Blindsided in the customer's back office
Your rep arrives for a regular visit with a new range to show. The owner starts with a complaint: two claims from last month still not credited, and a statement they think is wrong. The rep did not know. They also did not know that accounts put the customer on stop yesterday, or that the customer's orders for your core lines have halved over the summer.
The new range does not get a look in. The rep leaves promising to sort things out, then spends the evening ringing the office to find out what is going on.
Where the account picture is scattered
Each part of the business holds a piece of the story. Credit control knows the balance and any stop. The office knows open claims and back orders. The sales ledger shows what was bought, and the trend is only visible if someone runs a report. Reps usually have access to one or two of those, and the time before a visit is spent in the car park.
| What the rep should know | Where it is today |
|---|---|
| Overdue balance and account stop | Accounts system, credit controller |
| Open claims and credits | Office inbox and claims log |
| Back orders waiting | Order system |
| Change in buying pattern | Monthly sales report, if run |
| Recent complaints | Emails and phone notes |
The cost of going in blind
Visits that should sell become visits that apologise. Reps promise things the office cannot deliver, or offer credit terms to a customer that credit control is chasing. Falling accounts are noticed months late, when the customer has already moved business elsewhere. And the relationship between sales and the office strains, because each side feels the other leaves them exposed.
There is a missed opportunity too. A visit is the best moment to recover a slipping account, because the rep is in the room with the person who decides. If the rep does not know the account is slipping, that moment passes, and the next chance is a month away.
The pre-visit view we build
- Each morning, the tool reads the rep's planned visits from their calendar or visit plan.
- For each customer, it pulls the balance and any stop from your accounts system, open claims and back orders from the order and claims records, and sales by product group for recent months.
- It lists the points worth knowing at the top: claims open over a set age, lines the customer has stopped buying, overdue invoices, and anything the office has flagged.
- The view is on the rep's phone, readable in the car park, and works without signal once loaded.
- After the visit, the rep adds notes and actions, which go back to the office as tasks with an owner.
The rep does not need access to the whole accounts system. The view shows only what is useful for a visit, which also keeps credit control comfortable about what is shared.
What visits look like afterwards
The rep walks in knowing the claim is open and when it will be credited, or has already asked the office to sort it. They know which lines have slipped and can ask why. They avoid offering things credit control would not support. The office gets visit notes as tasks rather than a phone call at six o'clock. And sales managers can see which accounts are drifting before it shows in the year end figures.
Recognise this?
- Reps learn about complaints from the customer.
- Accounts on stop are visited as if nothing is wrong.
- Drops in a customer's orders are noticed months later.
- Visit notes are sent by text or not at all.
- Reps ring the office to check basic account details.