Econz Wireless has signed Marltons Pet Care Products and Accessories to track their national sales team with Econz Timecard GPS.
Marltons is a leader in the pet products industry (excluding food). The local pet care industry (including food) is estimated at R5-billion per year.
With a national sales team of 15 spread across the country, this mobile team needed to be tracked, orders sent to their various branch offices, and timesheets were being hand written and either faxed in or scanned and emailed.
“It was a bit of a nightmare,” says Adolph van der Westhuizen, Marltons’ National Sales Manager, Marltons (Retail). “Sometimes we couldn’t read their writing, or the faxes weren’t clear, and while we made every effort to track the individuals, it was done manually and was very time consuming for the Sales Managers.”
In addition, the Marltons HR department wanted easy access to fuel usage, time sheets and others.
“We pride ourselves on our customer service, so we needed a system that would be seamless and easy for our field sales staff to use, and ensure all our customers were being visited and orders fulfilled.”
Marltons piloted Econz Timecard GPS with sales staff in different areas. “We wanted to see how well it would be accepted by the team, how easy they found it, and how the web portal worked for both our HR department and our Sales Managers.”
The company opted for tablets for the chosen sales staff and the results have been remarkable. Van der Westhuizen says the benefits have been instant.
“We know where the sales staff are instantly and constantly as we can see their location on the web portal; timesheets are online – there’s no more missing information.
“The staff using the Econz system are very happy with it as they feel their offices and managers are more responsive to their needs. HR is happy as they can track distances against fuel consumption and timesheets are all online.
“In fact we are seeing benefits everywhere in sales management and HR. We are hoping to put the entire National sales team on the system in the near future,” van der Westhuizen adds.