People are obsessed with attracting the “right” customers. Usually this means offering all kinds of discounts to their most profitable accounts.
But trying to win high-value customers by lowering prices is a losing game. Not only do you sacrifice profitability, you’re building conditional, shallow relationships. They’ll leave as soon as a competitor underbids you. If you want to build long-term loyalty with high-value customers, you need to stop thinking like a vendor and start acting like a partner.
“Be a partner” is more than a feel-good cliché. It’s a competitive strategy that emphasizes value rather than price. It’s a more sustainable approach because it doesn’t turn every deal into a race to the bottom. And unlike price discounts, value is something your competitors can’t replicate quickly or easily.
Most businesses use “be a good partner” as a motto and not a strategy. But talking points and motivational posters won’t change behavior or results. By spending a little time with your customers and your business data, you can develop an organized “good partner strategy” complete with concrete action steps and measurable outcomes.
Good Vendors vs. Good Partners
The real difference between a vendor and a partner comes down to objectives. Good vendors care about customer satisfaction. Good partners care about customer success. That may sound like motivational fluff, but it has a profound difference on strategy.
For instance, let’s say your millwork customers are facing cut-throat competition on custom jobs. They need to complete orders faster, or they’ll risk losing business. A good vendor would help by prioritizing on-time deliveries. A good partner would look for ways to speed up order-fulfillment, such as offering next-day shipping.
This isn’t just about “going the extra mile.” There are hundreds of ways businesses go above and beyond for their best customers. But a friendly sales staff and special pricing won’t help your millwork customers finish custom jobs any faster. Next-day shipping will.
Listen to Your Customers
This is not a one-size-fits-all process. Your customers’ priorities are unique to their market, competition, and business goals. The more you know about what they value, the more you can align your business with theirs.
You need to find out two basic things: what your customers value most and their opinion of your performance in these areas. Collect this information through one-on-one conversations, group lunches, mass surveys, or a combination. (Make sure to prioritize feedback from your target audience. Trying to build loyalty with opportunistic customers is a losing game.) You should have some way of quantifying the responses, such as multiple-choice surveys or rating systems, but personal feedback may give context to the numbers.
Pick the Right KPIs
Once you identify which value is most important to your customers, you need metrics that quantify how well you’re delivering that value. These will form your scorecard. The variations are endless, but here are some suggestions:
Whatever metrics you choose, make sure they relate directly to your customers’ goals. Remember, this strategy is about their success, not your bottom line.
Turn the Scorecard into Strategy
When you’ve picked your metrics, run a few reports and establish a baseline. Determine where you have opportunities to improve and start coming up with action steps to boost your performance. Consider a range of options, from the ambitious to the obvious. You could speed up the picking process by implementing cycle counts in your inventory system or simply moving the ticket printer to a more central location.
In addition to improving your current processes, brainstorm new ways to deliver the value your customers want. For instance, say your customers really care about staying on schedule. On-time deliveries are obviously critical, but if you implement software that allows them to track shipments or get updates about deliveries, they will likely appreciate the extra visibility and assurance that everything is on time.
If your current infrastructure can’t support big changes, you may need to make some capital investments. (For instance, you may need to purchase new equipment to make next-day shipping possible.) You (or others in your company) may be reluctant to invest in this project. After all, if customers are currently satisfied, a big capital expense may seem unnecessary. This is where you need to go back to the idea of price vs. value. Competing on value makes you very “sticky” with your customers. If you excel at answering their most important needs, they’ll be less interested in shopping around for other suppliers. When done correctly, you’ll create a significant barrier to competitors trying to break into your market. Purchasing new equipment may hurt short-term profitability, but nurturing customer loyalty will generate value for years.
Planning for the Future
As you work towards becoming a better partner, continue to survey your customers to make sure your efforts are on track. You may work hard to reduce backorders, only to discover customers don’t notice the difference. If a particular strategy isn’t resonating, consider changing or refining your metrics. The scorecard is a helpful tool, not your ultimate objective. Your goal isn’t to get an “A.” It’s to deliver the value your customers want in a way nobody else can.
If you’re looking for a project that delivers an immediate, measurable impact on your bottom line, then a partnership strategy is not the plan for you. Profitability is not a strategy. It is the result of a value-based strategy. Long term, you will gain more of your customers’ business by listening to what is important to them.
You don’t have to be perfect to be a good partner. You just need to excel at the things your customers care about. Using surveys to build a scorecard and create long-term strategies may require some short-term investment, but if done correctly it will pay dividends for years to come.
Messy inventory records are an evergreen problem for lumberyards. One that gets worse with time. Because there is rarely a consistent system for creating items, sales staff can’t find products in the system and routinely create new item codes on the spot. It’s not unusual for a product to have two or three item codes.
Not only do inconsistent item codes and duplicate records make it more difficult to find products, but they also distort key reports. For example, a popular item may look unimpressive if its sales data is spread across multiple item records. Purchasing staff assume the different codes represent different products, none of which looks like top sellers, so they don’t see a need to reorder. The result: high-demand items aren’t in stock.
DMSi Software tackled this challenge with a new feature in their Agility ERP, an integrated inventory management system. Agility’s Item Builder is a seamless system for creating consistent item codes. If a user can’t find an item in the system, they simply enter the product’s attributes in the Item Builder. If the item exists, Item Builder will find it and alert the employee. If the product truly isn’t in the system, Item Builder will create an item code based on a formula defined by the business. (For example, the business may determine that all lumber inventory needs to indicate the species, grade, and thickness within the code itself, or they may require the vendor name, color and style in the item code for all their countertop material, but the width, length should be indicated in the description of the item record). This provides a two-fold benefit, reducing duplicate records and keeping product codes consistent so it’s easier for people to find them.
The Item Builder is only the latest addition to Agility’s lumber-specific features. To learn more about the ways Agility helps lumber yards, stop by booth 400 at the NHLA Annual meeting this October in New Orleans.
Installed sales is an increasingly important area for dealers. It’s a way to set your business apart from competitors and provide additional value to your customers.
At DMSi, we wanted to help our customers succeed in this new area. We developed an installed sales module in our Agility ERP software that gives our customers end-to-end visibility into their installed sales jobs. Project managers can view everything from sales orders and job details to contractor schedules and payment histories in one place.
The basis of our module is solving specific issues our customers were facing with installed sales.
GOAL 1: SIMPLIFY MAINTENANCE
Spreadsheets and notebooks are clunky tools for managing an installed sales operation. Manually entering project details and constantly updating records with every schedule change is time-consuming and frustrating.
We eliminated a lot of data entry because our installed sales module is part of Agility’s order management system. For example, when a sales rep adds an installation package to an order, Agility automatically generates the job and related tasks in the installed sales module. The job details, customer information, and related transactions are all there – no data entry required. The project manager just needs to assign installers to each task from a list of available employees and contractors.
GOAL 2: IMPROVE COMMUNICATION
Communication is a frequent issue in installed sales because so many people are involved in every job. A sales rep or purchasing agent may make a decision that affects a project, but the installed sales team doesn’t find out until a problem arises.
We delivered some immediate communication wins because Agility manages every part of our customers’ businesses. Changes made in one place are reflected throughout the entire system, so the installed sales data is always current. For example, if products for one job go on backorder, Agility’s backorder alert gives the installed sales manager advanced notice so they can reassign the installers to other projects. And if a customer asks their sales rep about the status of a job, the rep can check the job’s open and completed tasks in Agility. There’s end-to-end visibility into the project and information is always current.
GOAL 3: TRACK WHAT MATTERS
There’s a lot of activity in an installed sales department. It’s easy for projects to slide off track before anyone notices. We wanted to help our customers cut through the noise and focus on the items that matter.
The installed sales dashboards are designed to guide action. For instance, it alerts managers if any tasks are off track or overdue so they can take steps to get them back on schedule. Each project has a dashboard summarizing the job’s status such as phases completed, number of scheduled days remaining, and even revenue and costs. Users can even do a quick comparison of quoted, projected, and actual GM for the project so managers can quickly see if they are losing money on a job.
GOAL 4: EMPLOYEES SHOULD WANT TO USE IT
Many employees are reluctant to change their established processes. Spreadsheets and notebooks may be inefficient, but they are also familiar tools. That’s why we made usability a priority for our installed sales module. We wanted the module to be inviting and intuitive.
Our design team created a look and feel similar to other web-based applications. For example, the schedule section uses simple drag-and-drop actions similar to Outlook and Google calendars. The screens are clean and simple, making it easy for users to find the information and functions they need. By designing for usability and an intuitive interface, this module feels less overwhelming to users. A new employee could start using the module with minimal training. Also, the installed sales module in Agility is hosted on the web, which means people can access it anywhere from any device.
By working with our customers and designing a product specific to their issues around installed sales, we built a product that will be an effective tool for their businesses. It’s now in BETA testing with several of our customers, and we look forward to its general release in the near future.
In the coming year, sawmills and manufacturing facilities will see an increased use of mobile solutions designed for their unique needs. Tech companies and even individual businesses are forging a path by taking advantage of APIs.
APIs are pieces of code that make it easy for software apps to talk to each other. They’re like channels for sharing information. If a program has an API, other applications can use it to send and receive data to and from that program.
Fantasy football is a real-world example of APIs in action. Fantasy sites can use the NFL’s API to pull the latest player statistics. When the new stats are pulled in, the fantasy site recalculates the player rankings and user points.
So why do APIs matter for enterprise software? In short: integrated business apps. Businesses can replace isolated programs with a united ecosystem of tools.
Imagine a mobile sales app. When a rep creates a new order, the app uses an API to push information from the rep’s phone to the business’s ERP system. When the ERP receives the information, the order is created. There’s no need for the rep to manually sync his phone or update the record later. APIs make the process seamless.
APIs have two major implications for the building materials industry. First, tech companies can more easily create products for a wider range of needs. At DMSi, we’ve used the APIs in our Agility ERP to create a host of integrated products. Most recently, we developed Agility | Mobile Warehouse Tools, a simple alternative for customers whose operations don’t require our full WMS solution.
Second, APIs will let forward-thinking businesses take charge of their technology toolsets. Trying to customize your ERP system for every imaginable scenario is an expensive and time-consuming endeavor. If, however, a business can access the APIs in its primary software platform, it can easily create powerful, integrated apps without disrupting the existing system’s business logic.
DMSi customers can access Agility’s APIs to use as they see fit. Recently, DMSi customer Premier Hardwoods, Inc. (Jamesville, NY) built a mobile app to streamline remanufacturing. Workers on the line use their mobile phones to scan bundles of rough lumber. The app passes those tags through our APIs into our Agility ERP system and reserves the material to a work order. As the rough lumber gets surfaced, the workers use the app to specify what material was made, and the app uses Agility’s APIs to create and print tags as the output material comes off the line. All of the information inputted on the app runs through our APIs and then through Agility’s remanufacturing logic. Since we designed the APIs, we keep our business logic safe while allowing our customers to program their own applications.
APIs provide a major opportunity for businesses struggling to find technology products that fit every aspect of their operations. They’re central to DMSi’s development strategy, and we’ll continue to leverage them as we create more integrated solutions for our customers.
Self-service portals are increasingly common in the building materials industry. Allowing customers to look up pricing and place their own orders improves efficiency, grows revenue and attracts new business. But there’s one problem with these portals: customers don’t always use them. If you’re struggling to bring customers online, or simply want to improve your numbers, here are three strategies that can help.
Get everyone on board
If employees don’t see the value in your portal, customers will pick up on their lack of enthusiasm. Build support among your team by emphasizing how it benefits them. Explain how it will make their jobs easier by reducing call volume and time-consuming tasks. Williams Distributing uses PartnerView, an eCommerce solution from DMSi Software. “It has helped our staff tremendously,” said Tim Hartley, vice president of technology. “They’ve been freed up to spend more time helping in areas beyond simply taking orders and answering questions.” When your team appreciates how the portal can help them, they will willingly promote it to customers.
Offering incentives can increase enthusiasm. When Wurth Wood Group launched their eCommerce site, they took extra steps to motivate their team. “We ran internal contests that rewarded the sales agents with the most web-buying customers,” said Theresa Liscinsky, IT manager at Wurth.
Improve visibility
If you want customers to use your portal, they need to know you have one. Advertise it like a product: have signs in your showroom and flyers at the front counter. Add a message about it to the bottom of sales docs and delivery tickets. Include a link to the site’s homepage in the signature block of company emails. It may take a few visits before customers are comfortable, so keep encouraging them. Wurth Wood Group continues to promote its portal well after the site’s launch. “To entice our customers, we have web promotions like discounts, free shipping and giveaways,” said Liscinsky. “Our biggest hit was a helmet autographed by Sam Hornish Jr. and Brad Keselowski. Who knew we had so many racing fans!”
As with any advertising, you must emphasize the value proposition. Customers need to understand why the portal benefits them. (Hint: “You’ll call us less” is not a compelling benefit.) Theresa Cole, systems manager of Monsma Marketing Corporation, said, “We have had a great response to PartnerView by focusing on the many features it offers: access to search inventory, invoices, open orders and pricing. There are images available now, which is an added benefit.” Keep in mind your customers may have different priorities and may only be interested in some of the features you offer. Williams Distributing’s customers use their portal for a variety of reasons. “Some use it for checking item availability and pricing. Others enter their own orders,” said Hartley. “All customers really appreciate the fact that the system is available 24/7.” Find out which features your customers value most and promote them accordingly.
Make it familiar
People resist the unknown – it’s just human nature. Making your portal a familiar presence will go a long way towards improving adoption. Liscinsky describes it as “getting customers out of their comfort zone.” Create a setup where customers can watch employees check available inventory, get pricing, and place an order. Have your outside sales team sign on and look up account information during site visits. The intention isn’t training customers to use the portal as much as letting them see it in action. When customers do express interest, have plenty of training resources ready. Create step-by-step guides, cheat sheets, and how-to videos. Find out if your vendor has materials you can use.
It’s crucial your sales and support teams become comfortable with the portal. If they stumble through or can’t answer questions, it will discourage customers from trying it. Allow plenty of time for employee training. It may also help to appoint one person as the “specialist” who can help with more advanced issues. “We did dedicate one person to work with each customer, usually on site,” said Hartley. “Our trainer spent 30-60 minutes with each customer, showing them the basics and any additional features that might not have been immediately evident. It has been very successful for us. Within 18 months of rolling out PartnerView, we had 280 registered users representing 139 companies.”
If your customers are slow to use your online resources, don’t worry or second-guess yourself. Promoting your portal is an ongoing process. Continue to market your resources and customers will start to take advantage of them.
The initial concept was born at an NHLA convention in 2013. Tommy MacDonald gave a presentation about his work with the Hardwood Forest Foundation educating children on trees and the many ways they are used. While listening to MacDonald’s story, attendee and marketing manager at DMSi Software, Elizabeth Langan, had an idea.
A recent member of the Omaha Children’s Museum board, Langan saw an opportunity to combine philanthropy with educating the public and future generations on the importance of lumber and the industries it influences. Upon returning home, Langan arranged a meeting between members of the Hardwood Forest Foundation and the Omaha Children’s Museum. Thanks to this partnership and the generosity of donors, the interactive Forever Forest exhibit will launch this October.
Forever Forest will feature interactive play spaces where children and their parents will learn about the many careers and products found under the building materials umbrella. Children will learn the different professional roles available in the industry as they maneuver a kid-size grapple skidder, load items onto a Union Pacific train, work with tools to create projects using building materials, and even distribute play medicine at the general store. As parents explore these areas with their children they will become more knowledgeable consumers of building materials and the many industries they affect.
An additional benefit of the exhibit, specific to the lumber and building materials industry itself, is the uniting of various industries that do not typically communicate with each other. As Langan described her goals for the project she stated, “as a company we are in 42 different trade associations which all rely in some way on tree products and these industries don’t talk to each other, so what I really wanted to do was connect them.” By aligning the goals of these industries and highlighting the importance of working together to bring information to the public, the Forever Forest will help bridge a gap across industries while educating children and the adults who accompany them on the wonders of building materials.
Financial contributors to the Forever Forest exhibit include Union Pacific Railroad, DMSi Software, the Hardwood Forest Foundation, Omaha Children’s Hospital, and many others. After a period of time in Omaha, the exhibit will tour the country for ten years, the first three of which are already booked.
Many businesses are paying for 100% of their software, but only using a fraction of its features. It’s like buying a high-performance sports car just to listen to its radio.
There’s a simple reason for this problem: change fatigue. Once users get through the stress of go-live and finally get comfortable in the new system, momentum dies, users get comfortable, and nobody wants to upset the status quo again. Underutilization of a resource is not a good strategy for any business.
To truly maximize the return on investment of new ERP software, company leaders must take a strategic approach to implementation.
Software implementation is so much more than simply setting up the system. It’s the moment when a company establishes the habits and the culture surrounding the new system. Will users become comfortable with change and improvement, or does everyone settle into a “set it and forget it” attitude.
Go-live can be overwhelming due to the enormity of the changes taking place. It is essential to proceed at a rate that is comfortable for everyone and to work in phases because change presents challenges at every level. Businesses achieve the greatest success when they approach implementation as a three-phase process.
Phase I: Get Back to Normal
When a company implements new software, the number one priority is getting back to normal. Everyone is going to be a little shaky with the new system, so normal processes will probably be slower for a bit of time. So, the first goal of go-live is to get back to doing “one day’s work in one day’s time.” Employees need to be able to serve customers and fill orders with the same speed and ease they had in the previous system. It can take employees anywhere from six months to two years before they feel as comfortable in the new system as they did in the old. Be patient!
Keep in mind new software should deliver benefits even if you don’t dramatically change your processes. For instance, if all departments are integrated and everyone is using live data, it should inherently reduce mistakes, save time, and improve order fulfillment. In this early phase, even with those major improvements, most companies are only using a fraction of their platform’s capabilities.
Phase II: Master the System
Once employees have mastered the fundamental features needed for their job, businesses can start leveraging more advanced functionality in their software. Keep in mind you aren’t merely asking employees to learn a new feature or new report. Implementing advanced features frequently involves making big changes to core business processes. You need to make sure your users are ready.
For example, some ERP platforms can do demand-forecasting and make purchasing recommendations. For buyers used to calculating buying needs in their own Excel spreadsheet, this represents a big change. Instead of introducing suggested purchasing as part of go-live, give them a chance to familiarize themselves with the basic purchasing elements of the system (i.e. Phase I). Once they’re able to run reports and enter POs as easily as before, introduce the suggested purchasing features and come up with a transition plan.
Phase II is where a company really experiences the serious gains in their business. Employees can do more in less time with fewer mistakes. Businesses have new opportunities to reduce waste, improve service quality, and grow profitability. Time to take that sports car out on the open road.
Phase III: Expand the Horizon
After mastering the advanced features of a new ERP, it’s time to explore new opportunities to modernize, transform or even overhaul the business. You’re optimizing this investment, let’s look for the next stage. A company might want to explore solutions such as WMS, dispatch/logistics, CRM, or e-commerce. Ideally, Phase III is driven by employees rather than leadership. If an organization successfully creates a change culture in phases I and II, employees will have open and excited minds about business innovations.
A word of caution: before investing in additional technology, it is imperative to successfully complete Phase II. If you are underutilizing your current resources, the pattern will repeat with the next system. You will spend an increasing amount of money and only realize a fraction of your investment’s value.
MOVING FORWARD
All businesses start their implementation with good intentions. Most of them get stuck in Phase I. They never leverage the more powerful features in their platforms.
Why? Because creating a culture of change is hard. Once employees learn the new system and finally feel comfortable again, there is little appetite to tackle more changes. These are some strategies for keeping up the momentum around your system.
Revisit your strategy
Companies need to build a long-term strategy around their technology investments. A technology leadership team should meet at least once a year to evaluate performance, set priorities, and create plans. This group identifies which advanced functions to implement in Phase II and the order in which to implement them.
Stay informed
Software vendors constantly add new features to their platforms, and adopting these features is key to maximizing the value of your system. The system administrator needs to stay on top of software news, read the release notes, and pay attention to product updates. They need to alert department managers to new enhancements that may benefit their teams and help implement them if necessary. During the annual strategy meeting, they should provide a summary of the key enhancements to the system, giving leadership a high-level view of what’s available.
Get to know your provider
Actively engaging with your provider makes it easier for them to help your business. User forums, trade shows, and customer conferences are all opportunities to communicate your needs, learn relevant news for your business, and get faster access to helpful resources. Good software companies build active relationships with their customers and are delighted to have customers engage with them.
Marathon Mentality
The maximum value of a new ERP doesn’t materialize immediately or by accident. It is an on-going process for the life of a business. The reality is “go-live” is just the first in a series of thousands of transformative moments. Small, constant changes rather than extreme or spontaneous decisions allow businesses to leverage the full value of their investment.
Bethany Doss, a business manager at Capital Lumber, knows exactly how complicated a software transition can be.
When her company decided to install the Agility ERP platform from DMSi Software, Doss was part of a six-person team that managed the process. “We were the point people for the project. The super users at each branch would train the people at their location, but the six of us at corporate were responsible for the overall go-live.” More specifically, they were responsible for eight branches, seven states and 220 employees. Capital Lumber had its work cut out.
Businesses depend on software for creating sales orders, purchasing inventory, delivering product and invoicing customers. So when a company decides to change its software, it’s a huge project with a lot at stake.
Here’s how Capital Lumber’s project team tackled three of the most challenging stages of their software implementation, including what worked and what they’d do differently.
System Set Up
Businesses are unique. Each has its own method for tracking balance sheets, approving credit, setting pricing, etc. Documenting these processes is one of the first steps of a software installation. It ensures the system is configured around the company’s specific practices. If the new software has features not available in the previous system, the company may decide to update existing processes. For example, Accounting may switch from faxing printed invoices to emailing electronic ones.
Capital Lumber’s project team worked with their counterparts at DMSi to configure the new system. They performed an extensive review across the company and considered any changes. “Anything to do with background work, like branch set up or G/L, was done by the Corporate group,” said Doss. “We would decide if we were going to change a process or consolidate something we’d been doing in the old software. We aimed to get feedback from the whole company, but the majority of the actual background set up was done at Corporate.”
In order to get through such a huge project, the team needed to be very efficient with their time. Doss explained how the group kept meetings productive: “I think the biggest thing is having an agenda with milestones you look at every single week. Also, everyone needs to know what their role is. Sometimes in these big go-lives, the project management people aren’t totally sure what they’re supposed to be doing.” Structure and routine helped the group stay on track and move forward.
Data Clean Up
The next major stage of a software transition is converting data. Information must be pulled out of the old system and imported into the new one. Many businesses use this as an opportunity to clean up their records. For instance, a business may have three different codes for the same 10-foot piece of southern pine: 020410SYP, 2410pine, and 2410StPn. Before importing anything into the new system, the business can create standardized naming rules, update their catalog and remove duplicate records.
Cleaning up an entire catalog is a massive undertaking. Vendors can suggest best practices, but ultimately the naming system must make sense to employees. Capital Lumber had a catalog of over 10,000 product codes it needed to streamline. Doss’ team decided to assign the challenge to a separate sub-committee. “We took a person from each branch and had them come up with a plan for consolidating our product IDs. They decided what the new renumbering would look like and did a cross reference for any items that we wanted to keep over.”
The project team wanted this process to be as inclusive as possible, so they made sure every area of business was represented on the sub-committee. However, bringing so many people into the group became a problem. “We originally wanted a wide variety of viewpoints, but ended up getting ten different ways of looking at every decision. It was a good intention, but it may have been better to limit that group’s size a little bit.”
Training
Training is one of the biggest challenges a company faces during implementation. It takes time and commitment from everyone in the organization. Watching videos and passing out user guides isn’t enough. Employees need to truly absorb the information. If training is successful, the business will resume its normal speed of operation with relative ease. If unsuccessful, businesses have a much harder journey ahead of them.
Capital Lumber’s project team recognized the importance of their training program and allocated plenty of resources towards its success. Doss described their process, “The one thing that worked very well for us was giving each person their own computer with their own screen, so they could click through the system themselves. Setting that up at all the sites was a little painful, but we found it worked best.”
As employees moved through their training, the project team paid attention to their progress. When people seemed to be struggling with the same issue, they made adjustments to the program. “We had to use our own inventory for the training. We sell lumber, but the training data included things like windows and doors. People weren’t connecting with it, because that’s not what we do. It had to be our items, our customers, our information; the stuff that we deal with every day. Then people were able to make sense of it.”
While there was success in some areas, others remained a challenge. Effective training takes time, but Capital Lumber was too busy for employees to step away from their normal responsibilities. Finding opportunities to practice on the new software was difficult, Doss explained. “Employees have an eight-hour day, and it’s already pretty darn full. So, training had to be at 7:00 a.m. before a meeting or maybe at 4-5 p.m. when the phones are a little slower. We did a lot of offsite training for our super users, and that worked well, but setting aside that extra time at the branch level was probably the biggest struggle we had.”
Lessons Learned
After much diligence and hard work, Capital Lumber completed their implementation. The entire process, from signing the contract with DMSi to going live at the final branch, took about 18 months. Their ability to build consensus, work as a team and adjust to challenges as they arose is a great example to any business transitioning to new software.
Founded in 1948, Capital Lumber is a privately-held distributor of lumber, hardwood and specialty building products.
This article originally appeared in Building Products Digest.
All too often, business intelligence tools are stuck in the manager’s office. This is unfortunate because the real value of business intelligence is driving action. A good way to realize this value is to get business intelligence (BI) out of the office and into the field. As an example, here are three basic ways a good BI tool can make outside reps more effective.
Spot low-hanging fruit
Get the right product in front of the right customer, and the deal will practically close itself. The trick to scoring easy wins is knowing how to spot them. Pushing the same top-ten items at every customer isn’t an effective strategy. Instead, reps should look at each account in context. They need to consider what is “normal” for a given customer and how they compare to others in their market.
BI tools provide an overview of an account’s current and historical activity. They make it easy to see patterns and changes in a customer’s buying behavior. If activity is different in some way, it may signal an opportunity. Reps can ask a customer about specific products they ordered last spring, discuss current trends in the local market, or find out how to better serve the business’s changing needs.
Avoid getting blind-sided
“I’ll get back to you” is a terrible response to a customer question, but sometimes it’s the only option reps have. Every account has different pain points, and predicting the issues a client will bring up requires going over a huge amount of information. Combing through an account’s open quotes, past sales, late invoices, and current backorders prior to every meeting isn’t realistic.
BI tools let reps prepare for meetings in a short amount of time by consolidating multiple areas of data. For instance, instead of reading several reports, reps can view summaries of a customer’s recent purchases, backordered items, open A/R, and available credit on one screen. It’s easy for reps to spot outliers, anticipate what issues a customer will raise, and prepare a response.
Improving service
Beyond increasing sales and avoiding trouble, a good BI tool improves service quality. Customers appreciate a rep who knows their company. When a rep demonstrates she knows important details of a client’s business and understands what they need to be competitive, it strengthens the relationship and improves customer loyalty.
BI tools can also help reps improve their own operation. For instance, instead of returning with a customer’s general complaint that “deliveries are always late,” reps can use a BI tool to find specific instances of late deliveries. This gives them something more concrete to investigate and a better chance of resolving the issue.
What Makes a “Good” Sales BI Tool
Business intelligence benefits many people, but BI tools aren’t one-size-fits-all. An application that works well in the office may not be a good fit for the field. If you’re considering a BI tool for your sales reps, here are a few things to look for.
User-friendly
Information isn’t helpful unless it’s easily consumable. A mountain of spreadsheets will just make reps’ eyes glaze over, no matter how valuable the data. BI tools with easy-to-read charts and graphs convey trends and patterns in a glance. Reps can spot the outliers without reading pages of numbers.
Mobile-friendly
An effective sales BI tool allows reps to prepare and adjust on the fly. That benefit goes away if the application is intended for an office desktop. An effective BI app should be optimized for mobile devices such as tablets. This makes it easy for reps to quickly review an account’s status wherever and whenever (such as their car, three minutes before a client meeting).
Real-time data
When reps know they have current, accurate data, they’re much more confident when speaking with customers. A BI tool that integrates with your primary accounting and inventory management system eliminates the risk inherent with using multiple sets of data.
Businesses that can give employees critical information in an accessible format have a huge competitive advantage. The people in their organization can make smarter decisions and take more effective courses of action. Getting a good BI tool into the hands of outside sales reps is the first step in changing the perception of business intelligence from “reporting tool” to “change agent.”
