Ken Smith Auto Parts is a Tenessee-owned and operated automotive parts supplier for the professional installer.
- 12 locations
- 16 external salespeople
- 50 years experience
The Overview.
The company prides itself on stocking a wide range of products, extensive care market expertise, flexible delivery options, and exceptional value for money.
During those 50 years, there has been a great deal of growth for Ken Smith Auto Parts, which has resulted in the company now having 12 locations in the US and 16 on-the-ground salespeople.
The company started in 1956, with Ken Smith himself building the concept from the ground up. He started the business by selling wholesale parts from the trunk of his car. Back then, his number one priority was putting the customer and their business first; and still, to this day those values are reinforced.
The Challenge.
Mike Chappell, Sales Manager for Ken Smith Auto Parts, explained that with the expansion of the business, the biggest challenge was an inability to track sales and productivity. “Quite simply, before sales-i, it was something we were just not able to do so”, Mike says.
With rapid growth, it’s crucial to know where your business is heading and what the figures predict to ensure a steady increase in the future. Without sales intelligence software, it can be incredibly time-consuming and complicated to track sales and productivity, but with the support of data analytics, it can all be instantly delivered to a chosen device.
The inability to track sales will affect the way the Ken Smith Auto Parts salespeople perform, as they can’t properly manage all of their leads, tasks, and other sales activities to stay on top of their opportunities.
The Solution.
After a successful online demo of sales-i, the team at Ken Smith Auto Parts realized that the sales enablement software was well suited to their business and what they needed to overcome their challenges. To get started, the company simply needed to link up their DST back-office ERP data with the sales-i software, and then they had access to all the information they had been missing out on.
Tim Gray, Fleets Account Manager at Ken Smith Auto Parts backs this up, “Realizing sales variances and other data in an accurate timely manner meant that we could act or react in the most effective way, which was our biggest challenge pre-sales-i.”
He explains that “sales-i met all the extremely important challenges we had by allowing us to have all the information that we needed at our fingertips, instantly.”
"sales-i met all the extremely important challenges we had by allowing us to have all the information that we needed at our fingertips, instantly.”
Tim Gray, Fleets Account Manager
The Results.
“Before sales-i, I would spend hours or even days trying to gather customer sales data, compile it into a spreadsheet or PowerPoint, find gains or losses, locate issues or problem areas and come up with a concise business plan to present. This process now takes, literally, seconds. I think I’d sooner give up my phone than my sales-i”, Tim admitted.
When asked about which featured best benefits Ken Smith Auto Parts, Mike replied: “There are too many benefits to list but probably the ability to track a salesperson’s performance and sales trends have been the most beneficial to us”. This functionality has given the sales team at Ken Smith Auto Parts the ability to prioritize their activity, anticipate market conditions, work on weaknesses in their sales process, and take advantage of new opportunities.
The Future.
Ken Smith Auto Parts has been a part of the sales-i family for over 5 years now and speak very highly of the software and the significant impact it has had on the business. Mike explains, “I use sales-i daily to track anything I need to see regarding part sales, location sales, or personnel. I really like the fact that every piece of information available on the invoice is at your fingertips and can be dissected any way I need it.”
Tim shares that “sales-i provides our employees the vital data instantly which allows us to proceed confidently with a plan or proposal because, ‘the numbers don’t lie’, and now we have all of the numbers.”
Ken Smith Auto Parts want to continue building automated reports using sales-i by utilizing all features of the software, including the inquiries section that creates saveable reports to track trends in customer spend, cost, products bought, and more.
