Problem:
Company needed to make their sales pipeline more streamlined to handle more sales with their existing staff. They gathered sales leads and traveling sales associates would record information manually on paper during an initial consultation. Upon return to the office, sales associates would manually enter the information into Excel sheets, which populated detailed presentation sheets and graphs in Excel. The associate would then convert the reports to PDF format as the final report to deliver back to the client. This process was too time consuming, could not be reported on, and prone to human error due to manual data entry without validation.
Solution:
The entire sales process was automated as much as possible, and an internal secure web application was created for sales associates to enter the data during consultations. The web application had data validation to minimize human error, and allowed users to save the state of the form and restore it at a later time if needed. This data was then stored in a database to facilitate reporting and trend analysis. Once the associate has submitted the final form, an automated software process created the excel sheet with the data and automatically converted the necessary sheets into a single PDF presentation. The final step was to email the presentation to the sale associate and client, and send the presentation to the local printer in the office. The web application had administrator accounts that had detailed reports based on the information in the database.
Outcome:
After JB Consulting implemented our solution, the company’s sale process was more efficient, automated, and less error prone. We also introduced the first reporting mechanism so that management had real-time access to trend analysis and associate performance metrics. The sales associates were excited that many of the tedious steps they had to take were now automated and they could focus on client interactions and getting new business. The company was able to improve sale output and service more clients without having to add any new staff.
