Chris Drake, Managing Director of T.N. Robinson, claims ‘“We like to go the extra mile for our customers, but the extra mile must now extend to the technology we use to run our business so we can develop a customer engaging experience and grow our business’
Family run, T.N. Robinson, is an independent electrical wholesaler based in the Northwest of England and North Wales. Proud of its reputation for providing exceptional customer service, and recognising their legacy business system was stinting growth, they looked to switch to a modern ERP software solution to progress their business.
The team’s search for an alternative ERP system led them to Intact and a demonstration of the electrical wholesale driven Intact iQ ERP system revealed “another world out there and we really liked what we saw”.
With many processes “painful” to perform, such as processing customer returns, dealing with cash sales or working through quotes with multiple lines of ‘specials’ they didn’t stock, it was time to ease the pain of daily operations & increase efficiencies. The team at T.N. Robinson also wanted to take their business a step further.
For Chris, the big selling features of Intact iQ was the ‘out-of-the box’ functionality that could accommodate any business or industry specific requirements they had but also ready access to an online customer account management portal, the robust Luckins integration and having a B2B online store that was designed to seamlessly connect with Intact iQ in real-time; a much more cost-effective solution than what they had envisaged.
For the team at T.N. Robinson, a move to Intact iQ will see them progressing from a system that needed in-depth understanding of programming and code, to a system that offers code-free customisation that allows the system to evolve with T.N. Robinson without hampering scalability. Chris affirms this by adding ‘The fact that you’re very much in control of your own system, and you don’t need to have a techy person on site to manage it, was something I really liked’
Chris continues by saying “Everything we thought were idiosyncrasies related to our business, Intact iQ dealt with them seamlessly. The online customer account portal and how readily accessible it is out of the box really appealed to us and the team. The Luckins integration was a big feature for us and will make managing a growing product range much easier for us. The staff will be blown away by the slickness of Intact iQ – the way they can seamlessly process cash sales on the trade counter and search for products in Luckins and pull them in to a quote will impress our team and make their life so much easier.’
Valuing a partnership approach with many of his suppliers, Chris feels he can build a strong relationship with Intact, adding “with Intact, we feel we are dealing with human beings, and I feel really comfortable dealing with them”.
Mark Gurney, Intact Sales Director, notes, ‘From day one when we visited Chris and the team at T.N. Robinson we could see how the Intact iQ system could improve operations and make life easier for their staff. It will give them back valuable time to grow and enhance their business and we’ll be with them every step of the way. We’re really looking forward to working with the progressive team at T.N. Robinson to help them maximise their use of technology to achieve their ambitions.’
Chris concludes by saying “We’re looking forward to implementing Intact iQ across our 11 branches in the coming months. The cost savings we’ll make and the efficiencies we’ll gain will be huge, particularly in the purchase ledger and credit control with more automated functionality benefiting us greatly. Intact iQ will set up us for the years ahead.”
