- Before
- Fewer than 5% of SKUs had usable content, and quotes often went out and were forgotten.
- What changed
- Proton PIM enriches the item master, and Proton CRM and Pronto put that data in front of the sales team.
- Result
- A new product line takes hours instead of weeks, per Ben Kuhns, and reps get product answers in seconds.
Identifying a part no one recognizes with AI
If a customer comes to Tony Wehrs at Dakota Riggers with a part he doesn’t recognize, he uses his Meta glasses to snap a picture. Then he sends the photo to Pronto, the AI helper inside of Proton, to help get more information.
At a glance
- Industry
- Industrial distribution: rigging, tools, fall protection, safety
- Location
- Sioux Falls, South Dakota
- Size
- Approaching 50 employees · ships to 40+ states a month
- Teams in this story
- Sales leadership, sales management, inside sales
- Website
- dakotariggers.com
“If a customer brings in something and I have no clue what it is, I can snap a picture, feed it in there and it’ll give me 15 answers, or a link to a website where I can find it.”
Tony Wehrs · Inside Sales Supervisor, Dakota RiggersThat product question is the last step in a chain that starts with the item master. Before Proton, fewer than 5% of Dakota Riggers’ SKUs had useful content in the company’s old catalog, according to Ben Kuhns, VP of Sales & Marketing. The company’s growth had outpaced the detail in those records.
One data foundation, three different jobs
Three people at Dakota Riggers talked to Proton about using Proton CRM, Proton PIM and Pronto. Kuhns owns the product data and the ecommerce rebuild. Casey Nickell is the sales manager and restructured the sales team this year. Tony Wehrs moved from the showroom to the new inside sales team.
Ben KuhnsVP of Sales & Marketing
Casey NickellSales Manager
Tony WehrsInside Sales Supervisor
The foundation under all three is the same. Proton PIM enriches the item master. The ERP holds live inventory, pricing and quote history. Proton CRM and Pronto put all of it in the sales team’s workflow.
Before
With Proton
Product content
BeforeFewer than 5% of SKUs had usable content
With ProtonPIM enriches the item master; the team approves it
New product line
BeforeA week or two gathering specs and images
With Proton“A matter of hours”
Quote follow-up
Before“Quote and forget”
With ProtonStale quotes get a red flag; the whole team sees the pipeline
Product questions
BeforePaper catalog, manufacturer site, a phone call
With ProtonAn answer from Pronto in seconds
VP of Sales & Marketing: updating the catalog with AI
Kuhns’ problem was volume.
Dakota Riggers has more than 16,000 active SKUs and more than 25,000 inactive ones. In the old ERP, a SKU might have a brief description, weight and cost. Images and detailed attributes were rare, so the marketing team had to find them before a product could go online.
Dakota Riggers sent Proton its active and inactive SKU lists. Proton PIM enriches each record with the specifications and attributes that match its product category, and Dakota Riggers reviews and approves the content before it moves into use.
“Now with the PIM, farm to table, it could be a matter of hours.”
Ben Kuhns · VP of Sales & Marketing, Dakota RiggersThe sales manager: from ‘quote and forget’ to a follow-up cadence
Nickell doesn’t spend his day in the item master. He spends it asking Pronto questions about the business: what categories are working, which accounts are doing well, who’s making call notes and who isn’t.
The follow-up problem was worse. A quote went out, and whether anyone chased it depended on memory.
“Whereas in the past, a lot of times you just kind of quote and forget.”
Casey Nickell · Sales Manager, Dakota RiggersReps now dictate call notes into the Pronto app. Tasks carry comments, so the next teammate can see who reached out and when. A quote that sits too long without an update gets a red flag, and the whole team sees the same pipeline.
Product questions, answered in the sales workflow
Wehrs brings experience from the showroom, where customers ask detailed product questions and newer reps are still learning the inventory. During training, a skeptical salesperson asked Pronto for an in-stock product that met a particular specification. Pronto returned ten matching SKUs.
For Wehrs, the questions don’t stop at specifications. Rather than digging into the system for a part number and purchase history, he can ask a question and have an answer in three seconds.
“I don’t know how we live without it, to be honest with you.”
Tony Wehrs · Inside Sales Supervisor, Dakota RiggersWhat comes next
At the time of the interviews, Dakota Riggers was preparing enriched product content for its rebuilt ecommerce site. The team expects customers to find more specifications on their own and ask fewer gap-filling questions. Those outcomes haven’t been measured yet.
The sales team has also turned on a trial of Proton’s Quote & Order Entry Automation, which reads incoming quote requests and builds the draft quote for a rep to review.
For Kuhns, the products form a sequence: PIM prepares the product data, CRM brings it into the sales process, and order automation could remove more rekeying from quotes and orders.
