Archive for category: Why Rhino?

 

Think Spirits is a highly credible distributor of premium spirits and liqueurs in Australia. With a select range of contemporary liquor brands backed by continual year round trade support and targeted consumer activities, Think Spirits boasts a great deal of recognition among the local liquor industry.

With roughly fifteen sales reps, Think Spirits leverages local representation in all states and territories of Australia to ensure their premium brands are available nationwide. Resting in the palms of those reps responsible for growing business across the country is the powerful but simple CRM tool, Rhino by ForteIS.

We sat down with Graeme Ewens, Sales and Marketing Director of Think Spirits to discuss his experiences with Rhino and the team at ForteIS.

The beginning of a strategic CRM partnership

“We started using Rhino probably about six years ago – even before my time in the business,” Graeme explained. “We represent over 40 premium brands such as Stolichnaya and Malfy’s Gin, with a strong presence among on-premise sellers. With a large portfolio of high-value brands and a vast network of bartenders and venues, we needed a CRM that was specifically built for purpose.”

“That’s where Rhino comes in. As I understand it, Rhino already had an existing footprint in the liquor industry, building for the purpose of other breweries and distributors. So not only was the team at ForteIS producing a CRM catered directly to businesses like ours, but they have an intimate understanding of the industry and what we and our sales reps need.”

It’s this understanding of the industry that has helped us design Rhino around the way real reps in the liquor industry – and other sectors as well – work. Graeme elaborated on how Rhino has helped Think Spirits reps complete their everyday tasks efficiently.

“The data in Rhino is the most up-to-date information we can give our reps,” he explained. “It’s updated instantaneously so long as there’s an internet connection, so we can be confident our reps are meeting customers armed with relevant, contemporary data as much as possible. And that same data feeds back to our office so we can see what’s going on and help out if we’re needed.”

“So that really gives them complete autonomy. Our reps can open Rhino at the start of their day, week or month and plan everything out. Using the Journey Planner, they can organise their schedule and ensure they’re maximising time with customers and delivering the best results. They can set their own objectives and track their target progress in the app – really, they can’t run their business without Rhino.”

“Rhino is their business at their fingertips, and that’s all anyone wants from a CRM, isn’t it?”

Flexible, adaptive, Rhino

Graeme spoke about working directly with the team at ForteIS to develop adaptive solutions perfect for Think Spirits’ unique business objectives.

“The team at ForteIS are so responsive to what we need. They’re both flexible and adaptive. Sandy and the team are sure to really tailor everything to us, and that comes through especially in the modules they’ve developed that are unique to Think Spirits. For example, activations and bartender membership platform integrations that we’re able to track and monitor within the Rhino interface.”

Think Spirits unveiled their own bartender rewards program in 2013. A product of their own design, the Think Rewards Plus program allows venues to accumulate points according to the number of bottles ordered, incentivising the sale of Think Spirits products. While ForteIS isn’t involved in the program itself, we’ve developed integrations with Rhino to simplify conversations around Think Rewards Plus.

“Rewards Plus gives us a different way of communicating with our customers, but Rhino gives us a way of tracking them,” Graeme explained. “Data from our rewards platform and other systems is integrated into Rhino. We can see members within venues and venue performance, so it allows them to talk specifics and target brand and activity within venues.”

Simply put, the Rhino integration pulls data from Think Spirits’ bespoke rewards program and displays it simply alongside other customer information, so when sales reps meet with venues they can refer to that information and speak in real numbers. So all customer conversations are relevant and effective.

Beyond our custom development, Graeme spoke highly of Think Spirits’ long standing relationship with ForteIS.

“They have really good customer service,” he began. “Our main point of contact is Sandy, who from a relationship manager perspective is fantastic. Nothing is ever too much trouble, she takes the time that’s needed. They’re always free to provide training and if we do have a hiccup or need a solution, the team are quick to jump on board and work through it with my field guys.”

Think Spirits enjoy enhanced visibility and a simplified, streamlined day-to-day workflow for their sales rep thanks to Rhino. Furthermore, with the addition of bespoke modules and integrations, Rhino has helped to enhance customer conversations and enable stronger relationships. To find out how Rhino can support your broader business strategies, reach out to Forte IS to book a free demo today.

 

Spirits Platform was created in August 2015 by its senior management team alongside brand partners Remy Cointreau and Zamora.

Since its inception, Spirits Platform has been supported by the strength and resilience of Rhino, the simple CRM system by ForteIS. We sat down with Ben Inglis, National Sales Manager, and Marie-Claire Piga, Director of HR, Finance and Operations, at Spirits Platform to discuss how Rhino has supported their business over the last five years.

Moving up in the CRM world

“Spirits Platform was really born from the ashes of Suntory Australia,” Ben explained. “When Suntory Australia closed its doors, the Suntory brands went to Coca-Cola Amatil, but other third party brands needed to find a distributor for the Australian market. That’s really how Spirits Platform came about – those of us left from Suntory Australia set the business up and part of that was finding a CRM that we could use.

Prior to Spirits Platform, the sales team used a custom CRM system developed in-house. With the dissolution of the company, the team needed to find a new solution – that’s where Rhino came in.

“Our relationship with Rhino developed over our CRM needs within the new company and coincided with ForteIS having a platform specific to the liquor industry ready for us to use,” Marie-Claire recounted.

“What we found,” added Ben, “was that Rhino’s capability and functionality for the end user was far superior to what we’d experienced previously. Better still, it was all handled externally. As a small business, we didn’t have the manpower to set up an internal CRM, so to go to the market and see Rhino, which was better than what we’d previously developed for ourselves, was fantastic.”

Since the beginning, Rhino has supported Spirits Platform in managing successful customer relationships across the country, providing heightened visibility and easily accessible data for Business Development Managers.

“The biggest benefit is really to our Ambassadors and BDMs,” said Ben. “When they’re working in a customer call, it’s so easy to quickly put their marketing activity into the call card and navigate around what’s happening in the call. For us, the main goal for a CRM is that the sales team are using it and that it’s a genuinely valuable tool for them – and Rhino is exactly that. Because they’re actively using it, and it’s not getting in their way, we’re getting accurate business data all day, every day while our reps get more face time in front of their customers.”

Marie-Claire spoke to the overall business benefits of Rhino: “We’ve been able to build strong KPIs in Rhino, which will ultimately result in increased sales.” Meanwhile, Ben explained that the straightforward back-office portal of Rhino meant that if they needed to do any additional data manipulation, they were able to effortlessly export the required data.

Developing a CRM with their business

While Spirits Platform’s business grows, they’re able to have Rhino grow alongside them to meet their changing needs.

“What I really like about Rhino,” Ben enthused, “is that you get to see how different people choose to use it. That’s led to a number of alterations ForteIS have happily implemented based on how our reps use the system and what we need from them. A lot of the new features we’ve introduced over the years have come directly from the minds of our team, so they’re directly relevant and actually get used.”

Marie-Claire echoed this sentiment, adding: “There is no doubt that the CRM features have improved immensely over the five years, so we are looking at a CRM much different to that initially implemented. This has resulted in greater ease of use which translates into more effective calls and better planning.”

As an example, Spirits Platform were interested in changing the top-level modules that appeared when reps first opened the app to those that were more relevant to the data they wanted to collect. We were happy to make this change quickly.

“We wanted our reps to update their meeting notes more often so we could pull that data at the end of a quarter when we sit down to review their progress, and have an accurate paper trail of how they’ve developed and how they’re tracking on their goals,” Ben explained.

Not just a supplier – a partner

Both Ben and Marie-Claire credit the continued excellence of Rhino to their strong relationship with the team at ForteIS.

“We met Sandy and Laura five years ago and the relationship has gone from strength to strength,” Marie-Claire elaborated. “Sandy is incredibly supportive in meeting our changing needs and working with any other business partners within our universe. We cannot fault the relationship that has developed over this time. It’s the sort of relationship that yields great results for all.”

“Sandy and Abdul are fantastic. Abdul’s an absolute machine,” Ben added. “Some things are super easy and Abdul gets it done really quickly – that’s something I really like about our relationship with ForteIS. I don’t have to feel pressured into paying huge amounts of money for a simple change.”

“It’s so important that we’ve got a relationship where we’re always working together to make the system better. If the system’s great then no one’s ever looking to move. And if you’ve got someone helping you achieve that as best they can, you’re only ever going to both succeed.”

Over the years, the dedication and collaboration between ForteIS and Spirits Platform has led to the creation of a highly tailored, successful CRM system that delivers real results to the business. If you’d like to learn more about how Rhino can transform your customer relationship management, reach out to ForteIS today to book a free demo.

 

In the earliest days of ForteIS, Premium Beverages came to us with a problem. They needed a digital customer relationship management solution that provided all the tools their sales representatives need, without the heavy complications of big name CRMs. From this relationship, the first iteration of our Rhino CRM system was born – and to this day, 7 years later, Coopers Premium Beverages and ForteIS continue to work closely together to produce a constantly adapting user-friendly program.

We sat down with Trish Hardy, Sales Support and Administration at Coopers Premium Beverages to discuss how Rhino has empowered their sales reps and supported their business throughout the years.

Creating a purpose-built CRM for the liquor industry

“There was a close relationship between ForteIS and Premium Beverages from the initial development of Rhino,” Trish explained. “We were lucky enough to be able to direct them with regards to what we wanted in it. The first version of Rhino was really built around us and our direction to ensure we got benefits from it.”

“The core of what we wanted was simply an electronic call card that doesn’t snow our reps under. We needed something that helps them plan and really supports them to be efficient. Rhino does exactly that,” she continues.

But the development of Rhino didn’t stop after the first iteration. “ForteIS have been able to adapt and iterate on Rhino as the industry, market and products have changed. They’ve been very, very adaptable to what we want.”

Empowering salespeople to work independently

“There’s a lot of adaptability about Rhino that we get to pass on to our reps in the form of autonomy,” Trish added. “Rhino lets them plan their journeys each week, and really run their day-to-day activities as if they were operating their own small business. With all sales activity logged into Rhino, we get everything reported back to us automatically so we can provide support as it’s needed.”

In Rhino, sales reps only see a limited view of the accounts they’re actually working on, meaning they can focus directly on their customers. “Our reps only see their universe – they’re not getting bombarded with everything. A NSW sales rep is only seeing his data, his accounts, it’s all really personalised to ensure it’s helping and not hindering our team.”

In particular, Trish sang the praises of two features which support reps in their daily activities: the Journey Planner and the supplementary Territory Performance Plan module.

“The Journey Planner is very good for the reps,” Trish begins. “We have an expectation for their number of calls each week, so with the Journey Planner, our reps can figure out how to set up their week. It gives them a plan for every day, so they know how many calls they have to do and which customers they’ll be talking to.”

“In the back end, we can see where our reps are, how long they’re spending in a call, and if they’re doing the right amount of calls. This isn’t about breathing down their necks, but rather it helps us identify any problems and provide support. Reps can also look at their own reports at the end of each week and reflect on their performance.”

The Territory Performance Plan (TPP) is a module ForteIS developed specifically for Premium Beverages. “We wanted a way to help our reps monitor and reflect on their performance in a really personalised, targeted way,” Trish explained. “So we went to ForteIS and asked them to develop a module.”

With TPP, Coopers Premium Beverages reps get to sit down with their state manager and work out where they are and what they want to achieve. Those goals are then loaded into Rhino, with every rep having a specific growth objective for each of their accounts. So, as reps meet their objectives over a six month period, they can take photos to track progress and monitor their objectives as they work towards them.

“Our reps get to see their progress and Rhino reports it back to us automatically,” Trish elaborated. “Thanks to Rhino, our reps are empowered to set their own goals – we don’t provide blanket targets. We can use Rhino to give them the tools and support they need to stay on track with both their own professional development and in meeting the goals of the business.”

“They’ve really taken ownership of it and that in itself has helped to grow business,” Trish added. “I think it’s also made reps more aware – they think a bit more about the minutia, like if a display looks good or if all the pricing is right. It helps them stay on the ball.”

A seamless back-end CRM solution

In addition to simplifying the Coopers Premium Beverages reps’ everyday lives, Rhino has helped to increase visibility across the business with its simple dashboard view and smart reporting functions.

“Reps follow up their customer visits with photos and evidence of how promotions are locked in,” Trish explained. “This gives immediate feedback to our marketing team so we can tailor-make marketing initiatives to unique states and areas. The extra visibility to reps’ every day activities gives us insights that we can use in both sales and marketing. We can send reports to marketing and say “this works here, this doesn’t work there” and they can make more informed decisions based on that.”

Trish also sang the praises of Rhino’s friendly user interface and reporting features. “Reporting is so simplistic, and so easy, especially compared to larger CRMs. This is what we want – something straightforward and easy to use.”

Ongoing support from a dedicated team

“There’ll always be issues with technology, when it changes and people have to adapt,” Trish began. “But our reps get a straight line to ForteIS and that means they get support when and where they need it.”

“They use an online support system so we can see where jobs are at and get live updates. Once an issue is logged, we instantly get an email back saying they’re on to it, and they really do fix problems quickly. What’s more is that they won’t close a job until you’re 100% happy with the result. They show a real dedication to helping our reps and supporting us as a business.”

“The team at ForteIS really go above and beyond,” Trish continued. “Our reps are out there to sell beer. They’re usually not aware of all the ins and outs of the technology, but the ForteIS team will take the time to educate our reps about the tech as its needed”

“And they really understand the liquor business. That’s been such a big thing to come out of our partnership, working with us, they really do know what the liquor industry needs and they design their software around that. They’re constantly looking for new ways to make it easier for the guys to use the tablets.”

ForteIS and Coopers Premium Beverage have a lasting relationship built on mutual understanding of the liquor industry and the intrinsic needs of salespeople. Through our partnership, we’ve been able to grow Rhino into a powerful tool purpose-built for the liquor industry, and just as well-suited for a myriad of other verticals.

To learn more about how Rhino can elevate your sales team performance and visibility, reach out to Forte IS to book a free demo today.