Marsh Industries has launched a number of new support initiatives for merchants designed to help them save time and sell more when it comes to off-mains drainage solutions. PBM takes a look at the details.
While the merchant supply chain continues to recover from both the pandemic and the effects of Brexit, it is also battling with staffing issues, material shortages and both rising inflation and transportation costs. As a result, one of the single biggest issues that branch managers, regional directors and sales teams are facing is time management.
Described as “an innovative, AI-driven sales tool”, Pinnacle-AV from Marsh Industries is designed to reduce estimating time and therefore ease the pressure on its merchants’ sales forces.
Steve Boyer, Managing Director of Marsh, explained: “We have seen these time management pressures escalate for merchants over recent months, and we believe it is not currently reasonable to expect merchants to take time out of their day to see our sales teams on just routine calls. We can help by using Zoom or telephone appointments, but this will not necessarily help promote current and future sales enquiries. To help improve the situation we have launched our innovative sales support tool, Pinnacle-AV.”
Said to be the first of its kind in the industry, Pinnacle-AV uses artificial intelligence and multimedia to prepare a bespoke quotation module for Marsh sewage treatment plants, pump chambers and oil separators.
The quotation module consists of a personalised quote for merchants’ customers’ contract requirements, video, design drawings and all relevant process calculations that can then be given to the customer — and regulatory bodies if required — to secure the project.
The Pinnacle-AV quotation module can also be customised using merchant logos, branding elements and contact details.
“We have seen these time management pressures escalate for merchants over recent months, and we believe it is not currently reasonable to expect merchants to take time out of their day to see our sales teams on just routine calls.”
Steve continued: “We have trialled this solution since March 2022 on a limited scale and the response from merchants has been tremendous. Pinnacle-AV enables your sales team to present a detailed technical quotation with confidence to their customers — for example, in a short 3-minute video, Pinnacle-AV can answer all the sales and technical queries your customer or contractor may have.
“We believe that by working collaboratively with Marsh and using Pinnacle-AV, we can help reduce the time pressure and bring a serious competitive advantage to your sales forces. If you would like a personal presentation, please contact us and I will personally arrange for it to be undertaken.”
The business has also launched a new series of product knowledge videos for distributors and merchants. Aptly named ‘Trade Talk’, the series is intended to provide viewers with a better understanding of the wide spectrum of Marsh products in condensed, three-minute video segments.
The videos briefly describe the advantages of Marsh products and the firm states they can be used as in-house product training and trade counter display for customers. Released in tandem with Pinnacle-AV, Steve emphasised that the main goals of the two new services are simply to help merchants save time and, more importantly, to help them increase their sales.
The first video, covering the Marsh domestic wastewater treatment range, is already available via www.marshindustries.co.uk/tradetalk whilst the rest of the series will cover the following product ranges:
Commercial wastewater treatment: Ultra:Polylok and Marsh:Standard
Domestic and commercial pump stations
Oil separators: Hydroil, Marator and grease/silt traps
Lastly, Marsh Industries has also announced that it is an official NMBS OnePlace platform supplier, enabling its merchant customers to access all the information regarding the company and its products via the buying society’s Product Information Management platform.
Connecting building industry partners through its advanced interface and functionality, OnePlace enables suppliers such as Marsh to “easily and securely share accurate and timely product and pricing data” with their merchant customers from a single, centralised platform in one standardised electronic format.
OnePlace enables Marsh to “easily notify merchants regularly of price changes, new products and product improvements through the platform’s simple interface and advanced search features” whilst ensuring its merchant customers “get instant access to accurate and timely product information, knowing that the product data is maintained in a secure, structured platform to industry data standards.”
The data is checked for quality and completion and validated against multiple data export criteria to ensure its high quality and consistency, giving merchants the confidence that the data can be used across their own ecommerce and back office platforms with “accurate product descriptions, specification sheets, COSHH sheets, attributes, images, videos, and more” as well as their own specific up-to-date pricing data.
Click here for more information on Marsh Industries’ range of products and support services for merchants.
A version of this article appeared in the October edition of PBM. Click here to read the full issue online via the PBM website.
