The number of customer visits per week has increased by 25% thanks to portatour®. We now cover our territories much more effectively.
François Belisle,
Vice President Strategic Management
The Sani Marc Group has more than 500 employees across Canada. The company helps organizations optimize their sanitation and maintenance programs through a wide range of high-quality products and solutions. Sani Marc’s flexibility and operational capacity has made it the Canadian leader in all the markets of their three divisions: Food & Beverage, Hygiene & Sanitation and Pool & Spa.
Some 200 staff directly interact with customers, specifically with sales people, customer service staff and technicians. This 35% of the organization gathers information day in and day out, representing a significant resource for the company and a substantial outlay.
We were flying blind in our attempts to guess the best way to optimize our results.
François Belisle, Vice President Strategic Management
Before portatour®, there was no consistency in terms of route planning. Some employees used manual systems with business cards, other used Excel spreadsheets. The system was very inefficient, especially since Sani Marc had very little information regarding when a visit took place and how much time and effort was spent with customers.
Eventually, there were a number of small incidents that prompted Sani Marc to seek out an automated route planning solution. One turning point was the loss of a major contract: visits had not occurred according to the prescribed interval and a lack of traceability deprived Sani Marc of the necessary tools to prove that the job had been completed. By that time, Sani Marc understood that their only option going forward was a comprehensive solution for route planning and field force management.
Sani Marc reviewed several route planning software options, but it quickly became clear that portatour® was the best solution, given that portatour® provides:
None of the competition had all of these features, nor were any of them flexible enough to meet Sani Marc’s business requirements.
portatour® now schedules customer visits according to the call intervals set in the system for regular service visits. portatour® optimizes the routes while also allowing the field reps to react to changing circumstances in real-time.
What’s more, portatour® is used at different levels in the organization. Before a visit, sales reps have ready access to revenue figures, previous orders and contracts, thus creating a far more professional atmosphere for their customer interactions. After a visit, they document the outcome. The marketing department uses this data for campaigns. At all levels, the valuable data collected with portatour® is used to optimize the company’s growth.
We were looking for a solution that benefited the sales people as much as the back office and senior management. And portatour® delivered.
François Belisle, Vice President Strategic Management
Today, our sales people would no longer be able to manage their territories without portatour®.
François Belisle, Vice President Strategic Management
Sani Marc first got in touch with portatour® in February. In March, the first pilot project was implemented in a single region within one division. Sani Marc ran the pilot for six months to ensure the system met their needs and to allow time to integrate it into their overall IT ecosystem. portatour® is now integrated with Qlikview and other internal systems to prepare business reviews and import updated customer data.
The pilot users got up and running with portatour® much faster than with other previously implemented systems. Sani Marc trained the regional team managers to be portatour® power users. They now easily provide training to new employees. The biggest challenge was the general technological skill-level of some sales people and training them accordingly.
Given that portatour® is so easy to use, today the reps can always count on the system to organize their week.
The biggest win was the overall improvement to core business. Sani Marc now executes service visits 100% in accordance with the intervals set out in contractual obligations with customers. Furthermore, the number of customer visits per week have increased by 25%. Employees now spend less time behind the wheel and more time face-to-face with customers.
With portatour®, Sani Marc has been able to guide reps as to which products to present to customers, depending on market sector. In this way, the time spent selling highly profitable products increased by an outstanding 400%. As a result, their efforts are more focused and follow the strategy established by management. What's more, the training time for new hires has been reduced by 30%.
The management team has an overview of what’s going on with field staff, specifically where time is spent, with which customers and in which sectors of activity. Now it is possible to evaluate the return on the time invested and assess results accordingly.
With portatour®, Sani Marc provides service to a customer base of 47,000, in addition to having increased from 1,000 to 3,000 the number of annual visits to leads. Sani Marc is on a clear upward growth trajectory, registering double-digit gains every year. portatour® provides the ability to manage this accelerated growth, helping to focus on the right areas.
We grow faster with portatour® and we can effectively manage that growth. I strongly recommend portatour®.
François Belisle, Vice President Strategic Management
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