Why Spreadsheets and Emails Are Holding Back Your Field Operations

Dealer visits are among the most important activities sales and after-sales field managers undertake. These meetings / discussions help to implement company strategies, analyze dealership performance, and strengthen the relationship between the OEM and their dealers. Yet, field managers in many companies are still preparing for these visits using unstructured tools—primarily spreadsheets and emails. While familiar to all, these tools often become inefficient to manage across the organization.

Manual Preparation Slows Field Managers Down

Using spreadsheets to prepare for dealer contact meetings requires field managers to gather information from various systems—sales, service, customer satisfaction, inventory—and consolidate it manually into reports. With no central repository, this preparation is always time-consuming, subjective and error prone. Field managers spend hours pulling together metrics, locating past reports, and assembling materials that may or may not be up to date. The field managers’ time should be better utilized to address OEM initiatives. As a result, meetings begin with a limited view of dealer performance, reducing the opportunity for meaningful engagement.

Email Leads to Scattered Communication and Potential Security Risks

Email is the most common tool for scheduling dealer visits, exchanging reports, and sharing dealer discussions and discussing various day-to-day topics. But while emails are handy and easy to use, they can easily become scattered and disjointed without structure or a standardized supporting process. Important notes, sensitive information, tasks, and follow-ups are buried across potentially unsecure inboxes, often getting lost or forgotten. There is no central organizational view of what was discussed or promised, which leads to missed commitments, poor accountability, and gaps in communication between the field and corporate office.

Documentation Lacks Consistency and Visibility

After a meeting, documents are often stored in Word or Excel files that vary in format, quality, and depth. These files are uploaded to shared drives, but usually without naming conventions or version control, it becomes difficult to find or use them later. This means field teams start each visit with limited context, while corporate teams lack the data to support them. Key insights, performance trends, and follow-through are lost in unstructured documents. A consistent format improves understanding as the dealer becomes familiar with standardized documentation. The message will be conveyed easier and more emphasized when using an unvarying format.

Strategic Impact Is Undermined Across the Organization

The cumulative effect of these inefficiencies extends far beyond the field team. Field managers spend more time managing data and collecting information and less time on dealer performance. This limits their ability to function as consultants and advisors to the dealers. Meanwhile, corporate leaders lack visibility in activities in the field. They are unable to identify and monitor the frequency of discussion trends, flag concerns, or apply best practices. Dealer strategy becomes reactive rather than proactive. Ultimately, manual processes bog the organization down and make field operations less responsive and effective.

A Smarter Way Forward: Centralized Dealer Contact Management

To overcome these challenges, more OEMs are turning to structured online solutions for dealer contact / visit management systems. These solutions offer an integrated environment that supports the full lifecycle of dealer visits—from visit planning and documentation to follow-up and reporting.

These platforms provide field managers with integrated performance dashboards, centralized calendar, structured visit reports, and real-time action planning and tracking.

This transforms dealer meetings from administrative tasks into discussing strategic opportunities. They help to ensure that priority topics are effectively discussed with the dealers. Standardized formats and workflows reduce time spent on preparation and eliminate inconsistencies in contact reporting.

At the organizational level, they provide visibility across the dealer network, making it easier for corporate teams to track progress, identify trends, and ensure accountability.