Ferguson Case Study

Field2Base Dramatically Reduces Windshield Time for Outside Sales Force

Virtual Office Means Better Customer Service and Increased Sales

Ferguson Enterprises (www.ferguson.com), Inc., the United States ’ largest wholesale distributor of plumbing and builder products, employs over 1,200 salespeople. These salespeople service clients throughout the United Sates, the District of Columbia , Puerto Rico and Mexico and generate annual sales of over $5.9 billion. Providing each member of its sales force with tools that enable them to work more efficiently has always been a priority for Ferguson , which is why Ferguson's outside sales force is currently using Field2Base.

“We were looking for an all-in-one tool that would enable Ferguson to deliver better customer service and close more sales, while providing our sales force with a better quality of life”, says Jim Feltman, Vice President of Sales, Ferguson Enterprises. “Our many months of field testing Field2Base demonstrated substantial productivity efficiencies that assist both our internal and customer needs.”

Ferguson has found that Field2Base keeps its outside sales force out of the office and on the road since so much of what they used to have to do in the office can now be accomplished via Field2Base.

“I no longer have to return to the office to give my inside salesperson lighting take off sheets,” says Mark Strickland, who handles Outside Builder Sales on behalf of Ferguson . “I fill them out on my Field2Base and use it to send them via e-mail directly to my inside salesperson.” Strickland says that pre-Field2Base he had to regularly forgo doing walk throughs of properties in the area he was in because he had to allow time to drive back to the office to submit the lighting take off sheets from the houses he had already walked that day. Now that he doesn’t have to regularly return to the office, Strickland is able to do more walk throughs per day and therefore submit more lighting take off sheets per week to his inside salesperson than he could pre Field2Base. This means that he is generating more orders for Ferguson .

Being able to quickly replace defective products thanks to Field2Base has also enabled Ferguson to deliver greater customer satisfaction. “If I came across a sink, for example, that was rusted and needed to be replaced pre-Field2Base the process was always time consuming,” says Strickland. “I had to call the manufacturer’s rep and set up an appointment for her to come to the site. Meanwhile, my customer would have to wait for the rep to arrive to approve the product replacement and then for the product itself to arrive.” Now, using his Field2Base, Strickland simply takes a photograph of a defective product, writes directly on the photo to highlight the issue and then e-mails the annotated photo to the relevant manufacturer’s rep. “I can typically resolve any defective product issues my clients have in an hour now that I’m using Field2Base,” says Strickland. “Doing so used to take days.”

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