Pinnacle Security's Dashboard and MySales Web sites recently earned top honors at the ESI Forum Best Practice Awards. The sites offer employees instant access to real-time data as it relates to sales and installations.By Ashley Willis
OREM, Utah — In an effort to motivate employees, increase the overall quality of installations and improve overall job performance, Pinnacle Security developed its Dashboard and MySales Web sites.
In addition to offering employees instant access to real-time data as it relates to sales and installations, it has also garnered attention from the security industry. The Web sites earned the 2012 Best Practice Award for production management (design/installation) at this year's Electronic Security Integrators (ESI) Forum.
The Dashboard site is the brainchild of Pinnacle Senior Marketing Manager David Jones and his team after several sales representatives requested a mobile application to help them track their sales.
"Our guys wanted and needed a lot of mobile access," Jones tells SSI. "They're not in the office all the time; they're out with the clients. So, we started looking at how we could get their numbers into their hands quicker."
Additionally, the Pinnacle executive team thought it would be beneficial for all employees to see how other workers fared in the sales field. As a result, Jones, with the help of Salt Lake City-based developer Fifty Studio, based the design of Dashboard off financial stock Web sites, where users can view stocks in real-time.
"It's kind of like looking at five different stocks to see how they're doing," he says. "We've built it to where the home page shows the Top 5 representatives and offices for sales production. We also post our sales reps' pictures, so we really started to create a competitive atmosphere."
The competitive nature has not only improved the company's morale, but it has helped workers based in different locations to get to know one another.
"When we launched this, our employees were really excited because they were able to see how they were doing, but more importantly, they could see how other people were doing," Jones says. "All of a sudden they knew who everyone was even though they had never met them. From a company standpoint, it fostered an increase in production, which in the end got more people secured. Now we have everyone in the company talking about each other to foster a very close culture."
Originally launched in 2008, Dashboard, which can be viewed via personal computer, a tablet or a smartphone, has seen its share of upgrades. For example, when the technology first went live, employees could only view reports on the hour. Now, workers can receive up to the minute updates.
Linked to Dashboard is the MySales site, which handles the human resources side of the business, such as hiring information, pay rates and compliance reports. Also introduced in 2008, MySales was a way to eliminate excessive paperwork and decrease time flow. When it first launched, the site was its own separate entity; however, to make it easier for employees, the company merged MySales into Dashboard, Pinnacle Senior Software Engineer Nick Rosenvall tells SSI.
"In every aspect you have in bringing on a new technician or a new sales rep, we have sped that up ten-fold," he says. "That starts all the way from HR to getting them licensed in whatever state. This would normally take a lot of time and a lot of people to handle all of these reps."
Continuing with its technological advancement, Pinnacle launched its Co-Pilot application that works on Apple devices, such as the iPhone and iPad. The integration tool allows technicians to digitally keep track of customers, as well as signing up new clients, running credit and filling out a contract.
"It only gets better," Rosenvall says. "With these great applications that we have, I think it covers every aspect of our industry and what we do."
Ashley Willis is associate editor for SECURITY SALES & INTEGRATION. She can be reached at (310) 533-2419.