Benefits of CRM for Wholesale Companies
There are plenty of universal benefits from CRM that all types of businesses will appreciate and want. Some common ones include being able to see all communications and interactions with your customers, automating your processes by getting rid of manual tasks and copious spreadsheets, and storing key contact information in one centralised place. But for Wholesale companies, a CRM needs to do more than just tick the boxes. Yes, all the above are still important to have, but they should be seen as the basic CRM requirements; not true benefits. Ask yourself this – are they really going to help me grow my Wholesale business?
So, as you can imagine, the more generic CRMs out there (and there are undoubtedly plenty to choose from!) will likely fail to provide real value to stock businesses, because they won’t facilitate the more unique processes Wholesalers face. Think of it this way – the operational challenges that businesses like yours (who sell products) frequently come across are just not going to be the same as the challenges that businesses who sell purely services face (they have a whole host of different processes that other CRMs designed for them can address much better).
How Can CRM Benefit Wholesalers
Streamline sales processes
As a Wholesaler, you’re likely selling hundreds, if not thousands of different products, so it’s imperative to find a CRM that has full understanding of your stock. It goes without question that you need to track all the usual interactions (leads/opportunities etc.), but a real benefit to a Wholesaler is a CRM that can help your customer-facing staff give your customers an accurate price, (taking into account any special pricing or discounts the customer may have with you), send a quote and take an order, then be able to review their buying patterns. It should allow you to easily track everything from financial and customer service information to stock availability at the right price for quotes.
Crucially, because you’re selling tangible products rather than services, integration to your back-office system (like your accounting or inventory management system) will be key in ensuring vital customer and product information is made readily available for your customer-facing staff to use during the sales process. With this to hand, Sales teams will know exactly what products they can sell right now – and if they’re not available now, know when they’ll next become available so they can allocate this to the customer. Gone will be the days of over-promising to customers and under-delivering (or equally, not selling stock when you could be!).
Improve customer retention
More often than not, Wholesalers will find that repeat or recurring business from their loyal customers helps them keep the lights on, so it’s vital that the CRM system you choose doesn’t just aid this aspect of the business, but in fact boosts it. It should be easy and convenient for clients to place an order with you time and time again, (maybe even the exact same as what they ordered previously) and ideally the CRM should use customer sales transaction history to encourage increased repeat business.
Manage aftersales
But it’s not just the Sales team who reap the benefits of CRM. As long as the CRM you choose has ticket logging functionality, your customer service reps will be able to better manage aftersales calls and issues whilst allowing others in the business (management, warehousing, accounts etc.) to see the full picture. So, no matter how big or small the issue is, they can turn every single one into an amazing customer experience!
Centralise data
The benefits of a CRM don’t just stop at customer-facing team members – others in the business will feel the benefits of CRM too! If the solution has full integration to your accounting or inventory management system, Sales teams should have access to critical customer information at their fingertips, meaning less interruptions to Finance teams – so they can run their accounts departments effectively. Plus, Managing Directors and other senior managers will be able to manage KPIs by department, or for the business as a whole with the right kind of CRM. The system should also be able to instantly tell you which customers should be prioritised based on whether they’re buying more or less than last year, for example.
Stock-Aware vs Traditional CRM
So, now that you understand the benefits of a CRM for your wholesale business, you should be asking yourself which CRM to invest in – a traditional or stock-aware CRM?
Essentially, a traditional CRM equips your business with the tools needed to manage customer relationships and increase sales. It provides a central store of information that allows you to track sales and marketing activities, automate various processes, and enhance customer relationships. While this is useful for any business, these features alone are not so effective for Wholesale businesses…
Think of it this way - when non-distribution businesses go to send a quote, it may be as simple as sending an email – there’s no stock levels to check, no order to process, and no goods to ship. For wholesale and distribution businesses, their Sales team need to know how much stock is currently available, what special pricings may be applicable to this customer/quantity of order, and so on, in order to send an accurate quote.
A stock-aware CRM accounts for these operational differences, with purpose-built tools and features that equip B2B businesses for sales success. From integration to your inventory or accounting system, to real-time data-driven dashboards and cross-sell and up-sell tools, stock-aware CRMs are designed to bridge the disconnect between back-office systems, ultimately elevating your order fulfilment strategy and improving customer lifetime value.
So, for Wholesalers, the CRM you choose should combine the best of traditional CRM (Marketing, Sales Pipelines, and Customer Service Management), with the reality of selling products B2B (quoting, ordering, inventory management, special pricing, back orders, product information, and even things like contracts, serial numbers and asset tracking) to ensure your sales and service teams really feel the benefits.
Real-Life Success Stories: How Wholesalers Thrive with CRM
Specialising in supplying heating and control solutions to the engineering industry, Under Control Instruments sought a CRM after noticing the damaging effects of having a flawed quoting and customer service system in place – both operational efficiency and profits took a hit!
Prior to Prospect CRM, they were manually creating quotes and often logging them in various locations i.e., Excel spreadsheets or filed in physical folders. As a B2B Wholesaler, having accurate visibility of live inventory levels is critical for efficient customer service, and this obscured visibility posed huge risks of duplications for Under Control Instruments. CEO Delory Dore added, “for a business of our calibre processing multiple orders daily, this just wasn’t cutting it…we’d unknowingly quote a price to win the business but end up making a loss.”
Implementing a stock-aware CRM has changed the game for them! With features like Faster Order Taking, Quoting Software, and integration to their inventory management system, DEAR (now Cin7 Core), Under Control Instruments now have a system in place that can effectively fulfil their customer orders. Delroy Dore told us, “Customers are no longer waiting for a member of our team to follow up on quotations. Instead, once the order is placed, the system automatically actions it based on the pre-configured functionality and available stock levels in DEAR Inventory, meaning orders are usually processed within the day. And, if a customer is experiencing a problem or there's a service issue that needs to be progressed, we're able to action this using the problem tracking feature in Prospect CRM.”
This customer success story just covers the surface level of how wholesale businesses can thrive with a CRM. Discover more Under Control Instrument’s success here, and learn how your wholesale business can also benefit.
