A report on Sales Rep Behavior in the Field

Perenso is an Australian software company founded in 1994. Since then their field sales automation system has steadily grown to become a key player in the CPG, pharmaceutical and food distribution markets internationally. The software is a cloud-based iPad app that optimizes field sales productivity, with important ordering and stock information, as well as sales presentations, streamlined upselling prompters and merchandising tools.

The following Perenso study is the result of research from March 2011 through February 2014.

What happens when field reps transition from laptops to iPads?

310% more in store usage with an iPad

More Usage

1

21% more orders were taken

More Orders

2

16% more in store calls were made

More Sales Calls

3

And a 67% reduction in out-of-hours work

Less Overtime

4

Sales reps sell a lot more product when they use an iPad in face-to-face selling. At Perenso, we studied 500 reps over a three year period, observing indicators of their productivity in the field when using iPads compared to laptops.

The data was gathered from companies that had field forces calling on retail outlets and selling consumable products in the US and Australia. We pulled data on companies that had originally used a laptop solution, who then converted the same reps to iPads.

To understand the effect of this transition on productivity, we studied:

• The number of calls made by all sales reps within the group;

• When they made those calls (time of day);

• How often they took the device into the face-to-face sales call with them.

500 sales reps displayed some startling behaviors...

A Study of Laptops Versus iPads for In-Field Sales Reps

What happens when field reps transition from laptops to iPads?

310% more in store usage with an iPad

More Usage

1

21% more orders were taken

More Orders

2

16% more in store calls were made

More Sales Calls

3

And a 67% reduction in out-of-hours work

Less Overtime

4

This is the most outstanding productivity improvement we have ever seen when analyzing sales tool usage data. But it makes absolute sense and it is surprisingly straightforward. Here’s why:

• The slow boot-up time and poor battery life of a laptop simply causes frustration for busy sales reps who just want to get on with the job and get quick wins;

• Laptops are not well-suited to presenting to one client, particularly when standing up in an aisle or at a counter;

• So reps leave the laptop in the car or in its bag, never to be used as an active selling tool.

iPads on the other hand, are light, agile, attractive and streamlined, and the Perenso app is always optimized to the rep’s particular sales process. They can be used very easily while standing up, walking around, moving from spot to spot and they’re fast to start up and navigate. This is a big reason that in the usage data we surveyed:

• Only 22% of reps used laptops in store with the buyer present;

• But that figure leapt right up to over 90% when those same reps were equipped with an iPad instead;

• That’s a 310% increase – a productivity gain unlike any other.

Consider these other drawbacks of laptops, where the device is not taken into the store for every call:

• The data collected by reps is more arbitrary—notes taken haphazardly with pen and paper are usually less reliable, not to mention the transcription errors that we find are commonplace in this situation. Consider that a sales rep using older technology or pen and paper has to spend time at home logging patchy information, after a long day, when all they want to do is disengage from their work.

• The quality of data you get from reps is less accurate. If you want surveys done on the number of facings or on competitor information, the onus is put on the rep to write it down or to remember it. The collective memory of sales managers is full of situations where reps have simply made up the data to satisfy a report. Not good.

• If you have spent money on designing and digitizing your marketing collateral making it available for use in sales visits, you may have wasted your money. The laptop so often stays in the car, along with the valuable collateral.

With iPads, the situation is reversed, with the reps taking the device into the store 90% of the time, with presentations and all the ordering facilities right there at their finger tips.

310% more usage in face-to-face in store calls

1

What happens when field reps transition from laptops to iPads?

310% more in store usage with an iPad

More Usage

1

21% more orders were taken

More Orders

2

16% more in store calls were made

More Sales Calls

3

And a 67% reduction in out-of-hours work

Less Overtime

4

21% more orders are taken on an iPad

2

The data shows that you will get 21% more orders from your reps when they use an iPad over a laptop. When we observed the data across all reps and all companies, the results were quite uniform in demonstrating this.

We draw three conclusions from this:

• Because the iPad is so easy to boot up compared to a laptop, the rep can get straight to work and start on their pitch and capturing the client’s responses accurately.

• No opportunities are lost, thanks to the speed, agility and ease of use of the app itself and the iPad.

• Your marketing collateral is so much easier to use, that reps are bringing it into more sales conversations at the right time in the cycle, encouraging the store buyer to place more orders more frequently.

What happens when field reps transition from laptops to iPads?

21% more orders were taken

More Orders

2

16% more in store calls were made

More Sales Calls

3

And a 67% reduction in out-of-hours work

Less Overtime

4

16% more calls are made with iPads

3

310% more in store usage with an iPad

More Usage

1

One of the more surprising statistics was consistent across all companies surveyed—that reps using iPads make 16% more calls than the same reps when they had previously used laptops.

The conclusions around this data are that:

• There is no duplication of effort or activities, because the iPad user experience is so streamlined and precise.

• Because the iPad goes into the sales call every time, the rep records what they are doing and what the client is saying, on the spot and in real time. This contrasts strongly with pen- and paper-based systems, and with laptop situations, where the rep bases much of the conversation on memory and records the call to the best of her ability later on.

• The rep’s daily productivity is boosted considerably because she does not need to take a break between calls to stop and record the call information, because it was already done in real time during the visit.

• The data showed that when using a laptop, more than 50% of reps saved up all the calls from the morning to be transcribed into their laptops in one session in the afternoon, when they could have been doing more calls.

• The data shows that about 35% of transcripts onto laptops were done this way, showing that the number of sales calls a rep can make instantly decreases. Additionally, if reps saved up calls to transcribe the data after their work day was ostensibly over, it seems likely that they would be somewhat disgruntled that the work day again encroached on their after work life.

Either of these two methods will negatively affect the rep’s ongoing call rate, so we see a major boost in productivity as soon as the rep transitions to the iPad.

What happens when field reps transition from laptops to iPads?

21% more orders were taken

More Orders

2

16% more in store calls were made

More Sales Calls

3

And a 67% reduction in out-of-hours work

Less Overtime

4

67% reduction in out-of-hours working

4

310% more in store usage with an iPad

More Usage

1

The average time spent working outside business hours for reps on a laptop was 74 minutes each day. That’s one and a quarter hours of burdensome work done either at home or elsewhere on the rep’s own time.

When they switched to the iPad, that went down to only 24 minutes each day, a rapid decrease of 67%.

• The data showed major variances between individuals and different companies;

• Some reps averaged only 15 minutes of work outside hours each day;

• Others peaked at 180 extra minutes daily, just to enter data and record the calls they could have recorded during the client visit.

With the iPad, the reduced administration burden on every sales rep has a directly positive effect on the way they view their job and their employer. These reps are now far more likely to ‘go the extra mile’ and squeeze in an extra sales call or two during the day, because they know that when they get home they will not have hours of unpaid, uninspiring administration work to do into the night.

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