Bruno Fava - Head of Marketing

When “less is more” can be the shortest path to optimizing the industry-distributor-customer relationship

The title of this article says it all: keeping it simple is the impetus behind digital transformation in the experience for sellers and their teams.

With many challenges, such as different customer profiles, order complexity and complete data analysis, the salesperson of companies in the industry ends up having to ally themselves with technology to sustain opportunities for improvement in their daily routine.

It is the digital transformation bringing not only significant gains to the sales experience, but also a simplification of the entire process, allowing full focus on what really matters: relationships and results.

With this mindset, Weduu, a technology company dedicated to improving the experience in the relationship between the industry and its customers, has invested in the development of a journey focused on optimizing the entire chain of this relationship, which also involves distributors and, above all, the seller.

Fewer operations, more opportunities

The industry faces a wide range of customers with diverse procedures and cultures. At the center of this ecosystem is the seller, who needs to adapt to the needs of each customer.

“When we look at the current situation of the salesperson in the industry, we see a professional who must deal with several technologies that take up a lot of time, especially in terms of the order taking process. Some customers generate hundreds of order lines, limiting the salesperson's time to prospect for new opportunities, and that the delay and errors generated by typing ends up affecting the entire level of service in the industry”, says Gabriel Spina, CEO of Weduu , which continues: “With this, we develop solutions that automate these processes, leaving the seller free to work in a more consultative manner with their customers.”

Simplicity in the field

Technology, today, proves to be a great facilitator of the sales process, but it must be inserted in the context of the salesperson's experience in an organic, non-invasive way. Solutions that aim to assist in the sales routine should facilitate and not generate complications.

Also, according to Spina:

“Sellers are already overloaded in their relationship journey; it is no use creating a tool that exchanges one bureaucracy for another. The solution needs to work in partnership with him, bringing an experience that adds value. Our products were made to simplify everyday life. The interface is practical, and the built-in artificial intelligence eliminates any unnecessary operational effort.”

Artificial intelligence as an agent of transformation

Artificial intelligence is the driving force behind the streamlined experience.

“With the robot interpreting orders, regardless of shape or size, we have eliminated manual effort. The salesperson's work is focused on selling,” Spina comments.

In addition to reducing operational efforts, artificial intelligence has significant impacts on results, avoiding errors in order entry, eliminating rework, and reducing operational and inventory costs. In addition to being able to compute a considerable amount of data.

Artificial intelligence as an ally to the seller's quality of life

Still regarding artificial intelligence, it is a well-known fact that process automation, in addition to generating better results for the business and contributing to the strengthening of customer relationships, also improves quality of life for sales teams.

It is essential to invest in trained professionals, of course. But it is also necessary to provide modern tools to the team to optimize the activities developed. Which leads us to list four major challenges to be overcome in the consumer goods industry:

1. Sales team overwhelmed by operational services such as order entry.

The time spent typing orders can be optimized. Thus, the seller can visit more customers and develop a more consultative relationship with distributors.

2. Different order entry formats.

Artificial intelligence allows the interpretation and processing of any format in which the customer sends the order.

3. Refunds caused by typing errors (already mentioned above).

The manual process of entering orders puts a strain on the sales team, increasing the chance of entering wrong orders into the ERP. A simple mistake leads to customer dissatisfaction, returns, bottlenecks in the distribution network, considerable losses to the company and frustration of the sales team.

4. Lack of integration with communication applications.

Applications like WhatsApp and Telegram have become a common presence in people's routine. In the commercial world, many sellers make use of tools to ensure a good relationship with their customers. However, the lack of integration of the information exchanged in the application, such as budget requests and purchase orders, for example, makes it difficult and complicates the daily life of the seller, who needs to transfer the request to the company's system.

It is also prudent to point out that this order automation is not intended to replace sales professionals. On the contrary, the idea is to put employees in a privileged position: with time available, they dedicate themselves even more to commercial negotiations.

Valuable insights

With the ease of data entry, artificial intelligence also helps the salesperson to broaden their business scope. Accurate and optimized data analysis raises the potential for using sell out, sell in and inventory data, providing an accurate view of the behavior of each customer, point of sale and channel.