Our sales reps complain because up to 40% of their visits to POS are not a sale, and if we change visit frequency, our customers complain about no inventory. Any system out there to solve this with technology?
-
We sell snacks and other baked goods to retail stores across Florida with 120 sales reps. The sales reps' routes are designed in part by a software we developed that uses historical rotation per POS, plus constrains proposed or imposed by the customers, plus other criteria, and in part by human/manual adjustments using common sense or exceptions. The objective in the design of the routes is to maximize the possibility of converting every visit in a sale, and to minimize the occurrence of empty shelves in the POS. Even though this effort, our sales reps still find themselves with a high % of visits that turn in a no sale. When we apply changes to do less frequency, then customer calls requesting visits or complaining about empty shelves increase.
-
Answer:
Sounds like a problem to solve with a Just In Time delivery system. In software terms, switch from a polling model@ for low stock condition to an async notification model for low stock condition.
Jeff LaPorte at Quora Visit the source
Other answers
In this situation, a vendor managed inventory (VMI) system would help. This is based on getting inventory information directly from each retail store automatically, More information can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendor-managed_inventory A ranking of the top ten VMI applications can be found here: http://www.softwareadvice.com/scm/vendor-managed-inventory-software-comparison/
Abdul Jaludi
"Up to" 40%? I assume that is across the entire sales force, so there must be better results by individual salesperson, customer and channel. Why not put all the data resulting from the sales calls into a visualisation tool like Tableau and look for patterns? It may be that the one-size approach is not optimal.
Nick Mulcahy
I would suggest to look the best performers who have higher % of visits vs sales, and understand why. It may reveal you good surprises like nature of discussion, contact person at customer POS, time spend and so on..
Ilias Jumadilov
Related Q & A:
- What is a good software and SaaS product inventory management system?Best solution by Quora
- Do pharmaceutical/medical sales reps make good money? how much can they make?Best solution by work.chron.com
- How much do Pharmaceutical sales reps make?Best solution by work.chron.com
- Are All Stores Having A Sale On Black Friday?Best solution by bfads.net
- Is AT&T having a sale for Black Friday?Best solution by att.com
Just Added Q & A:
- How many active mobile subscribers are there in China?Best solution by Quora
- How to find the right vacation?Best solution by bookit.com
- How To Make Your Own Primer?Best solution by thekrazycouponlady.com
- How do you get the domain & range?Best solution by ChaCha
- How do you open pop up blockers?Best solution by Yahoo! Answers
For every problem there is a solution! Proved by Solucija.
-
Got an issue and looking for advice?
-
Ask Solucija to search every corner of the Web for help.
-
Get workable solutions and helpful tips in a moment.
Just ask Solucija about an issue you face and immediately get a list of ready solutions, answers and tips from other Internet users. We always provide the most suitable and complete answer to your question at the top, along with a few good alternatives below.