Distribution is more than just supplying parts wholesale; in fact, the foundation of many companies is to help their community, and that is certainly true at E.B. Bradley Co. 

We recently spoke with Scott Detar, eCommerce Manager at E.B. Bradley Co., who shared with us that one thing he loves about his industry is getting to help people. “At its core, the entire group of people we work with kind of seek to make life better for other people. It's making interior spaces more functional, more useful, more comfortable.”

Making breakthroughs with technology

In his work with E.B. Bradley Co., Scott has guided his company through milestones like increasing engagement and launching an eCommerce website. And throughout all the successes of the past few years, E.B. Bradley has made digital transformation a significant part of its journey. 

“I think anytime you're making advancements to be able to modernize, you're putting yourself in a good position.” He told us. Through modernizing its organization, E.B. Bradley aims to serve as many customer bases as it can. “Some of the things that I see, it's really being able to service that customer base in the way that they need it and be able to stay ahead of our competitive landscape to the extent that we can.”

It is with this drive to provide value and efficiency that Scott thought of implementing Prokeep, a messaging tool for distributors. 

Deciding to implement a messaging tool

Scott was introduced to Prokeep at an industry event. Upon checking in to his hotel, he noticed that every communication with the hotel was done through text, making it easy to sort out logistics. 

After seeing Prokeep at the event and discussing enterprise-level B2B text, Scott immediately saw the value. “Because of the experience that I'd been having just with the hotel, was able to bring that back to our group internally and say, hey…I think we should take a look at this.” He told us. 

It wasn’t long before they were able to successfully add it to their branches. “Realizing how easy it would be to implement, how noninvasive, non disrupt it was to implement, the benefit was immediately apparent,” Scott detailed. “So we were able to get up and going relatively quickly.” From there, customer service only got easier. 

Better Accommodating customers with Prokeep

After finding momentum using Prokeep, Scott says he found that there was a large community of Deaf and Hard of Hearing customers, and giving them the option to text created a better experience for them. Scott explained:

“They were so grateful to have an opportunity to use a means of communicating that was very comfortable to them without having to go through the motions of bridging some other communication gap.” 

Text messaging not only enables customers to connect with a branch instantly but using text creates transparency, eliminating miscommunications that could occur on the phone. 

Offering customers options 

When serving customers, solutions to many difficulties lie in offering customers the ability to make a choice. Distribution today is undoubtedly facing bottlenecked supply chain, which Scott considers the most pressing challenge. 

When asked how they combatted this, he said, “We provide options…we can go in and say, hey, I think this may also work for you, or here's some innovative materials that you may be able to use to present to a whole different group of clients that maybe you haven't reached out to before.”

When finding the best means of communicating, offering customers a choice is a preeminent solution, and with Prokeep, E.B. Bradley Co. was able to do that. “However it is you want to communicate with us, we will make that available, and we want to communicate with you that way,” Scott said. “When people call, we answer the phone. When people email, we respond to emails. When they text, we respond to a text.” 

Seeing immediate value

It wasn’t long before Scott saw a huge increase in the use of Prokeep by his staff. “We were averaging about a thousand threads a month in our Southwest region.” He said with excitement. “So that's frankly hundreds of threads, full exchanges that we have week-over-week.” 

With Prokeep, employees at E.B. Bradley Co. are able to communicate instantly with their customers and serve more individuals at once. Adding texting to their other methods of communicating has empowered employees to provide service that fits each customer’s needs. 

When asked if he would recommend Prokeep, Scott said to us, “It is one of the wisest investments you could possibly make in improving or providing additional support or an additional means of communicating and just servicing. If your goal is to create value for your customers, this is one of the absolute easiest ways that you could possibly do it.”

Interested in learning how you can add value to your customers through text? Book a demo to get started!