Listen to this article
* – This article has been archived and is no longer updated by our editorial team –
Below is our recent interview with Oscar Macia, CEO at ForceManager:
Q: Could you provide our readers with a brief introduction to ForceManager?
A: I founded ForceManager together with Xavier Bisbal back in 2011. The idea of creating a mobile CRM solution came up after serving various sale director roles and realising that the data entered into the CRM by sales guys working out of the office, was inaccurate or out of date. I don’t blame the field sales team as the tools available at the time for reporting simply weren’t fit for the job – cumbersome, slow and difficult to navigate, there’s no way I’d have been using them either. That’s when the light bulb moment hit!
Today we are glad to be a pioneer in mobile sales management solutions, designed by and for field sales teams. ForceManager measures, analyses, reports and improves the performance of field sales teams using their mobile devices.
Recommended: Marketing Agency Sales Renewal Is Reinventing Small Business Marketing With Its JointSourcing Solution
Q: You’ve recently presented NewsManager; could you tell us something more?
A: We realised that many important emails get lost in the sales rep’s inbox or are misunderstood, which can have a negative impact on sales. There was a clear need for a product that allows sales directors to send messages as easily as sending an email, but with the added benefit of being able to see who’s opened a message and, most importantly, who has actually understood it.
The NewsManager add-on broadcasts news to groups of users, informing the sender about two things: who has opened it and more importantly, who has confirmed they’ve actually read it – all in real-time. Sales representatives confirm they’ve actually read and understood the message by clicking the “Got it” button. If the message hasn’t been opened, daily reminders will be sent until the user confirms it has been read.
Q: What makes your CRM the best choice?
A: User adoption and keeping things real simple. Sales reps and managers need increasing access to their data on the fly: customer history, previous purchase orders, sales collateral and pipeline activity, to name a few. If the CRM lacks a mobile solution they can’t really update it while on the move, meaning it’s done (if at all) when they return to the office hours later. As a sales manager this is a nightmare as you never know if what you’re looking at is accurate, updated or any good at all. This of course makes it extremely difficult to make any solid business or sales based decisions.
Q: What is ForceManager Cognitive and how does it transform lost time to sales?
A: ForceManager Cognitive is our new AI voice recognition feature powered by IBM Watson, specifically designed to help field sales representatives out on the road. With this addition we have created a personal sales assistant that responds to natural language and is capable of providing proactive suggestions and making the best use of time spent at the wheel (on average almost 3 hours a day). You can speak to Dana, ForceManager Cognitive’s assistant feature, and ask it to optimize your day and set important reminders before client visits.
Recommended: Marketing Platform Gift2Grow Brings Simple Referral Marketing To Realtors And Professionals
Q: What can we expect from ForceManager in the future?
A: With ForceManager Cognitive we have brought AI to field sales teams, but we have only scratched the surface. We are confident that we can achieve so much more with these solutions in the future. On our ambitious roadmap, we plan to incorporate several other IBM Watson features into ForceManager, optimizing the sales process even further: personalizing the content each customer receives, using a customer’s data to recommend products they would be most interested in or opportunity analysis of clients to create guidance to help close deals. The sky is really the limit!
Activate Social Media:
