-up customer.
Now Leading Edge reps can create new contracts on their tablets during customer visits, and close the sale on the spot. Pressing Submit sends the data over the mobile network, straight to the Leading Edge server. The app is designed with mandatory fields that must be completed, so by the time data enters the system, things are ready to go.
Ryan pointed out another bonus of using a tablet and app to close sales.
“It’s fair to say that not everyone has great handwriting. With some of our team, paper forms were being rejected because the information wasn’t clear.
“It’s always a bad thing when you have to go back to the customer and have a second crack at getting things right. The AMS app avoids this issue entirely.”
Swifter service makes for happier customers
Leading Edge is pleased with the way its new app-based sales process has transformed response times.
As Ryan says, “There’s lots of time-saving downstream, which means we can provide customers with the service they’ve requested without delay.”
The sales team is happy too. No longer bogged down with paperwork, and freed from the requirement to physically return to their local Spark hub to drop off forms, they can now spend more time in the field.
Since the purpose of their role is to develop relationships with local business people, this is a big step forward.
Smart technology made easy
Building a mobile app might seem daunting if you’ve never done it before. However, Leading Edge found the experience simpler than anticipated using the AMS mobile forms software.
Ryan acknowledges that the Leading Edge business model requires detailed forms with lots of mandatory information and multiple tabs. Despite this complexity, the process of creating an app turned out to be surprisingly simple.
“We’re really happy with the way things worked out,” he says. “The way AMS translated our business forms into an app – it just happened seamlessly.”
Executive Summary
• Leading Edge runs local business hubs for Spark, reaching out to small and medium-sized businesses across New Zealand.
• 60 sales mobile consultants sell Spark telecommunications and data to SME clients.
• Previously, the business relied on paper forms and contracts when new customers were signed up. These forms had to be physically dropped into the local Spark hub for processing.
• Poor handwriting and missing information often necessitated a second customer visit, and slowed down the provision of services that customers had requested.
• Leading Edge used the AMS platform to translate paper forms into mobile apps that ran on tablets.
• Simple but comprehensive mobile forms ensure all the required information is captured during the customer interaction.
• Swift data transfer means new contracts and product requests are processed swiftly, so services can be provided without delay.
• Leading Edge’s reps now spend more time on sales and developing customer relationships without being bogged down in paperwork.
• There’s no need for reps to return each day to the office to drop off forms, resulting in higher productivity in the field.
