The Digitalization Journey of Carl Ras
How Carl Ras digitalized their sales process with Prezentor
Industry
Wholesale
Employees
400
Win
Increased direct sales
Country
Denmark
Why Carl Ras needed to digitalize their analogue sales process
Carl Ras is a family-owned business since 1932 that faced a main challenge in their sales process: most daily operations between employees and customers were analogue. While it makes for a great customer experience that they were in contact with Carl Ras’ sellers, it also meant that they had to look at physical catalogues in order to see the full product range.
To order the tools, fittings, or work clothes they needed, the customers had to meet a seller in person on-site or at the physical store. The sellers were then writing down their order manually and calling the back office to place the order via phone. This process was inefficient, prone to errors, and it didn’t allow Carl Ras to offer the best-in-class customer experience that they wanted to offer.
That’s why the leadership team at Carl Ras decided to digitalize the full sales process by 2024. They chose the Prezentor dynamic presentations to support them in their digitalization journey. Prezentor Engage for Carl Ras empowers their sellers on-site to show the wide offering to customers while giving them the feeling that they are at a Carl Ras shop.
Prezentor Engage was implemented at Carl Ras to digitalize a variety of analogue steps in their sales process by offering:
- A digital version of the product catalogue
- A standardized system to input orders digitally
- A catalogue for work clothes
- A digital lexicon for sellers
- A standardized system for the back office team to process orders
Carl Ras' Challenges with an analogue sales process
The employees of Carl Ras faced a variety of challenges due to the fully analogue sales process up to last year.
Inefficiencies in placing orders
The sellers working at Carl Ras drive all around Denmark to meet customers such as government institutions, construction companies, and universities to sell quality tools, fittings, and work clothes. On-site sellers had a product catalogue with them, which customers would look at to choose the specific products they needed and decide on the quantity.
Unfortunately, the sellers wouldn’t know if these products were in stock, and if so, how many were in stock. The sellers would then have to call the back office with the customer’s order, who would tell the sellers if the chosen items were available.
This process led to a lot of inefficiencies, because orders were unprecise as sellers had to note them down manually. There was a lot of communication between the sellers and the back office team required to place orders. Additionally, customers wouldn’t get a direct confirmation or information on when they will receive their order.
“Then we need to order the missing part at the supplier and there was a lot of phone communication back and forth to handle this case, which is extremely time consuming”
Palle Bjørnsten, Program Manager, Carl Ras
Difficulties in taking clothing orders
Carl Ras sells a big range of work clothes which can be branded specifically for the customer. As the products vary a lot and require specific information from the customer, only two sellers were in charge of selling work clothes. This meant that any order of work clothes needed to go through these two sellers. This led to a less valuable customer experience as customers needed to talk to two different sellers when placing an order for a variety of products: one for the general Carl Ras products and one for the work clothes.
Additionally, the back office handling all orders also needed to communicate with two different sellers to place a customer order, and then contact the customer for specific information such as the logo file and the placement of the logo on the clothes.
Keeping up with regulations
As Carl Ras is one Denmark’s biggest suppliers of tools, their sellers meet with a variety of large organizations such as government institutions and universities. Often, the sellers are faced with very specific and detailed questions on environmental regulations.
As it is impossible to know all regulations by heart, sellers needed to gather the information internally after the customer meeting. Once they had gotten the information, they then could follow up with the customer. This process meant that sellers couldn’t answer customers’ questions during the meeting, and were therefore not able to make the sale during the meeting.
“Now we are transforming Prezentor into a lexicon. So if a customer asks ‘I would like to know something about this new building regulation’ the seller knows exactly where to look it up instead of calling someone. So now the sellers know the answer straight away and we have the structure for that”
Palle Bjørnsten, Program Manager, Carl Ras
How Carl Ras created a dynamic presentation
As the dynamic presentation in Prezentor was the first digital presentation Carl Ras created, they needed to rethink the way they currently visualize their products and how they do sales. Instead of a seller going to the customer with a catalogue and a piece of paper, the dynamic presentation needed to entail all details and add-ons that sellers normally managed with pen and paper.
For that reason, the Prezentor team acted as consultants and supported Carl Ras with a workshop helping them to create a dynamic presentation that fulfils their requirements. The goal of the dynamic presentation was to enable sellers to be flexible while working in a standardized presentation that makes them and their colleagues more efficient.
The outcome of the workshop was a dynamic presentation that showcases Carl Ras’ products digitally, engages customers more, and allows sellers to place orders during customer meetings.
“The sellers saw this as a tool which will bring them structure and ease. They can see that with all the structure they do not have this calling back and forth, talking to the customer, talking to the back office, and talking to the customer again”
Palle Bjørnsten, Program Manager, Carl Ras
How Carl Ras implemented Prezentor Engage
After the project team at Carl Ras created their dynamic presentation, they planned a one-month testing phase to gather feedback from the sellers and make the proof of concept. The testing phase included 9 sellers out of a team of 40, which received iPads with the Prezentor app. In this test period they now visited customers, showed them the dynamic presentation on the iPads and took orders directly during the meeting.
With the feedback that Palle Bjørnsten, Program Manager at Carl Ras, received from the sellers, he created an updated version of the dynamic presentation making sure that sellers would get exactly the tool they needed.
Uplifts after implementing Prezentor
The customer satisfaction is rising due to digital sales process
Reduced time spent on meeting follow-ups
Sellers can answer all customer questions during meetings
How Prezentor Engage improved the sales process at Carl Ras
As soon as Carl Ras started to equip sellers with the dynamic presentation and iPads that they could bring to customer meetings, the customer orders being put into the system entailed more valid data.
Sellers didn’t have to note down and memorize order details anymore, they could place orders during the customer meeting. This in turn also meant the back office team would receive orders that they could place straight away without having to have additional communication with the on-site sellers. This increased the efficiency of collaboration between departments.
“Sellers now actually use a little more time with the customer on location, because before they could figure out their own solution. But the following three steps are a lot more precise and use less time, and that is what we all benefit from.”
Palle Bjørnsten, Program Manager, Carl Ras
Additionally, the customer experience improved significantly as customers now receive a confirmation of their order straight away including detailed information on order deliveries. The sellers now being able to answer customer questions on specific regulations also increases the trust of customers and enables sellers to sell more directly.
“Now we are transforming Prezentor into a lexicon. So if a customer asks ‘I would like to know something about this new building regulation’ the seller knows exactly where to look it up instead of calling someone. So now the sellers know the answer straight away and we have the structure for that”
Palle Bjørnsten, Program Manager, Carl Ras
Thanks to Prezentor Engage, the sales process has gotten easier for the sellers as they have the possibility to send slides of the dynamic presentation in a follow-up email to customers directly from the Prezentor app. All emails are fully traceable letting sellers know when and how a customer engages with them.
“The journey has been magical – next month we will have a new colleague starting and he will never see an old analogue version. He will be the first seller starting fully digital and I’m very much looking forward to that”
Palle Bjørnsten, Program Manager, Carl Ras
About Carl Ras
Carl Ras is one of Denmark’s biggest suppliers of quality tools and fittings with more than 20 shops all over Denmark, an online shop and app for smarthphones and iPads. Carl Ras and it’s dedicated team of 400 employees have one focus: their customers – and to find effective solutions that enable their customers to fulfil their tasks. Carl Ras has more than 150,000 items in their product catalogue which grow continously to fit their customers’ needs.