Front Row Solutions Adds Sales Rep Mapping Tools to its Reporting System

Front Row Solutions (FRS), a provider of CRM applications to sales professionals, has bolstered its Sales Reporting System with geolocation capabilities, arming sales managers with in-the-moment access to their field reps' whereabouts and activity throughout the workday. According to Etiene D'Hollander, founder and president of Front Row Solutions, the added visibility afforded by mapping functions aims to increase accountability, compliance, and productivity within sales organizations.

The updated tool enables sales managers to assess the activity of each rep as it is reflected visually on a map. Working in real time, the map is constantly updated with sequentially marked pins that allow managers to identify the time, location, and order each sales report was completed in. Managers can also drill into each of the pins to view the details of each report and use the insights they gather to better understand how reps are performing.   

For FRS, the updates come in response to customer requests for tools that allow managers to closely monitor their sales reps. "Sales rep location and mapping was a natural extension of our system," D'Hollander said in a statement. "[Our clients] understand that in a highly competitive business environment, knowing if sales representatives are compliant with policy and expectations, and if they're where they should be rather than where they shouldn't, is essential for success."

While D'Hollander concedes that FRS's tools have been met with ambivalence—particularly in organizations that are mindful of micromanagement—those who have adopted it haven't regretted the decision. One regional manager, for instance, learned that one of his reps was being dishonest about her location and the territories she was working (she was let go); other firms have leveraged the tool to determine where their productivity is coming from within the organization.

D’Hollander points out that the tool will be especially helpful in ensuring that sales reps throughout an organization are held to similar standards. In a statement, he noted that it has already been widely embraced by those "elite, high-performance sales reps who are fed up with having to shoulder the load for their less engaged and motivated colleagues."

Though users in the field are under tighter scrutiny, they are largely pleased with the solution’s functionality, D'Hollander says. Traditionally, sales reps have been resistant to CRM systems because they require them to spend additional time recording information, D'Hollander says. Rather than taking the salesperson into account, the tools seemed designed with IT in mind. Sales Reporting System aims to ease the burden by giving reps the ability to quickly and conveniently log records—it takes only 30 to 60 seconds to input data, and the system can be learned in a matter of minutes—and view customer information, including notes about contacts. Reps can also map the whereabouts of clients in their allotted territories and schedule appointments. According to D'Hollander, the solution has seen a 90 percent adoption rate among the hundreds of sales reps using it.

While D'Hollander can't pinpoint exactly which type of business would benefit most from the solution, he does note that the companies using it all have a high rate of transactions. The average range is between four and seven sales calls a day, D’Hollander says.  

D’Hollander shares the results of a beta tester, what he calls a "huge" Dallas-based company, which has seen a 30 percent jump in productivity: "They were getting two to four sales calls per rep a day, and now they're getting five to ten."

FRS is available for $50 per user per month. It is available as a stand-alone product or as an integrated solution that can be linked with legacy CRM systems, including SugarCRM, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and Salesforce.

According to D’Hollander, FRS will also be releasing an app on Dec. 1 designed to "make sales reps more effective" and feature:

• a mileage tracker, to enable customers to keep track of travel expenses;
• a built-in camera to take pictures of and log receipts;
• company social network features to foster communication between coworkers; and
• social network access to enable reps to research prospects. 

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