This building materials distributor had just put its 230-person team through a new sales training program, and the Vice President of Sales and Marketing wanted the next round of growth to come from outbound phone calls — reps calling customers proactively to drum up new orders.
At a glance
Building materials distributor- Industry
- Construction
- Employees
- 230
- Proton products
- CRM
The reps were on board. The problem was what to say once the customer picked up.
The challenge: a guessing game on every outbound call
The company supplied promotions and products to pitch, but the same list went to everyone, so the calls came out general. Did this customer need a reorder, or something new? Were they low on a line they buy every month? Nobody on the phone could tell.
Their system wasn't going to answer it either. It could show what a customer had purchased and how much — but not how often they ordered a particular product, and it had no automated reorder alerts and no product recommendations.
“It was very much a guessing game. I was asking them to make outbound calls and proactively sell, but there wasn't a way to figure out what each customer needed.”
So the distributor came to Proton wanting one thing: enough insight into each customer's orders that a rep could open a call already knowing what belonged in it.
The solution: a dashboard inside, a mobile app on the road
The distributor rolled out Proton's dashboard for inside sales and the mobile app for outside sales, with plans to rebuild its ecommerce site on Proton's AI-powered recommendations.
They launched in the fourth quarter of 2020 and made over $1 million in attributed revenue in that first quarter. The next quarter, they tripled that number.
Inside sales: who to call, and what to sell them
Proton's inside sales dashboard answers the two questions the old system couldn't. Three things do most of that work.
Reorder reminders. When a customer calls an order in, the rep pulls up their profile while keying it. If that customer is due for a reorder on anything, Proton says so — while they're still on the phone.
Cross-sell prompts. Plenty of customers order the same product for years and never order the accessories or parts that go with it. Proton's “frequently purchased with” option puts those companion items in front of the rep.
Campaigns. When a vendor runs a special or drops a price, the team launches a campaign — or several at once. Proton reads each customer's purchase history against the campaigns running, flags the matches, and ranks the products by how likely that customer is to buy them. Reps stopped pitching from a list and started pitching from a ranking.
“I'm letting them utilize the solution as a tool to help them augment their sales, and that's where I've seen the most success.”
Outside sales: wallet share and follow-ups in the field
The outside sales tool is newer to this team, and it's already producing. Standing in a customer's shop, a rep can pull a report of that account's spending by month or by year, going back as far as 12 months.
Wallet share. Proton compares a customer against other businesses of the same size and industry — what they buy, and how often — so reps can see the gap between what their account routinely orders and what its peers do. Those gaps are where the upsell and the cross-sell live.
Follow-up alerts. When a quote goes into the system, Proton can fire an alert after a set period: a reminder for inside and outside reps alike to circle back before the quote goes cold.
Before
With Proton
Pitch ideas
BeforeCompany-wide promotions and product lists, pitched the same way to every customer.
With ProtonProducts ranked per customer by how likely that customer is to buy them.
Reorders
BeforeThe system showed what a customer bought and how much — never how often.
With ProtonAn alert fires when an account is due, while the rep still has them on the phone.
Cross-sell
BeforeCustomers ordered the same product for years and never the parts that go with it.
With Proton“Frequently purchased with” surfaces the companion items during the order.
The results: revenue tripled, and the pitch count with it
Proton went in during the fourth quarter of 2020. Here's what the distributor has seen since.
Attributed revenue tripled in a single quarter
The first quarter live brought in over $1 million in attributed revenue. The next quarter, that number tripled — and it kept climbing as reps got more proficient with the tool.
300 product pitches a week became more than 1,000
Once the team got behind the technology, the Vice President of Sales and Marketing instituted a daily requirement of five pitches per rep. Weekly product pitches went from 300 to 500, and then past 1,000.
Customers started noticing, unprompted
The building materials industry has been busy since the pandemic, and customers began praising the sales team for their timeliness and for the reminders on products that were running low. They were equally struck by how accountable and proactive the team had become.
A nudge above the competition
Being the distributor whose reps call at the right moment with the right product set this company apart from building materials distributors that aren't using AI to increase sales and keep customers happy.
Why it worked: selling got easier, not harder
The Vice President of Sales and Marketing went looking for something that would help his team do the job — and make pitching and following up fun and interesting while it did. Proton is almost game-like: hit a target or pass a goal, and fireworks go off on the screen.
He puts the distributor's success down to two things. Selling is easier for the sales team. And the solution is intuitive enough that reps actually use it — which is what turned a five-a-day requirement into more than a thousand pitches a week. “The solution has really proven itself, and it just continues to get better,” he said.
