AT RETAIL Iby Stephanie Allemann

Are Your SuppliersGiving You the Tools You Need to Succeed?

RETAILERS, ARE YOU partneringwith the right suppliers? In evaluatingyour current or potential new supplierrelationships, a critical considerationmust be to understand what tools thesupplier makes available to you. Theinternet allows retailers and suppliersto be more tightly integrated than everbefore. This integration enables you toaccess up-to-date information from yoursupplier when, where and how you needit, enabling your sales staff to sell more,reducing your administrative costs andmaking your business more efficient.

, THE BARE MINIMUM YOU SHOULD EXPECTThe key to providing all-around

excellent customer service is havingaccess to information you need, whenyou need it. For example, when you havea customer interested in a particular spa,one of hundreds of questions that comeup is: When can it be installed? Seemslike a simple question, right? Well, ifyou don't have that spa in stock, how doyou answer that simple question? Howdo you get your hands on the informa-tion you need, such as whether or not

If you areworking with suppliersthat don't provide thesetools, start workingwith suppliers that do.

161www.nespapool.org

your supplier has the spa in stock and ifnot, when he can ship one to you?

To be able to provide answers toyour customer, you need to accessinformation from your supplier. In theold days, your supplier would provideyou with a printed product catalog,you would place phone calls to yoursupplier's customer service reps andperhaps your supplier would sendweekly faxes showing their "current"stock levels. This level of integrationis loose and requires phone calls backand forth to your supplier to obtaincurrent information. This outdatedmode of operation is all that many sup-pliers are offering, and it often forcesyou to answer your customer's ques-tion with "I'll call you later with thatinformation," then watch helplessly asthe potential sale walks out the door.

At the bare minimum, your suppliershould provide you with web-basedtools to allow you to access the informa-tion you need to answer those questions.Many suppliers now provide websites -called "portals" - where their retailerscan see the supplier's current inventorylevels, as well as their own order statusand expected ship dates.

If you are working with suppliersthat don't provide these tools, startworking with suppliers that do.

HOW SUPPLIERS GO ABOVE AND BEYONDSome suppliers go above and beyond,

providing their retailers with advancedintegration tools that rival the technol-ogy of the big retail chains.

online ordering with prompting formatching accessories,

email notifications alerting theretailer of potential shipments orother issues,online warranty processing, andautomatic updating of the retailer'sinventory control system when sup-plier's prices or product lines change.Online ordering - Many suppliers

provide some level of order entry viathe web. The most basic form allowsyou to enter the item number and quan-tity of each item you're ordering. Moreadvanced order entry websites recog-nize when you have ordered an itemthat has accessories related to it. In thiscase, the system will display the match-ing accessories so you can order anyof those. This greatly reduces orderingerrors where, for example, the wrongcolor or size accessory is ordered.• Some of these order entry systemsallow you to specify a requested shipdate. This is valuable when you haveestablished an installation date with.thecustomer and the items must be shippedby a certain date for you to meet theinstallation date. Some suppliers' sys-tems will even email you automaticallywhen the items won't be shipped byyour requested ship date. This enablesyou to contact the customer early on toreschedule the installation, rather thanin a panic at the last minute

Email alerts - Some suppliers haveemails automatically sent to notify youof other important events. For example,if you are placed on credit hold, youcan be automatically notified by email.Being on credit hold often preventsorders from being shipped out, whichcan lead to customer service issues.

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...most suppliersnow provide at least some level of productinformation via the web. Salespeople who caninstantly access this information shorten thetimeframe needed to become profitable.

Warranty claim processing- Onlinewarranty claim submission providesa central location where all warrantyclaims are stored (No more huntingthrough piles of paper looking for aclaim form you filed last month.) Inaddition, these tools ensure that youprovide all the required informationup front, minimizing the back andforth between you and your sup-plier's warranty department. Moreadvanced warranty claim systemswill allow you to upload and attachphotos, word documents and PDFs tothat claim.

Automatic updates to your system-This is the ultimate in terms of inte-gration tools provided by suppliers.Some suppliers provide tools allow-ing their retailers to click a button tohave their own system automaticallyupdated with changes. Ordinarily,when a supplier changes pricing, itmeans hours and hours of data entrywork for you, and if you don't makethose changes immediately, you maybe losing margin by selling at the oldprices. With these advanced integra-tion tools, you just click a button andyour own system is updated with thesupplier's new suggested retail priceand/or cost.

SALES SUPPORTAt a recent industry event, a mem-

ber of a panel of leading pool and sparetailers stated that it takes two years fora new salesperson to become profitable.Just think of the wide variety of prod-ucts that pool and spa retailers handleand the technical data related to thoseproducts. There is an overwhelmingamount of information for salespeopleto wrap their arms around. The good

news is that most suppliers now provideat least some level of product informa-tion via the web. Salespeople who caninstantly access this information short-en the timeframe needed to becomeprofitable. Not only can they immedi-ately answer customer questions aboutinventory availability and technicalspecifications, but they can also maxi-mize add-on sales by suggesting match-ing accessories. The more informationyour vendor provides through" theirportals, the better equipped your sales-people will be to maximize sales.

STANDARD INTERFACEOne obstacle to realizingthe hoped-

for efficiencies from dealer portals is thateach supplier has a different website thatsalespeople have to learn how to navigate- different usernames, different pass-words, different menu structures and soon. Learning multiple systems is an over-whelming task. The result is that thesewebsites simply don't get used as oftenas the suppliers would like. Some sup-pliers have recognized this and are nowproviding information via standardizedportals. This means that you and yoursalespeople only have to learn one wayto access information you need for mul-tiple suppliers. Imagine how this cuts thelearning curve for your new salespeople.

NEW PRODUCTSWhat if your supplier starts offering

new products or if you pick up a newproduct line from one of your existingsuppliers? Now you have to set thoseitems up in your own inventory system.With these integration tools, you simplyclick a button and those items get set upautomatically in your own inventorysystem.

PURCHASE ORDERSSome suppliers provide tools

enabling retailers to update theirown purchase order system withorders they entered via the supplier'sonline ordering system. Some sup-pliers require their dealers to placeorders through an online order sys-tem because the dealer is then doingthe data entry work and the supplierdoesn't have to, thus reducing costsfor the supplier. But, consider this:The dealer then has to do double dataentry - once into the supplier's onlineorder system and again into the deal-er's own purchase order system. Thisincreases costs for the dealer. Dealersnaturally provide pushback on this,or simply refuse to use the supplier'sonline system because of the doubledata entry penalty. Some suppliershave heard their dealers and nowprovide them with tools to allowthe dealer to simply click a buttonto have orders entered into the sup-plier's order system, automaticallydownloaded and put into the dealer'sown purchase order system. This is awin-win!

HELPING YOU SUCCEEDSome suppliers m~e it a priority

to help their dealers succeed. Theyinvest in tools that make it easierfortheir dealers to do business withthem, As a national sales managerfor a leading manufacturer in thespecialty retail industry said, "Weshould do whatever we can to helpour retailers be successful; otherwisewe'll have no one to sell our productsto." If your suppliers aren't provid- __ing you with the types of tools we'vetalked about here, demand that theydo - or find suppliers that will. Yourbusiness depends on it. I

Stephanie Allemann has helped organiza-tions use technology to manage their inven-tory, order processing and other aspects oftheir business since 1980. In 2007, she found-ed Crik-IT LLC, which isfocused exclusivelyon reducing operational costs and improvingservice quality and customer satisfaction fororganizations in the specialty retail industryby electronically connecting suppliers withtheir dealers and reps.

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