Move Over, Big Box Stores

by Sally Bouorm | June 1, 2010 2:25 pm

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By Stephanie Allemann

As a retailer, are your suppliers giving you the tools you need to compete with big box stores? If you answered yes, then congratulations. If, however, your answer is no or you are not sure, read on. Thanks to the Internet, retailers and suppliers are more tightly integrated than ever before. This integration enables you to access up-to-date information from your suppliers when and where you need it. And that instant access to information gives you a competitive edge over big box retailers.

Specialization is key

As a pool and spa retailer you have a significant advantage over big box stores in that you provide a specialized product/service. Pool/spa products are by their nature, technical and require customer education and service. Specialization means you are better equipped than a big box store to guide a consumer through the purchase process.

Then there is the service component. This includes scheduling installations, keeping the customer informed of potential issues and getting new staff up to speed quickly so they can deliver exceptional service. This is an area where big box stores often have an advantage. Consumers know when they go to such a store, they will leave with the product they want or they will get an immediate answer as to when they can expect to receive it. Big box stores have huge warehouses for storing lots of product and computer systems telling the sales staff what is currently available or when it will be available.

Having said that, those of you that excel at both product and non-product related customer service will, in the end, become the provider of choice for consumers. Many people prefer to shop at local businesses rather than big box stores, but only if the experience is a positive one. If the consumer can not get the information and service they want from you, they will go elsewhere.

Information at your fingertips

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The key to providing excellent customer service is having access to information you need, when you need it. For example, when you have a customer interested in a particular spa, one question they will ask is when can it be installed. If you do not have that spa in stock, how do you answer that seemingly simple question? How do you get your hands on the information you need? Does your supplier have this spa in stock? If not, when will they be able to ship one to you? And once you know when that spa will arrive, how do you go about fitting the installation into your own schedule?
The key to answering these questions, and in doing so providing that exceptional shopping experience, is access to external information (inventory availability) from your supplier and internal information (scheduling) from your service department. To do so requires tools that connect you instantly with your suppliers as well as each aspect of your business. This is called external integration.

What is external integration?

Essentially, this is how information flows between you and your supplier. In the old days, this took several forms—a printed product catalog, phone calls to your supplier’s customer service reps, or perhaps weekly faxes from your supplier showing their current stock levels. This level of integration is outdated, to say the least. It requires phone calls back and forth to your supplier to obtain the required information. Unfortunately, many suppliers still provide this type of service, and it often forces you to tell your customers you will have to get back to them with the answers they seek, and that means a potential loss in sales.

The Internet has changed all of that. Many suppliers now provide websites whereby retailers can view current inventory levels as well as order status, including expected shipping dates. If you are working with a supplier that provides this sort of web-based information, take advantage of these tools and make sure your staff knows how to use them as well.

Having web-based access to information allows you to immediately answer many of your customer’s questions without playing telephone tag with your supplier’s customer service team. Plus, it gives your customers a positive impression of your business, thus increasing their confidence in you.

Advanced integration

There are some suppliers who go above and beyond when it comes to providing their retailers with advanced integration tools that rival the technology of big box stores. These include online ordering with prompting for matching accessories, online warranty processing, e-mail notifications alerting the retailer of potential shipment issues, and automatic updating of the retailer’s inventory control system when suppliers’ prices or product lines change.

Many suppliers provide some level of order entry via the web. The most basic form allows you to enter the item number and quantity of each item you are ordering. More advanced order entry websites recognize when you have ordered an item that has accessories related to it, displaying the matching accessories so you can order them as well. This greatly reduces ordering errors where, for example, the wrong colour or size of accessory is placed. Ordering the wrong part often leads to installation delays and unhappy customers, not to mention additional costs to you.

Some of these order entry systems even allow you to specify a shipping date. You can use this when you have established an installation with a customer and the items must be shipped by a certain time in order for you to meet schedule. Some suppliers’ systems will even automatically e-mail you when items will not be able to be shipped by your requested date. This enables you to contact the customer early on to reschedule the installation, rather than at the last minute. It also frees you from having to continually check to see if the items will be shipped on time (assuming you remember and have the time to do this). Instead, you can focus on selling.

E-mail alerts

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In addition to the e-mail alert mentioned above, some suppliers have e-mails that automatically notify you of other important events. For example, if you are placed on ‘credit hold,’ you can be automatically notified by e-mail. Being on credit hold often prevents orders from being shipped out, which can lead to customer service issues. By sending an automatic e-mail alert, you are notified instantly and can address the issue right away. Another example of this is if a drop-ship order is sent to one of your customers, you will receive an automatic e-mail notification. This enables you to notify your customer the order is on its way, and allows you to invoice your client for that order immediately, rather than waiting for an invoice from your supplier.

Online claims

Many suppliers have websites that allow for online warranty claims. More advanced warranty claim systems allow you to upload and attach photos, Word documents and PDFs. These photos or documents can be e-mailed to the supplier along with the warranty claim form. Some systems even track the status of the claim, showing if the supplier has started working on it or if they need additional information, how the claim is being resolved, and so forth. E-mail alerts help keep the process on track, automatically notifying you if the supplier needs more information or alerting you if too much time has passed with no activity or resolution on a particular claim. Tools such as this streamline warranty processing time. This sort of supplier integration enables you to provide superior customer service to that of the big box store who rarely, if ever, assist the customer with warranty issues.

Time is money

At the recent International Pool | Spa | Patio Expo in Las Vegas, a leading pool and spa retailer made the comment that it takes two years for a new salesperson to become ‘profitable.’ As most suppliers now provide product information via the web, salespeople can instantly access this information and shorten the timeframe needed to reach that ‘profitable’ status. Not only can they immediately answer customer questions about inventory availability and technical specifications; they can also maximize add-on sales by suggesting matching accessories.

One obstacle to realizing such efficiencies has been the fact is many suppliers do not have a standardized website, meaning salespeople have to navigate each one and keep track of user names, passwords, menu structures, and so on. Learning multiple systems is an overwhelming task. The result has been such websites simply do not get used as often as they should.

Some suppliers have recognized this and are now providing information via standardized websites. This means you and your salespeople only have to learn one way to access the information you need from multiple suppliers. Salespeople at big box stores only have one system to learn to access information on all the products they sell, the standardized website approach eliminates this advantage.

Wait, there’s more

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Perhaps the ultimate advantage to external software integration has been the ability for retailers to have their own system automatically updated whenever a supplier updates theirs. (Imagine being able to click a button to have your own inventory system updated with everything from price changes to new product information.)

When a supplier changes their pricing, this means hours of data entry work for the retailer, and if you do not make those changes immediately, your margin suffers because you are selling at the old price. Some suppliers also provide a tool enabling retailers to update their purchase order (PO) system via the supplier’s online ordering system. Retailers will choose this option because of advanced features such as matching accessories and e-mail notifications. However, they do not want to have to re-enter that order into their own PO system. By using these integration tools, the inefficiencies related to double entry disappear.

There are suppliers out there who make it a priority to help their retailers compete against big box stores. As one national sales manager said, “We should do whatever we can to help our retailers be successful, otherwise we will have no one to sell our products to.”

If your suppliers are not providing you with type of integration tools discussed in this article insist that they do or find someone who will. Your business depends on it.

 

Stephanie Allemann is the founder of Crik-IT, a ‘web-based customer service representative,’ designed and developed for vendors (manufacturers and distributors) who have a dealer channel and/or reps in the field and provides an alternative way for them to access key information and enter purchase orders. Allemann can be reached via e-mail at steph@crik-it.com[5] or visit www.crik-it.com[6].

Source URL: https://www.poolspamarketing.com/trade/move-over-big-box-stores/

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