i-snapshot: inroads into publishing sector.

How a Canadian publishing giant is boosting the effectiveness of its sales team with the help of a British field sales reporting system.

Canadian regional magazine and newspaper publisher, Metroland Media Group is to implement a revolutionary field sales reporting system, in a move designed to boost the efficiency and effectiveness of the field sales force working for its Gold Book directory division.

Andy Hamilton from the Ontario-based company tells Modernselling.com: ‘i-snapshot will provide us with a clear and accurate view of our field sales activity. We wanted a tool that helps us manage our sales teams efficiently and effectively and it will do just this, by accurately measuring return-on-sales-effort almost instantaneously.

SMS

i-snapshot is a unique tool which boasts a number of features which separates it from other technology commonly used in the sales sector such as customer relationship management and sales force automation systems. Instead, it uses SMS (texting) as a way of capturing the outcome of field sales visits, so reducing the need for expensive hardware and software.

After a salesperson has completed a visit, they compile a text message using code to detail the outcome of the meeting. i-snapshot then interprets the text and refreshes the secure, online reports – taking literally seconds for the details to be inputted to the report being available to view online.

Team of 70

Gold Book publishes over 2.4 million directories and operates 14 regional websites. The organisation generates income by selling advertising space and its distribution capabilities to businesses.

It has a direct sales team operating in the field and generating new business. With a team of around 70, the company needed a system that could measure field force activity, and give full visibility of this.

Data management

Gold Book found data management to be a headache on its previous system, which was also unreliable. With the i-snapshot solution, the company is able to allocate prospect accounts to individuals in the team very easily: this offers sales management excellent visibility of activity.

Hamilton says: ‘We’ve had experience with other systems in the past, but have found that managing data had been cumbersome and data flow in and out of the systems was difficult. The speed of reporting and the actual online application is fantastic. The team at i-snapshot have worked with us to ensure the implementation of the system is fitting with our objectives and needs.’

Compliance

The texting method used by i-snapshot removes compliance issues that are common with remote sales teams. Unlike other reporting systems, i-snapshot cleverly self validates the coded messages it receives, notifying the user if there are any errors in the code which gives them an opportunity to reconstruct the message and re-send.

Based in Middlesbrough, i-snapshot is beginning to make inroads into the publishing sector globally.

Success rates

Chief executive officer Alan Timothy adds: ‘We are extremely pleased to be working with Gold Book. The tool will aid their team in identifying the success rates of their sales strategy, and be able to react quickly to specific trends that they recognise.’

He adds: ‘Our organisation is making great strides in terms of the development of the application. We have just released V4 which is even more intuitive than its predecessor and are already working on V5 which will have even more functionality.

‘I am very proud of what we have achieved over the last few years. We have a unique system, which is being used worldwide by large organisations and well-known brands as well as SMEs across many sectors. The fact that we have continued to grow throughout a recession speaks volumes.’

Please click for more information on the i-snapshot field sales reporting system.

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