Merchandising, sales, and demo teams are the unsung heroes of CPG marketing. From winning new retail placements to driving sales at face-to-face events, retail services firms can have a huge impact on a brand’s growth and success at the point of sale.
But as deep an impact sales and demo teams can have on a brand’s retail strategy, they’re often limited by just how much of that impact they can prove to their clients. Without a clear picture of how their activities in the field are impacting sales, retail services firms can have difficulty differentiating themselves in an increasingly competitive market.
That’s why companies like EDS Strategy, an in-store product demonstration firm, are partnering with Repsly to rethink the way retail services teams can interface with the brands they serve, and in the process both deliver and communicate more value than ever.
EDS Strategy is best known for its unique Educate, Demonstrate, Sell™ methodology, a process that equips its demonstration specialists to do more than just build brand awareness, but also more effectively sell product directly from the table. To highlight the additional value and professionalism their team and approach brings to the table, EDS Strategy uses Repsly to build and share reports with its clients and bring visibility to the additional sales and merchandising outcomes they achieve.
“When I’m selling to clients and they ask about reports, I can say I use Repsly,” says Jesse de Agustin, founder & CEO at EDS Strategy.
“There are a lot of demo companies out there that do their reports on Google Docs or free form builders that open in a browser. But with Repsly we give our clients a simple link where they can see photos, sales, additional placements, and customer feedback from the demo.”
These visual reports aren’t just easy to consume, they’re incredibly easy for demonstration specialists to put together while they’re in the store. The Repsly mobile app streamlines their workflow and makes it easy to report sales and capture and tag photos so the EDS team never has to take their work home. As soon as a demonstration wraps up, all it takes is a few taps for demo specialists to send their report as they walk out of the store.
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With Repsly, The EDS team snaps and shares photos like this demo setup for DrinkIconic.
Repsly’s high-value reporting system not only helps EDS Strategy build rapport with its clients, but the visibility it brings to their work helps the team maintain the high level of quality they’re so well known for.
As each demonstration specialist gets to work, de Agustin can see their set-up in real time, giving him and the rest of the team the opportunity to weigh in and improve on the go.
“Repsly is great. It really helps power the team in the field, and I can see things really easily. I can even coach on the spot.” says Jesse.
With that high-touch approach, EDS Strategy felt comfortable growing their team and scaling up field operations without having to worry about a drop in quality. Now, the team is able to do 75% more store visits and product demonstrations without increasing the burden of paperwork, and can therefore focus more on their clients' product and customers.
And according to Jesse: “Repsly has allowed me to increase the volume of demos we’re doing while maintaining the quality -- and I’m obsessed with quality.
“In a way, we approach our demos, really, as an extension of a client’s sales team due to our in depth product knowledge and using Repsly helps accomplish this goal.”
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