Today, a company may have reviewed your website, read about your services and emailed its initial questions before contacting your sales representative. When the representative arrives, the customer is not starting from scratch: they already know something about you.

The field team's role is therefore no longer simply to deliver information. The question management needs to answer is: which conversation should take place face to face, and what should it clarify?

Not every visit has the same purpose.

A visit to introduce a service for the first time requires different preparation from one to discuss the scope of a proposal. The first focuses on understanding the customer's need. The second should clarify earlier discussions and answer outstanding questions.

If the visit schedule ignores this distinction, the team may hold many meetings without a clear understanding of what each should achieve. Define the purpose of a visit before counting visits.

A field sales manager can ask three questions about each meeting:

  • What decision is the customer currently trying to make?
  • How will a face-to-face meeting help with that decision?
  • What should be clear by the end of the meeting?

This does not mean expecting every visit to end in a sale. Sometimes the right outcome is recognising that the customer's need is not yet fully understood and preparing more thoroughly for the next conversation.

Does information from digital interactions reach the field team?

A customer may have filled in a form, sent an email or provided initial information by phone. If the field representative arrives without knowing this, the customer has to explain everything again.

Using channels together is about more than offering different ways to get in touch. It also means using what was learned in earlier interactions to prepare for the meeting.

For example, if a customer has asked by phone how the service would fit their company's structure, the field meeting should not start with a generic introduction. The representative should identify the unresolved points beforehand and focus on those questions.

How should field capacity be assessed?

A field team's time is limited. Customers are in different locations, and meetings require different levels of preparation. Measuring capacity only by the number of monthly visits therefore gives an incomplete picture of the team's work.

Alongside visit numbers, you can track:

  • Why was the meeting held?
  • Was the customer's main question answered?
  • What information is still needed for a proposal or the next meeting?
  • Who is following up on the commitments made?
  • Which meeting formats work for similar needs?

The aim is not to set an ideal number of visits, but to understand how the team uses its time.

When is a face-to-face meeting necessary?

There is no universal answer. Some issues can be clarified by phone or video call. Others are better addressed by bringing the customer's different decision-makers around the same table.

The decision should depend on the content of the meeting, not habit. If the customer is still gathering basic information, a remote response may be sufficient. If they want to discuss scope, expectations or proposal details together, a field meeting may be more appropriate.

This does not make one channel superior to another. The aim is to match the customer's need to the meeting format deliberately.

Coorbiz's Perspective

Coorbiz builds dedicated sales teams for companies and takes responsibility for training, management, performance tracking and reporting. In field sales, the work is not just about making visits: it is about preparing for them and following up afterwards.

In Coorbiz's approach, a field representative is a natural extension of the brand in its relationship with the customer. They know the need the customer has already shared, clarify the meeting's purpose and follow through on what was discussed.

More digital channels do not automatically increase or reduce the need for a field team. What needs managing is which customers the team meets face to face, for what purpose and at which stage.

Rather than starting with “How many visits are scheduled this week?”, it is better to ask: “Which customer decision will each of these meetings help with?”