Beverage distributors that equip their reps with the power of VIP’s integrated mobile solution are changing the whole paradigm of beverage sales, resulting in big wins in the marketplace. When reps are armed with the insights, tools, and knowledge you can only get from VIP, they quickly become more than just salespeople; they turn into valued consultants that retailers can rely on to improve their businesses.
When your reps take advantage of all the tools at their fingertips, they can truly be order makers and not order takers. Of course, at the core is an intuitive app that makes it quick and easy to place an order. Using the VIP Sales app, reps can easily see previous orders, close-to-code product, real time inventory, new products to feature, and key iDIG reports allowing them to have one seamless solution to identify opportunities, reduce out-of-stocks, and access real time critical data so they can focus on selling.
If there’s something you want to measure and track, KARMA will be your new best friend. A survey tool that’s integrated in the VIP route accounting system, KARMA lets you turn your reps, merchandisers, and delivery drivers into data collection machines without complicating their existing workload. It gives you key insights to manage your relationships with retailers, helps manage and deliver on point-of-sales agreements with suppliers, and uncovers sales and growth opportunities that might otherwise be missed.
POS allows reps to place orders and requests for signage, posters, table tents, banners, neons, coasters, or to enter a work order for repairs, right from their phone or tablet. This order is then transmitted directly to your sign shop, where folks can get to work on it immediately.
One of the biggest eye openers for distributors that start using VIP POS is seeing the costs associated with signage per account. Most have never had anything concrete to analyze regarding these expenses, and VIP POS gives them the information they need to better manage these expenses.
Put the power of your brands in the hands of your sales force and in front of your consumers. Brand Builder is VIP’s digital product catalog that helps to tell the stories of your brands, to suggest similar brands, and to educate your retailers and consumers. Brand Builder is fully integrated in the Sales app, can be accessed from any web browser, and can be added to your website to allow consumers to browse through your portfolio.
Product attributes such as ABV, IBU, description, availability, and more are just a tap away. But that’s not all – Brand Builder displays images of the brand, recommends similar products, suggests food pairings, and highlights the RateBeer score (when it’s above a threshold score that you set). Another tap and you’re taken to the third-party reviews on the RateBeer website. And best of all, you don't have to do anything to maintain it; we do that for you.
When you introduce technology to your merchandisers, you improve communications, gain operational efficiencies, and you can report on activity to improve merchandiser productivity. The Merchandising app allows you to establish a merchandising route, take on-hand inventories, decrease out-of-stocks, track product movement, even place an order for an out-of-stock product that won’t wait for the next regular order.
Brand Finder makes it easy for consumers in your area to find your brands. Just add our Brand Finder widget to your website or custom design the look and feel using our API, and that’s it. Visitors to your site can search by supplier or brand, they can filter by the type of establishment, and they can set their search radius. They’ll even see their results on a Google map. And like Brand Builder, you don’t need to do anything to maintain Brand Finder, we take care of that for you.
There is no substitute for a face-to-face sales visit, but Retailer Portal can be there when you can’t. Retailer Portal allows retailers to place their own orders online, view their invoice and order history, A/R summary, and even images of invoices. When retailers place their orders online, you eliminate confusing voicemail orders, but most importantly, you free up your sales reps to spend their time more effectively when they’re at the account.
“The VIP Sales app has streamlined several important functions for our account managers by combining different tasks into a single seamless application. Real time inventory data and close-to-code tracking has made us more effective at reducing out-of-stocks and aged product in the trade. KARMA reminds the account manager to gather critical data at the appropriate retail accounts and feeds it back to the office in real time. The integrated POS system is key to our "24 hours or less" turnaround time on sign requests by making the information available to our graphics department in real time. Plus it eliminates the mountain of paper that was necessary to track and route signs to the appropriate accounts. We also use it track costs and sign spend per account to make sure we are applying our limited resources in the best possible way. Having all of this in a single application and accessible while entering an account’s order allows our account managers to spend more time doing what’s most important, and that is selling.”
Joe Gatz
Business Operations Manager
Town & Country Distributors
