An outside rep for an adhesives, abrasives and tape distributor has a full and varied week. A disc trial at a fabrication shop, with a welder keeping count. A meeting with an OEM's engineer about bonding a new bracket. A walk through a plant's maintenance crib. Stops at four body shops to restock and check on a new masking tape. Then a call because a line is out of adhesive. Without a plan, the week goes to whoever calls loudest, and the accounts that could grow get little attention.
The app's rep tools give the week a structure.
Plan the route, work the territory
The calendar and route view show today, this week and this month: every stop, with route and time planners. The route map puts every stop on a map, with each day covering part of the territory and Friday for follow-ups. The territory plan sets zones, the companies in each and which day to work them.
Body shops cluster along commercial strips, and fab shops and plants cluster in industrial parks. Working one zone a day leaves room for a prospect call between two restock stops.
Log the visit without paperwork
When the rep leaves a stop, logging it is quick:
- Visit log: tap Serviced and the visit is stamped with date and time.
- Voice notes: talk on the way back to the car and the notes are typed for you.
- Follow-ups: each promise, like "bring methacrylate samples for the bracket trial," becomes a dated follow-up with a reminder.
- Message the office: send a note to customer service or purchasing from the field.
- Optional GPS: location on a visit only if the rep ticks the box.
Trials live or die on follow-up. A rep who leaves sample discs and forgets to come back for the count has wasted the visit. A dated follow-up makes sure he goes back while the welder still remembers.
Faye, the voice sales assistant, helps in the car with a brief before a stop, who the buyer is and follow-ups. AI assistant phone calls can ring an account to confirm a visit or ask about shortages, and log the result.
Spot accounts going quiet
Consumables make slipping customers easy to spot, if you look. Customers slipping shows items a customer buys like clockwork that have stopped coming, with a one-tap follow-up. If a body shop bought discs every week for a year and has stopped, someone else is supplying it.
Customer health shows which customers are slipping, at risk or lost. Top accounts up and down lists the ten accounts buying more than last year and the ten buying less. Category gaps show what each customer buys from you and what they buy elsewhere, such as the fab shop that buys your abrasives but gets its lubricants and aerosols somewhere else. That gap is often the easiest growth in the account.
Pull up a customer gives everything about one account on one screen, so the rep walks in knowing what was bought, what is open and what was promised. Corrective action reports sit there too, so a rep never walks in unaware of an open bond failure.
Lunch and learns are a natural fit for this trade, whether it is surface prep for bonding or disc selection for stainless. The cross-selling and campaign tools aim emails by what customers buy, so the invitation goes to the right shops.
What the owner gets
Rep pace to goal shows each rep's month against goal. The weekly rep review email goes out every Monday with each rep's accounts, and the GM desk gets everyone. Office notes collects everything reps sent to the office. For accounts the rep cannot visit every week, check-in emails and the 26-email drip keep the rep's name in front of them in the rep's own words.
Want to walk through it with your own assembly, maintenance and body shop customers? Book a demo.