Better structured work for Field Service with Resco mobile apps [with examples]

NORRIQ is Resco Partner of the Year 2023, based on the number and size of successfully implemented Resco projects, with high emphasis placed on customer satisfaction. Our lead developer Veerle has over 10 years experience in developing offline working apps for Sales and Service users. In multiple examples, she explains how NORRIQ used Resco to create a better structured work experience for field sales and field service users and to provide better structured data to planning and reporting teams.

Field sales and field service work involves many users and a substantial deal of unstructured work at different locations. Whether you are a brand, looking for a structured way to organise work for your field sales team, or whether you are an inspection company, looking to streamline the audit questionnaires or match employee skills with tasks, the reliability of your field service software is crucial. Offline availability of IT tools can be a challenge, says Veerle, senior developer. Together with customers like Vinçotte and Farmaceutische Laboratoria Trenker, Veerle and her team worked on implementations with Resco.

For the occasion of our Partner Award, we sat down with Veerle for a chat about the benefits of offline working apps and how she developed solutions that are reliable, easy to customize and to integrate with Microsoft infrastucture.

The benefits of offline working apps

For Field Sales Users

• Early in sales process, a field sales app allows easy order intake and promotion management on the go.
  Examples of successful mobile sales strategies include pharma brands, or haircare brands, for whom it is important to offer promotions and register orders during their customer visits.
  
  
   
• Later in sales process, you can follow-up on the sales performance and execution of agreements of your distributos or retailers. For example, in the on-trade channel, you enable your field sales team to track the successful implementation of your merchandise. In the off-trade channel, your brand manager can ensure that your field sales team monitors the successful implementation of in-store actions and can even follow-up on storechecks, e.g. by using app coordinates and reviewing pictures
• Contract management, mobile apps can add value by facilitating easy contract management, offering the possibility to add pictures during visits for example.

For Field Service Users

• Structure the work planning of your field service team, eg with the optimized routes function, which even takes opening hours into account. Whether in sales, construction, or maintenance & repairs, being in the right place at the right time is important for frontline workers’ productivity and great customer service
• Structure field service visits: increasing productivity of your field service team becomes easier to do, by integrating all the tools they need in 1 app. By offering your team all the needed information, they can prepare for a 1st time right visit: let them access the installed base at your customer, view the history of earlier interventions, offer easy access to machine manuals or even remote problem detection.
• Secure offline work in remote areas: interventions in electrical cabins, in basements, or on ships in the open sea become trackable in a reliable way, thanks to Resco’s reliable remote syncing technology
• Special focus: Inspection Module
  Resco offers a great experience in structuring work for inspection companies, like our customer Vinçotte. A practical example is the Questionnaire Designer in the Resco Inspections module: it provides a way of simplifying the form building.
  
  

 

• Service organisations who operate in remote areas: Some service organisations, like non-profit organisations who raise funds, need to be able to track how donation amounts are used in the field, also in remote areas that have no internet coverage. That is where a remote syncing app like Resco add tremendous value.

Where Resco and NORRIQ make the difference:

• Co-development specifically for inspection companies: our teams learn from the advanced requests of our customer Vinçotte. Vinçotte is a market leader in inspection and has become very advanced in digitizing their inspection processes, and in close collaboration with NORRIQ, Resco was able to improve their software with relevant features tailored to inspection companies
• Subsets of tables can be made available offline
• Reliable: Resco works with offline SYNC (versus cache: if you cache data, you may not be sure if all data are saved)
• Effortless customization. The Resco API allows easy programming in the app
• Native integrations with Exchange, CRM and Outlook agenda for appointments and with Sharepoint

The future holds many more possibilities for mobile apps, also in areas without internet coverage. NORRIQ and Resco can help companies with field sales and field service teams to further improve their efficiency and simplify digital processes.