About Ben’s Paint Supply
Ben’s Paint Supply is one of the largest distributors of specialty paint and related supplies in the southeastern United States. Serving more than 25 counties in Florida, the company sells to automotive dealerships and collision repair companies as well as companies in the industrial, marine, aircraft, and commercial signage industries. Ben’s Paint Supply operates 10 retail locations and an online store, and has a field sales team that provides on-site expert services.
The Challenge: Provide Customer and Product Data to Field Sales Reps
Ben’s Paint Supply wanted to grow its sales volume, but the company felt that its access to data and quality of data were holding them back. The field sales team didn’t have visibility into past order history when they called on key accounts.
For instance, they couldn’t see how much each account had purchased through the company’s channels, such as the online store and 10 retail locations. Without that knowledge, the sales team could not understand the trends taking place at a specific account, and therefore could not make an effective plan to increase the account’s purchases.
The main cause was that the company’s Salesforce CRM platform was not integrated with its Perfection ERP platform. So even though orders from the online store and retail locations were recorded in the ERP system, the sales people only had access to Salesforce. Only a few people had the skill and access to pull order history from the ERP system.
“We wanted to provide timely data to the sales team on their mobile devices to improve our ability to manage our accounts,” explains Trent Emerson, President, for Ben’s Paint Supply. “Our team could not gain access to ERP data and reports unless they visited one of our offices. They typically would only see the data about once per month. What they really needed was a up-to-date, holistic view of their accounts with detailed buying behavior by product.”
In addition to poor visibility, Ben’s Paint Supply also suffered from a lack of data quality. Account information in Salesforce often differed from what was in Perfection, and this held sales back from growing their accounts. These issues not only affected the individual sales representatives, but also impacted the company’s ability to manage the entire sales organization. Sales managers lacked detailed visibility into the performance of the sales reps, individual customer accounts and product lines.
The Solution: Scribe Automatically Syncs Data Between Salesforce and Perfection ERP
Ben’s Paint Supply hoped to give the sales team instant access to accurate account information, order status, and product information so they could drive sales more efficiently. But the key component to achieve this mission was missing: an integration between Salesforce and Perfection ERP.
To determine the best way to connect data between Salesforce and Perfection ERP, Ben’s Paint Supply turned to its trusted implementation partner, Mountain Point. Mountain Pont presented three possible integration solutions, including the Scribe iPaaS (integration platform as a service).
“Right out of the gate, Scribe impressed us with how easily it could get information moving between Perfection ERP and Salesforce,” says Emerson. “We originally wanted to just move a few fields between the systems, but the integration became much bigger, and Scribe allowed us to expand our ambitions. With Scribe, we knew we could provide our sales team with any ERP information they needed, and we could deliver it right to their fingertips.”
Ben’s Paint Supply selected Scribe’s iPaaS for the integration project. Mountain Point then used Scribe to build a bi-directional data integration between Salesforce and Perfection ERP.
The Results: Sales Team Now Armed with the Data Needed to Drive More Sales
By connecting Salesforce to Perfection ERP, the sales team gained access to sales history through their mobile devices to analyze what customers need. The connections also help Ben’s Paint Supply keep account lists up-to-date by identifying duplicate entries and cases where the contact information has changed.
“By integrating ERP data with Salesforce, Scribe arms our sales team with all the information they need, such as sales that come through stores and online orders,” says Emerson. “With complete visibility into account and product information as well as better quality data, our sales team is now equipped to grow their accounts more efficiently.”
With access to up-to-date ERP data while on the road, sales reps and sales managers now communicate more easily on account activities as they plan sales strategies. The sales reps also leverage the new data that they now have access to in Salesforce as they communicate with customers. By seeing customer usage of various paint products over time, the sales reps can better advise customers on managing their paint purchasing strategies.
“By informing our customers as to which products and quantities they have purchased during the past, we can help them plan their future needs,”Emerson explains. “It that respect, we now use Salesforce to a much greater degree than we did in the past—while also adding to the value of the services we provide and creating potential up-sell opportunities.”
Mountain Point also set up dashboards in Salesforce that leverage Scribe to import data from Perfection ERP. The reports enable the sales managers and reps at Ben’s Paint Supply to quickly see customer purchasing history through direct sales as well as via online and store purchases. This information helps determine when to follow up with customers, and it helps track if sales rep are on target to hit their bonus numbers.
The dashboards also get the reps and managers to use Salesforce more often. “And that’s key for us in terms of fully leveraging all the CRM features that Salesforce has to offer,” says Emerson. “The reps are more likely to stay on top of all their accounts as far as providing services that maintain loyal customers. They are also more likely to grow the amount of business we conduct with each customer.”
Key Benefits of Integrating Data with Scribe
- Synchronizes ERP/CRM data to provide sales with instant access to customer and product information.
- Eliminates manual transfers of account information updates from ERP to CRM.
- Provides always-there access to sales history reports and comparisons to previous year.
- Enables drill-down analysis into product-line purchases by each customer account.
- Streamlines sales volume analysis to identify high-value customer accounts.
- Creates visibility for sales managers into the performance of individual sales reps.
- Decreases time for sales managers to compile monthly reports of sales rep activity.
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