Problem
Golden Gate Meat Company was a small business that ran its sales, logistics, and accounting functions with little technological infusion. Its highly manual operation meant the company had to deal with several inefficiencies.
Strategy
To become more efficient, Golden Gate Meat Company needed to adopt an all-in-one technology that was easy to deploy and use by members of all cross-functional teams.
Results
The operational efficiency of the Sales, logistics, and accounting teams has increased dramatically. Customers and team members experience better satisfaction in their regular interactions with each other. An easy-to-use catalog has meant that customers discover and order more products, increasing sales revenue.
Golden Gate Meat Company (GGMC) is a family-owned and operated business established in 1977. GGMC specializes in distributing world-class Natural and Organic meats and specialty products to Chefs and Meal Delivery services all across the Bay Area. GGMC offers over 1,000 products to its customers.
GGMC has been in business for nearly five decades and has an extensive catalog of products. However, customers were struggling to navigate this catalog and figure things out themselves. GGMC needed a solution to make maneuvering their catalog more ‘self-help’ so that their teams could focus their efforts on more meaningful tasks. Accounting tasks were also tedious and manual, making billing and collections difficult.
Enabling more sales
As with any manual sales operation, GGMC salespeople had to spend a lot of time fielding phone calls from customers who inquired about products and prices. GGMC’s product list is massive, with over 1,000 products, so it was extremely difficult to navigate manually and be efficient with customer inquiries.
We are a family-run business that's been open since 1977. Our product list is extensive, and it’s not easy for the customer to navigate, so we always had problems with pricing issues and questions until we went with Cut+Dry and really dialed it all in.
Justin Offenbach, Owner.
Since customers couldn’t figure things out by themselves, the sales team had to be on hand to attend to customer inquiries, which ate up the bulk of their time. They were struggling to do what really mattered— better customer service and getting more sales. They were spending the bulk of their day attending to tasks that could easily be made into ‘self-help’ mode.
The Cut+Dry app gives our clients the tools that they need to really free your time up. You have a lot more time to worry about things that actually matter. Of course, you are still in contact with your clients. You still have that great relationship and rapport, but it gives a bit more of a self-help on their end. Some customers don't really want to talk to a salesperson; they just want to order and know it's going to be there, and with Cut+Dry, that's never a problem.
Steve Kelly, Salesperson.
Having an easily accessible and maneuverable catalog has been great for business. Customers have discovered products that they didn’t even know GGMC carried. In the last year, the revenue coming from new items found through the catalog surpassed $1.1M, a 33% increase compared to last year.
GGMC has been using Cut+Dry for a few years, which has helped it generate over $41M in online orders since the launch.
Making collecting payments easier
The accounts receivables team was also having some issues. It was a hassle to send manual invoices, email reminders, and follow up on payments. It was difficult to keep track of what had been done and what was left to do. With Cut+Dry, many of these tasks can be done with a click of a button. The team can send invoices, reminders, and payments all in one platform.
I've been with the company for over a year now and Cut+Dry is on my screen for the entire course of the day. I am constantly using it to send payment reminders, to send invoice copies, to update and change contact information. I'm on it all the time. And it's helpful that we have so many customers that are signed up with Cut+Dry, so payment reminders are so much easier than downloading an invoice, attaching it to an email and hitting send. You click ‘payment reminder,’ and you're done.
Samantha Evans, Billing and Collections Manager.
Golden Gate Meat Company receives an average of 1,000 invoices per month, and the number is increasing. These invoices are paid on Cut+Dry. Over 70% of those invoices are paid through Auto Pay, decreasing the hours spent collecting payments and DSO days. In the last year, the company collected over $7.7M in online invoices, a 25.7% increase compared to the previous year.
It's a huge benefit to the sales team, logistics, and accounting. No regrets at all. I definitely recommend it to other companies, and I have done so before.
Justin Offenbach, Owner.
Key Takeaways
- An online catalog can help customers discover products, and salespeople navigate the options available quickly and easily.
- Digitization is not limited to sales; it can empower teams and boost efficiency across all functions, from accounts receivable to logistics.
