Riboli Family Wines prides itself on building a business on core family values while also employing innovative techniques that will keep the family legacy relevant for future generations.
As the business grew, both in the number of locations, product offerings, and employees, the family knew they had to move away from their legacy systems and operate in a way that would meet increasing demands and channels.
By partnering with Studio Science, Riboli was able to bring multiple platforms full of disparate data together, enabling sales reps to have real-time data at their fingertips while at the same time feeding transaction data back to their ERP system for accurate reporting and business management.
Riboli’s internal sales team is responsible for keeping restaurants, stores, and other outlets stocked with Riboli Family Wines and maintaining positive customer relationships. In recent years, this has become increasingly difficult using legacy platforms that could not give sales reps information quickly enough. They had no visibility into real-time inventory and/or account-level pricing when meeting with clients, making for a slow and cumbersome sales process.
Using Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud on Lightening Experience, the team built a mobile-first system that would pull data from Riboli’s ERP and integrate it with marketing, sales, and inventory management; connecting teams, systems, and transactions allowing sales reps to provide account-specific, real-time pricing and inventory information while in the field. Another unique feature was enabling an “order on behalf of”, which gives more than a sales rep or internal employee the ability to place an order for a customer.
Where many teams would focus solely on the technology needed, Studio Science used design theories and methodologies to further understand the needs of sales representatives and customers in the field. This approach allowed them to build a people-centered system and tools that allow for seamless interaction, whether in the field or in the office.
Now, when calling on customers, sales representatives can customize the distributor experience by account- which is a critical need when dealing with complex account-level pricing strategies. Having visibility into inventory, pricing, and being able to place orders while with the customer not only increased the velocity of sales but also allowed distributors to meet customer demands easier, with direct ordering, automatic re-orders, drop shipping, and tracking.
The wine industry is like many others in that they have a diverse product portfolio and multiple different units of measure. When problems arise, Riboli is able to quickly and easily fix problems with continuous communication between systems. Salesforce Commerce Cloud was configured to share data with Riboli’s ERP system, bringing efficiencies to real-time inventory; sales reps can easily access and share product information, pricing, order histories and generate accurate data for reporting.
The improved user experience has automated many previously manual processes, allowing reps to spend more quality time advising customers and building relationships, vs. being tied up with administrative tasks. If a customer needs a pdf of a product, the rep simply makes a couple of clicks to immediately get the product information in their hands.
With a user interface that is visually appealing and can be easily shared with customers, sales reps are able to provide a real-time, in-person experience with every distributor, and return real-time sales data to their ERP system, making seamless customer transactions and more efficient business management processes.
Riboli has reinvigorated their business because regardless of what team or department someone is in, the portal has scalability. Riboli is now equipped to deliver on its brand promise for both customers and employees by building a customer-centric portal that already accounts for future needs and can easily scale as the business grows.
“We didn’t look at this through the lens of a technology or people problem; we looked at this through the lens of our brand and how we show up to customers and potential customers. We stayed focused on our promise, reimagined our business, and built a system to enable us to deliver that promise for years to come.”
Jen Sison, Director of Sales, Riboli Family Wines
