A Competitive Advantage with Agility Sales App for McCray Lumber and Millwork
Questions and change requests have always been part of jobsite visits for McCray Lumber and Millwork sales reps. Customers wanting to add quantity or move a delivery date would tell the rep, who would in turn call a McCray dispatcher. The calls, said Scott Schwart, would quickly pile up.
“There are about 30 of us in the field all trying to get ahold of somebody at the same time. The dispatchers had to do lookups for 40 or 50 different customers a day.”
Phone tag
In addition to creating more work for McCray’s dispatchers, this system caused problems for the reps too. They would wait around for a callback or go to the next job, promising to update the customer as soon as they heard something.
Wanting a better way to serve their customers in the field, the team decided to try the Agility Mobile Sales app. It lets reps access key account information such as open A/R, existing order status, and pending deliveries. They can also immediately check customer pricing and item availability. The app accesses a company’s data in Agility but does not require the bandwidth and processing power of the full platform. Reps can find what they need over a basic wireless or cellular network.
The McCray team downloaded the Agility Sales app onto their phones and tablets then spent some time trying out the functionalities. Scott noticed the speed right away.
“It’s amazing how fast it performs. You just push the button, and the information comes up. It’s instantaneous.”
The app changed the nature of Scott’s customer visits. Having direct access to account information eliminated the telephone game. “I can be on the job site, and the carpenter will tell me ‘Hey that load that was scheduled for next week, I need it tomorrow.’ And instead of calling the guys in the office and waiting for them to go through the lookup process, I can find the ticket number in about 15-20 seconds, get the date changed, and it’s on its way to being billed.”
The Agility Sales app has made Scott much more efficient. “There’s been a huge savings in time. I can look at the ticket, have the information, and be on my way in less than 30 seconds. And I don’t bring a lot of the paperwork that I used to. I just pull up the app and look at exactly what I want to see.”
In addition to keeping projects on time, the fast turnaround makes it easier for Scott’s contractors to provide good service to their customers.
“We can tell the builder we already got it ordered, and it’ll be here tomorrow. A couple of contractors have said to me specifically that they are impressed with how fast we can get them information.”