How to take field orders without copying errors

A rep is at the counter with a client who finally has time to order. He writes the lines on his pad, photographs the page and sends it. Back at the office, someone in sales administration opens the photo and types the order in. Sometimes it gets typed a second time, because the depot and the accounts do not work from the same file.

Anyone who has run a sales team knows what can come next: a quantity read wrong, a product confused with its neighbour in the range, a price the rep remembered from last season. The client notices when the goods arrive. Then the phone rings, and the rep spends his morning explaining an order he wrote correctly.

Where do order errors come from?

Most of them do not start with the visit. They start in the distance between the person who heard the order and the person who enters it. Handwriting gets misread, photos come out blurred, and whoever retypes has no way of knowing what the client said. Every extra copy is one more chance to get a line wrong.

There is a second source, which careful typing will never fix. The rep often orders without knowing the things that decide whether the order can stand: the current price for that client, how much credit is left, whether the account is even active. Those facts sit at the office, so he finds out later.

One entry, by the person who took the order

DeepComm removes the copy. The rep enters the order himself on his phone, at the client’s, and that entry is the one everybody else works from. The delivery note, the invoice and the accounting entry all pick it up without anyone typing it again.

The steps are short, which matters at a counter with a client waiting:

• He finds the product by its name, or by photographing it.
• He sets the quantity and adds it to the cart. The cart shows which client it belongs to, the depot of each line and the total with tax.
• He declares any advance received, with a photo of the proof, or confirms with no advance. A signed order form can be attached too.
• He submits.

This does not make every mistake impossible. A rep can still tap the wrong quantity. But he is the one who heard the client, the screen is there for both of them to read, and the error gets caught before it has travelled through three people’s hands.

What the rep knows before he orders

The client sheet carries the ceiling, the terms and the balance, so he knows whether he can sell on credit before he starts. The price on screen is the price of the order, and it does not change on its way to the office.

The app checks the client as well. A deactivated client cannot receive an order, whatever the settings. And if general management has made approval compulsory, a client still waiting for it cannot order either.

A second pair of eyes stays in the chain

Taking the order in the field does not mean it leaves unchecked. Once submitted, it goes up to the rep’s superiors. The regional director opens it, looks at the declared advance, the products and the total, corrects what needs correcting and passes it on. Sales administration then works from that same order to prepare the delivery.

If something comes up along the way, an urgency or a problem at the client’s, each order carries its own thread of comments, and the regional director, the rep and sales administration are notified. The discussion stays attached to the order it concerns, which is easier to find a month later than a message buried in someone’s phone.