Electrical.com provides customers with need-it-now electrical products and solutions, ensuring a fast and seamless experience no matter what they’re looking for. Once, they sent the right part on an emergency jet to a hospital without power in Puerto Rico during a hurricane.
To achieve such impressive operational efficiency, Electrical.com relies on Front to offer their sales, web, and finance teams a single, streamlined system from which to manage communications. “My team is spread across the country, and Front helps us stay connected, enabling effective communication, quick email distribution, and fast responses to both customers and colleagues all day long,” says Inside Sales Manager David Steinberger. This approach supports their commitment to delivering exceptional service while fostering a productive, connected workplace.
Front helps us tap into efficiency opportunities and enables us to do more with the software that we already have.
Challenges
Managing email routing and workload distribution for a distributed workforce
Electrical.com operates in a fast-paced industry where timely, accurate responses are essential. Before adopting a centralized platform, the company relied on Outlook and Gmail to manage communications. However, these tools struggled to meet the demands of a distributed team and growing customer base, particularly with the complexity of international transactions.
Misrouted or delayed emails often led to poor customer experiences, and a lack of visibility into email volume and workloads made it difficult to distribute tasks effectively and make informed decisions. They needed a solution to centralize communication, ensure emails were routed to the right teams without delay, and streamline workflows to support their expanding business.
Solutions
Enabling multi-channel customer engagement
To handle customer interactions across continents, Electrical.com ensures customers can communicate in the way that suits them, whether via email, a website request, SMS, or live chat. No matter which method they select, customers can rely on fast, focused responses thanks to the ease of routing in Front. “We value the flexibility that Front offers to our customers to allow them to select the kind of communications that fits their needs,” says David. “Internally, Front enables the most streamlined work experience.”
Front plays a pivotal role in sales workflows, ensuring all customer interactions are routed to the right teams and subject-matter experts (SMEs). This means sales emails are distributed efficiently; pricing and availability inquiries are handled promptly; and non-sales emails are filtered and redirected to appropriate teams. Load balancing rules are also implemented across the team to ensure that customer requests are handled quickly by the next available sales rep. “Front helps route non-sales emails to the right teams, manage spam by redirecting it, and connect new customers to the right specialists quickly,” says David.
Front Chat has been a valuable addition for the team since, similar to email, the team is able to easily and quickly route conversations to the relevant SME for the request. Another benefit is that reps are able to see the webpage the customer is viewing, enabling them to instantly confirm product details or suggest alternatives. Plus, automated chat messages — such as “Your conversation has been assigned to [rep’s name]. They’ll be with you shortly.” — keep customers informed.
I’ve spoken with other sales leaders, and they’ve tried to do stuff with live chat that is not nearly as effective as Front Chat. Plus, Front makes it really easy to set up live chat.
No-code automation for faster responses with less manual work
Before Front, the team envisioned a streamlined process where sales history and inventory data could be accessed directly within conversations, improving response accuracy and speed.
Front Connectors enable the team to do just that. An incoming email — often standardized thanks to the website’s submission form — will trigger an automated workflow for faster responses with significantly less manual work. Text recognition is used to extract part numbers, which are then cross-referenced against their internal inventory system. If an item is in stock, an email will be auto-generated to include the part number, pricing, and recipient details and then be prioritized to the top of the relevant rep’s inbox for quick review and sending.
Another Connector then captures the email quote and transfers it to another database to collect all quote information for the month. This live reporting tool enables managers to capture and analyze quote data efficiently, offering insights through pivot tables on a weekly or monthly basis. This not only expedites quoting for simple requests but provides visibility into quoting activity, which was previously challenging to track.
We analyze sales and quote data to identify trends and calculate hit rates by category, providing valuable insights to cross-functional teams. This informs our ad spend strategy, allowing us to optimize spending by focusing on high-performing categories and driving more business in key areas.
Prioritizing high-value sales opportunities
While electrical distribution products make up the core of Electrical.com’s business, the company also has an automation segment of products. David realized the automation team had less headcount but were fielding a higher number of requests.
To maximize team member productivity, they analyzed their email traffic to identify key international customers and prioritize business-critical requests. They leverage Front’s rules engine to sort inbound messages by domain and automatically route messages from high-value customers to the appropriate team member, while less urgent requests are routed to a shared inbox for follow-up pending rep availability.
Front is an essential tool for us to filter emails effectively. With rules based on keywords, customer emails, or subjects, we ensure messages reach the right person fast.
Empowering employees with analytics and an internal knowledge base
Electrical.com deliberately avoids posting public knowledge bases to prevent being asked questions better addressed by manufacturers. Internally, though, they’ve built an extensive knowledge base with Front, powered by AI-assisted search, which provides instant answers to reps’ questions and houses vendor information, policies, and training videos. “We equip our teams with tools via our internal knowledge base for policies, procedures, and points of contact,” says David. “This allows them to stay within Front, access information quickly, and respond to customers efficiently with a unified voice.”
Front analytics allow Electrical.com’s leadership to analyze team performance, customer interaction trends, and response times. This ensures they can continue to refine their processes, delivering even better customer service while supporting the growth and success of its team.
Before Front, the difficulty of measuring team performance meant key performance indicators (KPIs) were shared monthly. Now, David can share a weekly email to his reps so that everyone has a clear line of sight on their performance and opportunities to improve.
“Metrics shift the focus from subjective opinions to objective, data-driven insights,” says David. “It’s not about personal feelings — it’s about clear, analytical evidence of performance.” Managers can flag issues early, identifying additional training so team members can adjust their approaches accordingly.
Front helps organize and streamline email searches. Instead of sifting through thousands of messages, I can sort by tag, category, or inbox to quickly find the information I need.
Results
A new standard for customer service
Front has not only improved customer satisfaction but also transformed the way Electrical.com operates internally.
Leveraging Front Connectors, rules, and load balancing, teams can now respond to emails 70% faster, reducing email response times from 4-6 hours to 1-2 hours. Since employees are only getting the emails that are relevant to them, they’re happier and more focused.
Responses via Front chat are kicked off in under 3 minutes, and lead to 200-300 conversations a month — resulting in an additional $20,000 in monthly sales and 5% increase in their web-based request hit rate.
Using AI answers and Front Knowledge Base, sales reps have sped up onboarding from 4–6 months to 2–4 months, ensuring new employees can hit the ground running sooner, and with the most relevant information at hand.
Front’s analytics tools have transformed how Electrical.com tracks and improves performance:
Weekly Reports: Reps receive emails summarizing their KPIs, helping them adjust their efforts throughout the month.
Monthly Reports: Detailed insights guide coaching sessions and inform upper management about process improvements and personnel changes.
Data-driven recommendations are now possible, thanks to Front’s ability to track quote requests and sales performance.
Admittedly, some employees were initially skeptical about transitioning from Outlook and Gmail. However, after experiencing Front’s functionality and support during the change management process, they became its biggest advocates. With the right tools and information at their fingertips, employees are empowered to succeed, fostering a culture of excellence and efficiency.
