Watch the walkthrough
1. What Sales Coach does
Who does what
| Role | What they use | What they can do |
|---|---|---|
| Owner / admin | CRM: Sales Coach window and the contact record | Everything a manager can, plus: change every Setting (visit length, alerts, scorecard, auto-analyze), assign visit reps and map check-in addresses. |
| Manager | CRM: Sales Coach window | See every conversation in the workspace, review the QA queue, Analyze and Re-analyze calls, see Team and In the field, text a rep during a visit, choose how they receive alerts. Can view Settings but not change them. |
| Rep | Sales Coach iPhone app (and Uploads in the CRM) | See their assigned visits, check in, record, read their own reviews and coaching, flag their own conversation for QA. A rep only ever sees their own recordings. |
2. Get ready for the field Owner / admin
Do this once per workspace. The Visits page of Settings checks most of it for you: open Coach in the dock, click the gear, and read the Ready for the field list. Every line should show a green tick.
- Check-in is on. Channel Automation turns visit check-in on for your workspace. Ask your account manager if this line is not ticked. Without it there are no check-ins, visit alerts or In the field view; recording still works.
- Sales process steps. Add the steps you expect on every visit in Settings → Scoring → Process steps (section 13). The live tracker on the rep's phone and the Step skipped alert follow them.
- AI is connected. Scoring, live tips and suggested coaching texts use your workspace's own AI connection. If it says "AI is not set up", ask your account manager.
- Coaching texts are ready. Your workspace needs an active texting number. Texts to reps come from that number.
- Reps have visits assigned. See section 4.
Each rep also needs
- A Channel Automation login that is a member of this workspace (the same email and password they use in the CRM).
- The Sales Coach iPhone app. Channel Automation sends each rep an install invite.
- Their mobile number on their CRM Profile if you want to text them during visits. The Reps with visits table shows No phone on profile for anyone missing it.
- Location set to While Using the App with Precise Location on (iPhone Settings → Sales Coach → Location), microphone allowed, and notifications allowed.
3. The Sales Coach window Owner / adminManager
Open Coach (the orange microphone) in the dock. The first time you open it, a 12-step tour walks you through the window; you can replay it any time with the ? icon. The book icon opens the Sales Coach help articles.
| Tab | Who sees it | What it is for |
|---|---|---|
| Uploads | Everyone | Every recorded visit and analysed call. Record or upload a new conversation, open a review, work the QA queue (managers) or My coaching (reps). Section 8. |
| Calls | Everyone | Phone calls the CRM already recorded, so you can coach on calls too. Managers can Analyze call. Section 10. |
| Team | Owners, admins, managers | Volume and coaching scores per rep over 7, 30 or 90 days. Section 11. |
| In the field | Owners, admins, managers | Who is at a visit right now, how long they have been there, and which sales step they are on. Text a rep from here. Section 12. |
| Gear (Settings) | Owners and admins edit; managers view | Readiness checklist, visit length, alerts, scorecard and auto-analyze rules. Section 13. |
Agents (the agent role) do not see Coach in their dock. Reps who are agents use the iPhone app.
4. Assign a rep to a visit (contact record) Owner / admin
Sales Coach works per appointment. Each appointment on a contact gets a visit rep and a check-in address. The visit rep is separate from who owns the contact: owning a contact does not assign its visits.
- Open Contacts, search for the customer and click their name to open the contact record.
- In the left sidebar, under Engagement, click Sales Coach. (From the General page you can also click Open Sales Coach visits → under Appointment info.)
Pick the visit rep
- On the appointment's card, click Assign rep (or Change rep if one is already set).
- Choose the rep from the list. It saves straight away. Choose Not assigned to Sales Coach to take the visit off Sales Coach.
- The rep sees the visit in the iPhone app's Appointments tab on the day of the appointment.
Map the check-in address
- Click Edit check-in address (or Map check-in address on a new visit).
- Under Address to use choose Customer contact address, or Corrected or different visit address if the visit is somewhere else, and type it.
- Click Map address. The card shows Address ready. Use View map to check the pin.
Other actions on the card
- … → Erase location evidence removes this visit's check-in, on-site readings and live step progress. Use it if a customer or rep asks for location data to be removed.
- Show past visits lists earlier appointments for this contact with their rep, address and arrival.
5. The iPhone app Rep
Sign in
- Open Sales Coach on the iPhone.
- Enter the same email and password you use in Channel Automation and tap Sign in. Your session is kept in the iOS Keychain, so you stay signed in.
- If you belong to more than one workspace, switch with Coach → Switch workspace. The workspace name shows under the Channel Automation logo on every screen.
If the app says No workspace access, your login works but you are not a member of the workspace. Ask your admin to add you. If it asks you to sign in again, your session expired: sign out and sign back in.
The four tabs
Signing out with a recording that has not finished uploading warns you first: choose Keep recordings unless you really want to discard them.
6. Check in at the visit Rep
- At the customer's door, open Appointments and tap Check in at visit on the visit card.
- The Assigned visit screen shows the customer, the mapped address and a map with the 150 m check-in radius. Tap Check in at visit.
- The first time, iOS asks to allow notifications (and location). Tap Allow so the app can remind you and time the visit.
- You see You're checked in with Near selected address, the distance and the time. Tap View visit details or close it.
- Back on the card, On site · 0 min and Checked in near address confirm the visit is being timed.
What happens after check-in
- Managers get an Arrived alert and the rep appears in In the field.
- While the visit is open, the phone confirms its distance from the address about every 2 minutes. Only the distance is kept, never where the phone is.
- If the rep leaves before the Left early if under time, the app asks "You left after X — what happened?" and managers get a Left early alert with the reason.
- If the rep is still there after the Running long after time, the rep gets a reminder and managers get a Running long alert.
- The app stops checking location by itself once the rep has left.
7. Record the visit Rep
- On the visit card tap Record this visit. The Record visit screen shows who the meeting is with.
- Read the consent line to the customer: "I'd like to record our conversation for quality and training. Is that okay?"
- When they agree, tap The customer agreed to be recorded. Start recording turns red and active.
- Tap Start recording. The screen shows Live, the timer and Safe to lock your screen: you can lock the phone and put it on the table.
- The Sales process bar fills as the live tracker hears each of your steps. If a step is still missing, it nudges you with Not covered yet.
- Use Pause recording while you wait for someone. A phone call can interrupt capture; come back to this screen to resume.
- When the visit ends tap Finish and analyse. (Discard recording throws it away.)
Upload and analysis
- Uploading securely shows progress. Keep Sales Coach open until the upload reaches 100%. If the upload is interrupted, the card shows Resume secure upload.
- After the upload, Coaching is on the way. You can tap Done and leave; transcription and scoring run on the server, usually in one to three minutes.
- When it is ready the card shows Ready and View coaching.
On the manager side the conversation appears in Coach → Uploads straight away with its stage (Transcribing, then analysing), and a score when it finishes.
Recording from the CRM instead
Anyone can record or upload from a computer: Coach → Uploads → New conversation. Give it a Conversation title, optionally link a Customer, tick I confirmed everyone consented to this recording., then Record from the microphone or choose a File (MP3, WAV, M4A, MP4 or WebM) and click Upload and analyze. Do not close the window during the upload: a browser recording only exists in that page until it lands.
8. Read a review RepManager
On the iPhone
Tap View coaching on the visit card, or open it from Insights → Recent reviews. The Visit review shows, top to bottom:
- Score out of 100 and how long was recorded.
- Focus for your next visit: the single most useful thing to change, with the moment it happened.
- More coaching, What happened, what the customer needs, objections and agreed next steps.
- Scorecard: points per section of your rubric, each with the reason.
- Sales process: each step as followed, partly done (counts as half) or skipped.
- Transcript.
In the CRM
Open Coach → Uploads and click a conversation. Managers see every conversation in the workspace; reps see only their own. The top cards show Overall score, Outcome and Customer sentiment; Play recording plays the audio. Five tabs hold the detail:
| Tab | What you get |
|---|---|
| Summary | Conversation summary, Objections heard (with category), Next action, Competitors mentioned (only ones the customer actually named) and Buying intent with an estimate. |
| Coaching | Coaching moments, each stamped with the time it happened so you can listen to that exact point. |
| Scorecard | Your process: each step marked Done Partly or Skipped with a time link, and the % followed. Below it, the score per section and How the conversation ran (talk time, longest stretch, reply pause, talked over). |
| Transcript | Who said what, with timestamps. |
| Follow-up | Draft follow-up writes a text message and an email from what was actually agreed. Edit, Copy, Save edit or Rewrite. Nothing sends from here: paste it into your normal composer. |
More actions (…)
- Re-analyze Manager scores it again, for example after you publish a new scorecard. The earlier version is kept.
- Delete permanently erases the recording, transcript, analysis and score for good. Managers can delete any conversation; a rep can delete their own.
A conversation that failed keeps its recording and can be retried without recording again. "No audio was captured" means the microphone heard nothing: record the next visit again.
9. Mark for QA ManagerRep
Use QA to ask for a second pair of ears on a conversation. Anyone can flag; reps can flag their own.
- Open the conversation and click the flag icon (Mark for QA) next to Play recording.
- Pick a reason: Quoted pricing, Compliance concern, No appointment set, Cancellation risk, Great call — training example or Other. Add a note and save.
- The conversation lands in Uploads → QA queue with the reason as a badge.
- A manager opens it from the QA queue, listens, and ends the review with Pass or Needs coaching. Needs coaching requires a note for the rep.
- The rep sees the verdict and note under My coaching and clicks Acknowledged.
QA results feed the QA'd and QA pass columns on the Team tab.
10. Calls tab Manager
The Calls tab lists phone calls the CRM already recorded, so you can coach on calls as well as visits.
- Search by name, email or phone, and switch between 7 days, 30 days and 90 days. Load more calls pages back further.
- Each call is marked AI call or Human call, and First attempt or Attempt N.
- Click a call to play the Call recording and see the contact and call details.
- Managers click Analyze call to score it like a visit; the analysis appears in Uploads. Other roles get playback only.
To analyse calls automatically instead of one at a time, turn on Auto-analyze rules in Settings.
11. Team tab Manager
Team performance shows volume and coaching scores per person (and per AI assistant) for 7 days, 30 days or 90 days.
| Column | What it means |
|---|---|
| Handled by | The rep who took the visit or call, or the AI assistant that did. Never whoever uploaded it. |
| Recorded / Completed / Failed | Conversations captured, finished analysing, and failed (retry those from Uploads). |
| Time | Total recorded time. |
| Scored | Conversations with a score. |
| Avg score | Average score. Shows a dash when the rep has fewer than 5 scored conversations, or when the range mixes two scorecard versions, because the number would mislead. Hover the dash for the reason. |
| Process | Share of your process steps that actually happened; a partly done step counts as half. |
| QA'd / QA pass | Conversations a manager reviewed, and the pass rate once at least 3 are reviewed. |
Days are counted in UTC. The scorecard and auto-analyze rules are one click away with Open Settings.
12. In the field Manager
In the field shows who is at a visit right now. It refreshes every 30 seconds while you watch; Refresh forces it. Nothing here plays audio or shows a map.
| Column | What it means |
|---|---|
| Rep | Who is on site, with the Message link. |
| Customer | The visit's customer and suburb. |
| Checked in | Time of the verified check-in. Blank when the rep is recording without having checked in. |
| On site | Minutes since check-in against your Running long after time, e.g. 12 min of 90. With no maximum set it shows just the minutes. |
| Last reading | How long ago the phone last confirmed its distance from the address, and that distance. |
| Sales step | The step the live tracker hears the rep on, or how many of your steps are covered (e.g. 3 of 10). |
| Badge | Meaning |
|---|---|
| On site | A reading arrived in the last 5 minutes; the clock is running. |
| No signal | No reading for over 5 minutes (phone off, no coverage or location turned off). The clock stops at the last reading; a quiet phone is never "running long". |
| Running long | Past the visit maximum. |
| Not recording | Checked in, but no recording has started, so there is no sales step yet. |
| Now: <step> / Listening | Recording; the tracker heard this step most recently, or is still listening for the first one. |
| Not covered yet | A step the tracker has nudged the rep about. |
| Paused | No audio for 2 minutes (recording paused or the link dropped). Tracking ends after 15. |
| Manager alerted | The Step skipped email for a twice-skipped step went out. |
Text the rep during a visit
- Click Message under the rep's name.
- Pick one of the three suggestions (built from the visit's step progress, never from the conversation itself) or type your own, up to 320 characters.
- Click Send text. It goes from your workspace number to the rep's mobile on their Profile.
13. Settings (gear) Owner / admin
Click the gear at the end of the tab bar. Settings is one page with four parts: Visits, Visit length, Alerts and Scoring. Owners and admins change them; managers can look.
Visits
The Ready for the field checklist (see section 2) and Reps with visits: every rep with an assigned visit, their number of Upcoming visits and whether they can receive Coaching texts: Mobile …1234, No phone on profile, Turned texts off (they texted STOP) or No longer a member.
Visit length
- Left early if under __ min: a visit shorter than this triggers the leave-reason question and the Left early alert. A typical first appointment uses 60–90.
- Running long after __ min: sets the In the field clock, the rep's Running long reminder and the Running long alert. Usually 180.
- Allowed values are 5 to 720 minutes. Leave a box blank to turn that check off. These apply even when alert emails are off.
Alerts
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Visit alerts | The workspace switch for Arrived, Left early, Running long and Step skipped. Each alert sends at most once per visit. Check-in keeps working when it is off. |
| Send emails to | Who gets alert emails, separated by commas. Leave blank to email every owner, admin and manager. Typing names replaces that default. |
| Step skipped | Email when a rep skips the same sales step twice while recording. Uses the live tips. |
| Preview email / Send test to me | Pick Arrived, Left early, Running long or Step skipped from the drop-down to preview it, or send yourself a sample. |
| How you get alerts | Each manager's own choice, for themselves only: Email (to their sign-in address, on by default), Text (to the mobile on their Profile, off by default, billed to the workspace like any other text) and In the CRM (a notice at the top right while the CRM is open, with an In the field button). The same switches are in Profile → Notifications. |
Scoring: Scorecard and Process steps
Every analysed conversation is graded against the published Scorecard. Shape it around what your team actually sells: a call-center setter rubric looks different from an in-home closer rubric.
- Sections: 1 to 8, each with a name and a weight (the points it is worth). Weights add up to the total shown (e.g. 100 points). Add section or remove one with ×.
- Process steps (optional): the things you expect on every conversation. Each is reported as followed, partly done or skipped, with a link to the moment, instead of being folded into the score. Add step to add one.
- Click Publish version N. Publishing creates a new version and never rewrites old scores; Previous versions are listed underneath. Re-analyze a conversation to score it on the new version.
Scoring: Auto-analyze rules
Analyse recorded calls automatically instead of one at a time: every qualifying call from reps in their first days, plus a random sample of the rest, checked hourly and never above the daily cap. Off until you switch it on; uses your workspace's own AI connection.
| Field | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Enable | On/off switch. |
| Min call length (sec) | Shorter calls never qualify. |
| New-rep window (days) | Every qualifying call from a rep this new is analysed. |
| Sample of the rest (%) | Share of other qualifying calls picked at random. |
| Daily cap | Most calls analysed per day. |
| Which calls | Any recorded call, First attempts that connected (the first impression), or Reached, ran out of attempts, never booked. |
14. Alerts at a glance Manager
| Alert | Sent when | Needs |
|---|---|---|
| Arrived | The rep's check-in is verified at the address. | Check-in on, address mapped. |
| Left early | Two readings in a row outside the radius before the Left early if under time. Includes the rep's reason. | A minimum set in Visit length. |
| Running long | Still on site after the Running long after time. The rep also gets a reminder. | A maximum set in Visit length. |
| Step skipped | The live tracker nudged the rep twice about the same uncovered step while recording. | Process steps, the Step skipped switch, AI connected. |
Each alert goes out at most once per visit, by each manager's chosen channels (email, text, in the CRM). Turn Visit alerts off and check-in, timing and In the field still work.
15. Privacy and data
- Consent: nothing records until the rep (or CRM user) confirms everyone agreed.
- Who sees recordings: owners, admins and managers see the whole workspace; a rep sees only their own, even with a direct link.
- Recordings are stored privately and kept until someone deletes them. Playback links expire after a few minutes. Delete permanently erases audio, transcript, analysis and score; a record of who deleted it and when remains.
- Location: checked only when the rep taps Check in and while the visit is open. Only the distance from the address is stored, never where the phone is. Check-ins, on-site readings, live step progress and coaching texts delete themselves after 30 days. Erase location evidence removes them sooner.
- The live tracker stores step progress only, never live audio or a live transcript.
- Sales Coach never messages a customer and never changes a contact, appointment or deal. Follow-ups are drafts.
What to tell a customer or rep who asks: "Location is only checked while a visit is open, and we only keep the distance from the address, never where the phone is. Those records delete themselves after 30 days."
16. Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Likely cause | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Rep doesn't see the visit in the app | No visit rep assigned, wrong rep, or not today | Contact → Sales Coach: check the visit rep. Visits show on the day of the appointment. |
| "No workspace access" | The login is not a member of the workspace | Add the rep as a workspace member, then sign in again. |
| App asks to sign in again / "Invalid or expired token" | Session expired | Coach → Sign out, then sign in. |
| Can't check in | Address not mapped, too far away, poor GPS, location off, or outside the 12-hour window | Map the address in the contact; move to the door; set location to While Using the App with Precise on. |
| No Arrived alert | Check-in not verified, Visit alerts off, or the manager turned their channels off | Check the visit card's Arrival line, Settings → Alerts, and the manager's How you get alerts. |
| No Left early / Running long | Minimum or maximum is blank | Set them in Settings → Visit length. |
| Rep shows No signal | Phone off, no coverage, app force-quit or location off | Ask the rep to reopen the app; it resumes. The clock waits at the last reading. |
| Sales step stays empty | Not recording, no process steps, or AI not connected | Start recording; add process steps; check Settings → Visits. |
| "No audio was captured" | The microphone heard nothing | Check the microphone permission and record the next visit again. |
| Upload stuck | The app was closed during upload | Open the app; tap Resume secure upload on the card. |
| "Processing failed" | A temporary error, or AI not set up | Click Retry (no re-recording needed). If it says to enable AI processing, contact your account manager. |
| Avg score shows a dash | Fewer than 5 scored, or mixed scorecard versions | Expected. Hover the dash for the reason. |
| Coaching text didn't arrive | No mobile on Profile, or the rep texted STOP | Settings → Visits → Reps with visits shows which. |
When you contact support, include the workspace name, the customer, the rep and the time of the visit.
17. Checklists
Owner / admin Each day
- Every appointment for field reps has a visit rep.
- Every visit address shows Address ready.
- Settings → Visits: all green, every rep has a phone on profile.
Rep At every visit
- Open Appointments, tap Check in at visit at the door.
- Ask for consent out loud, tick it, Start recording.
- Finish and analyse; keep the app open until 100%.
- Read Focus for your next visit before the next one.
Manager Each week
- Work the QA queue to empty: Pass or Needs coaching.
- Check Team for low Process % and failed uploads.
- Pick one great call and flag it Great call — training example.