How Rhino sets Weleda Australia reps up for success

 

Weleda is an international brand of natural and organic skin care, that was established in Europe in 1921 by the philosopher and humanitarian Dr. Rudolf Steiner.

While Weleda products have been available in Australia for some time, it was just over 10 years ago that the first local office and warehouse facilities opened. Now, with excellent growth, as more and more people seek to rely on safe, natural and organic care Weleda, continues to develop.

In 2017 Weleda joined with ForteIS’ homegrown CRM system, Rhino to ensure efficiency and reliability for its sales team.

We sat down with Sabine Grayson, National Sales Team Manager for Weleda Australia to discuss how Rhino has enhanced the business.

Promoting transparency with a powerful CRM

“Before Rhino, we had sales merchandisers who were on the road and they didn’t use a tablet or any tech – they’d write manual reports,” Sabine explained. “This was all well and good, but when a sales rep would leave the company, and someone else would have to take over their accounts or their territory, there was usually never a complete paper trail to accurately know what went on in every store.”

Using Rhino, Weleda sales reps are empowered to log every point of customer contact, including contact details, store displays, stock levels and customer conversations. The straightforward interface makes logging this information easy, which then feeds back to Weleda’s office to create a secure database that keeps reps and the business up to date with their customers.

“By having the Rhino CRM system in place, it became easier for us to see what happened in the store, what products the store is carrying, when customer information changes, everything. It can all be captured in the customer file on the CRM database. When a rep leaves, it’s much easier to hand over a territory. All the notes are there in Rhino so it’s just a clean, easy handover.”

So why Rhino? We asked Sabine how Rhino delivered convincing points of difference over other CRMs in the market.

“It says it on the website: Rhino was made for reps by reps,” Sabine recalled. “Rhino doesn’t have any of the bells and whistles we don’t need, but has exactly everything we do need. I’ve used other CRMs from major names before and not only are they very expensive, but you end up paying for things you simply don’t use or that can actually get in a rep’s way.”

“While Weleda is an international company, we’ve only been in Australia for 10 years so we needed a CRM that gave us what we need, within budget and wouldn’t overwhelm our reps. Rhino just made sense for us.”

How Rhino elevates the whole business

Through using Rhino, Weleda has gained access to data they didn’t have before – which in turn has enabled reps to be more efficient in their jobs and created visibility across the whole business so the senior management team can plan effectively.

“Our reps are a lot more organised thanks to Rhino,” Sabine added. “They have a check list in the app of what they need to do at each store, so no one’s forgetting anything. Everything’s at their fingertips, because all the call cards and documents are in the app. It’s especially helpful that they can email documents like catalogues and order forms to stores straight from the app, if they don’t have paper copies with them. Everything our reps need to do their job effectively and tidily is in the palm of their hands thanks to Rhino.”

In addition to digital document support, Sabine also praised the photo module, which allows direct visual feedback from reps.

“The photo module has been fantastic. If our reps do a display or anything in store, they can take a photo and log it directly alongside the customer and call files. And then reps can look back at those photos and see how displays have been set up, which is especially helpful when taking over an account. They can see what’s working with each display, and if they see something from the competition in stores then they can take a photo and save that as inspiration or as something we need to strive to do better than.”

“We have another module that allows us to list our products, and reps can check through those products while visiting a store. So we can see where we’ve got products distributed, what sort of stock levels the stores have.”

“Rhino has the option to basically track the reps, but we chose not to use that because just the paper trail alone creates a lot of accountability,” Sabine explained. “Our reps are logging the calls and getting every detail of our customer interactions. Plus, because Rhino supports push notifications, we can flick our reps a message if we need to and they can see a notification from us instantaneously.”

“To be honest, even just the basic functions of Rhino are incredible. The customer details are always up to date and the call cards mean we always know exactly what’s happened in the stores.”

A strategic partnership like no other

Sabine spoke about the lasting, positive relationship Weleda enjoys with ForteIS.

“They are so responsive, supportive – they’re just amazing. I can only highly recommend them. Every time I’ve had anything I need, they’ve been quick to come back with a solution. They’re always happy to provide additional training when we bring in new reps. They really bend over backwards to support you and your business.

Since 2017, Weleda has enjoyed the undeniable benefits of enhanced accountability, visibility and organisation granted by Rhino. Would you like to empower your sales team to achieve more in every day? Reach out to Forte IS to book a free demo today.