What to Look for in a Mobile Retail Audit Solution

Recurring retail audits – or follow-ups, as they are also called in the industry – are the backbone of CPG (consumer product goods) field marketing. Field reps perform regular visits to stores to verify whether their assigned products are in-stock, are being displayed according to the category planogram, or are appropriately priced, for instance.

Mobile retail audits have revolutionized the industry. Before, field reps had to use the traditional clipboard and carry mounds of paper around, then transcribe the information onto a computer. With mobile retail audits, reps can perform their assigned tasks on their smartphones and tablets, saving a tremendous amount of time and paper.

However, to fully fulfill the needs of field marketing teams, mobile retail audit solution must be able to:

Provide planning and scheduling capabilities that allow for change of plans, such as a rep covering another’s territory during vacations, for instance.
Capture not only alphanumeric answers but also photos and signatures in customizable forms.
Work online and offline, so reps can perform the mobile retail audits even if there is no cell phone coverage or WiFi.
Track the location where field reps performed their assigned tasks to prevent fraudulent check-ins.
Notify management and other stakeholders of mission-critical tasks or visits, such as when an out-of-stock has been detected or a key location has been visited.
Provide an instant analytics tool that allows for unlimited periodic reporting on mobile retail audits.
Work seamlessly across Apple and Android mobile devices so field reps can use their existing equipment.

VisitBasis is a complete mobile retail audit solution that provides all of the above benefits, among many others. See today how VisitBasis can help your organization implement mobile retail audits: Sign up for a free trial or schedule an online demo.

The One Thing You Shouldn’t Need to Worry About Retail Audit Apps

Retail audit apps have revolutionized the way audits and inspections are performed at the point-of-sale.

First of all, retail audit apps have eliminated the huge amount of paperwork that had to be transcribed, scanned, etc. Also, decision-making concerning issues that arise during audits on the part of brand and category managers, merchandisers, sales managers, among others, now has come down to sometimes a matter of minutes (if not, seconds) instead of the days it used to take for the information to flow from the field to the appropriate office.

But when deciding on which retail audit app to choose for your business, what should you worry about? Here is a shortlist:

Ease of set-up and use, ideally independent from IT departments and contractors.
Ability to customize mobile forms to your business needs so you can get the exact information you need from your retail audits and inspections.
Scalability of the retail audit app platform, so it can adjust to your business size.
Availability of the collected data – it should be available 24/7, ideally on a cloud server.
Ability to spot fraudulent check-ins, so you can be sure that the information you need is coming from the correct location.

One thing you shouldn’t need to worry about, however, when choosing a retail audit app for your business is how much you will invest in equipment. We explain: Most apps on the market today are cross-platform, meaning they can be used either on iOS (Apple) or Android smartphones and/or tablets.

This allows your field auditors and reps to use the devices they already own – and know how to use – to do their job and your business to benefit from the fact that roughly 96% of smartphone/tablet users these days carry a device on either one of these platforms, according to the IDC.

VisitBasis Retail Audit App is a complete retail audit solution that offers all the elements needed to perform mobile POS audits and surveys in one package – learn more at www.visitbasis.com.

VisitBasis Retail Audit App is available at Google Play and App Store and can be downloaded for free for an unlimited number of users.

Watch the below video with an overview of the VisitBasis Retail Audit App for iOS and Android:

Retail Audit Software: Overcoming the Challenges of Field Team Management

Managing retail audits can be a challenging task. Field team managers are dealing with many people, at many different locations, bringing in a lot of information on many products. The challenges are doubled if your team is geographically dispersed. In today’s world field team members often work in different cities, countries and time zones, or even speak different languages.

Among most common challenges a field team manager faces with are:
Scheduling and time-planning challenges (a rep can’t find customer’s location, got sick and must be substituted, etc)
Getting inaccurate or undue information from the field reps (e.g. fraudulent reports, errors, lost paperwork, improper use of the working hours)
Wasted time and productivity due to weak communication (via e-mail, SMS, office-calls) and slow paper submission
Field reps concentrating on the paperwork, not customers
Significant amount of fragmented information field reps have to consider
The security of corporate data storage and sharing
Weak analytics (managers often don’t have time and enthusiasm to analyze big amount of data from points of sales)

The key solution to solve all the challenges listed above is to give your field team managers and field reps the right tools to perform retail audit activities. Retail audit software can help companies to overcome most of the common problems that office managers face managing field teams. Companies that have adopted retail audit software out-perform those that haven’t through streamlining of the processes in the field and in the back-office.

VisitBasis retail audit software is a cloud-based, complete mobile data collection solution designed to schedule and monitor field team activities in real time. Implementing VisitBasis retail audit software you can expect the following benefits:

Your reps can perform in-store activities on their existing mobile devices, eliminating paperwork
You can design the tasks assigned to your teams so you get the exact information needed from the field
You can easily assign territories, visits, and tasks to your field reps
You can monitor in real time what is happening in the field: Where your reps are, what are they doing, results of their work
You can generate up-to-the-minute reports filtering all the information that comes from the field

Sign up today to get our retail audit software solution completely free. VisitBasis provides the most complete set of tools for your business in one great package. Through the implementation of a structured approach for retail visits and tasks, VisitBasis simplifies retail data collection and analysis.