Michigan Temperature Supply (MTS) is a division of APCO, Inc. and sells heating and cooling supply parts to HVAC contractors.
- 60+ years in business
- 2016 was the year they used sales-i
The Overview.
APCO Inc. was established in 1946 as Appliance Parts Company. The company quickly grew and split into two divisions, APCO, which sold appliance parts to apartment buildings, and Michigan Temperature supply, which sold parts for heating and cooling systems.
After proudly serving customers for more than 60 years, Michigan Temperature Supply has gained a reputation for being knowledgeable in the heating and cooling industry and doing whatever it takes to get the job done.
The Challenge.
As their sales team grew and evolved, Michigan Temperature Supply had two main challenges. The first was how to record important account information in a lasting way. Traditionally, all of their salespeople would keep their own notes without adding them to a central repository. When a salesperson would leave or move accounts, that critical information was lost.
“We wanted to know where our guys were going and what the comments were from our customers,” explained Sales Manager Larry Harreld. “As salesmen come and go, we lost all that history every time that happened”
The second challenge was how to create and distribute sales reports in a convenient and useful way.
“We do have an internal sales system for reporting, but it doesn’t really report out all that easily,” said Larry. “We always had targets for the guys, but we couldn’t really see the targets because our SXE program is not all that easy to use for sales reporting.”
The Solution.
Due to their reporting and fragmented customer records, Michigan Temperature Supply was drawn to the capabilities sales-i offers. The company partnered with sales-i in 2016, and since then they have had much more success passing on critical account information. The ability to quickly and easily create sales reports and forecasts has also been a game changer for Larry.
“Each salesman has the same opportunity at their fingertips to bring up sales history,” explained Larry. “We can forecast what we think we might sell in air conditioners coming up in May, June, July based on the prior year, and I can run that number and tell you by the item what we’ll need within five or six items.”
"sales-i gives me the ability to see my business by salesman, branch or division within seconds. I know which customers are up or down so we can respond within days to trends in our market. sales-i has given me the ability to manage and grow our business more efficiently & effectively."
Larry Harreld, Sales Manager
The Results.
The biggest benefit of their increased reporting and forecasting capabilities has been the ability to create customers for life. Larry shared a specific instance in which running a report of previous purchases allowed Michigan Temperature Supply to create an inventory list for a customer that has kept them from buying anywhere else.
“We had a fairly large, new construction [contractor] and we were having a hard time getting inventory levels for him,” explained Larry. “So, I went through sales-i and pulled out all of his history for the past year and a half, and then I went through with him and figured out what he would use every two weeks. We adjusted inventory levels and purchase levels, and now his buying, well, he’s not buying anywhere else, so that’s nice.”
The Future.
Having seen success with sales-i, the Michigan Temperature Supply Team is now looking into ways they can increase the effectiveness of their sales-i implementation. Having become comfortable with the Enquiries and MyCalls features, Larry and his sales team are working to maximize their knowledge of all aspects of the software.
