- sales-i is enabling NMBS merchants to maximise sales and optimise customer retention -

Solihull, UK - July 29th, 2009 - sales-i, (www.sales-i.com) ) the real-time sales intelligence service for front line sales people today announced the growing market momentum amongst the NMBS’s independent builders, plumbers, hardware and timber merchants with many of the member companies signing up to sales-i to boost sales awareness and gap analysis.

Since the announcement earlier this year by the NMBS to offer sales-i to its 660+ building industry members, sales-i subscriptions have gone from strength to strength. Merchants that have already selected sales-i include Huws Gray, Nicholls & Clarke, Howarth Timber, David Covers, Isaac Lord, Turnbulls, Chandlers and Shropshire Building Supplies and industry suppliers like A.Proctor Group, N & C and RoDO. All have one thing in common, a desire to better understand their customer buying behaviour and by doing so proactively drive sales efforts and improve performance. Now more than ever these companies realise that smart sales analysis and identifying who is buying what and at what margin and profitability, will make a huge difference to customer retention and market share.

sales-i is a unique sales support service that accelerates sales people and sales figures, and streamlines sales processes. By carefully monitoring customer behaviour and purchasing patterns, sales-i discovers and analyses precisely when, why, where and how businesses buy their products and services, transforming this knowledge into qualified, targeted, high-quality, sales opportunities. These opportunites are then express-delivered to salespeople via automatic text and email alerts. And because sales-i also identifies and flags up potential competitive threats and predicts competitor activity, not only do sales people get to the sale fast, they get there first. sales-i is delivered on-demand via the web with a monthly fee so no need for software installation or downloads.

The NMBS is delighted with the take up of sales-i recognising the immense opportunity that it gives merchants to improve profitability in these testing times. According to the NMBS, “Independent merchants compete against big national players by offering a trusted, customer focused service. However, keeping abreast of which customer is buying which products and identifying upselling and cross selling opportunities can be difficult to spot amongst hundreds of customers and potentially thousands of products. With sales-i our merchants can have this information at their fingertips and that empowers them to identify sales opportunites when out on the road, or in the office, or at home before setting out on a sales call”. The NMBS is encouraging all its merchants to take a look at sales-i – at roughly £1 per working day and with no hardware installations or downloads, they can be up and running and maximising sales opportunities in no time.

Nicholls & Clarke, one of the UK’s largest manufacturers and distributors of building products, was amongst the first in its industry to give sales-i to its sales team on mobile phones.

Nicholls & Clarke equipped its sales team with Vodafone Smartphone PDAs installed with satellite navigation, email, Internet access and sales-i mobile and this is clearly improving their effectiveness and the way they work. Richard Hill, a Nicholls and Clarke director, explains, “The barriers to adopting sales-i were minimal as all the sales people are familiar with mobile devices. Now they are empowered with everything they need to get to the customer armed with instant account information so they go into meetings fully informed and prepared. We are using the sales-i alert system which also tells us if there is any change in the customer’s buying behaviour, so my sales people can identify upselling opportunities and maximise the account visit.”

Mark Terry is National Sales Manager at Howarth Timber & Building Supplies Ltd, the UK’s largest privately owned timber company. Howarth Timber has recently invested in sales-i. Mark comments, “We are in the early stages of using sales-i which equips our sales team with the tools they need to optimise sales and record their activity. So far we are delighted with the progress. The set up has been efficient and the training excellent.”

Mark adds, “We previously looked at other tools designed to help sales people and have already tried out text based call logging. We chose sales-i because it is the best solution we have seen to bring together sales prompts, fast sales information and mobile call reporting, in one solution. Being web hosted is another big advantage as it can be used wherever we are - and it enables me to provide guidance and personal opportunities to the whole team in seconds and to easily see call results. I expect sales-i to help my team sell more. I can manage from facts without ploughing through reports and it will improve efficiencies throughout our sales operation.”

Jayne Hill was recently appointed to manage the NMBS account and is delighted with the take up so far. “We have enjoyed great take up of sales-i over the past few months and we have strong referenceability in the market with many companies showing very positive results from their investment in sales-i. We are meeting with as many NMBS merchants as possible to discuss how sales-i can impact their sales operations so we encourage them to get in touch to arrange a demonstration either over the Web or face to face.”

To book a meeting with Jayne and the team, please visit www.sales-i.com/contactUs.aspx or contact Jayne directly on 0845 508 7355, email jhill@sales-i.com.

About sales-i

sales-i© is a real-time sales acceleration service for frontline sales people. Through sales-i, sales professionals are empowered with real-time customer buying behaviour alerts which are delivered by email and text messaging, empowering them to make better informed, personalised and faster decisions which maximise repeat sales and reduce customer slippage.

sales-i is a true Software-as-a-Service solution charged on a per-user, per-month, basis.

Sales and marketing organisations rely on sales-i to accelerate their sales intelligence. This delivers protected customer share, better margins, visible cross-sell and up-sell opportunities and increased customer buying behaviour know-how resulting in more intelligent, profitable selling.

sales-i is a privately held company with offices in California, USA and Solihull, UK. For more information about sales-i visit www.sales-i.com or email tellmemore@sales-i.com

About NMBS

The National Merchant Buying Society (NMBS) was formed over 40 years ago by a group of independent merchants in the Midlands who wanted to come together to buy better and compete more effectively with their larger counterparts.

Today, NMBS is the most successful buying group for independent builders’, plumbers’, hardware and timber merchants in the UK and has an annual turnover of around £550m, with approximately 660 members and over 1400 branches. It has deals with every major supplier to the building industry. To find out more, please visit www.nmbs.co.uk.

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