Inside Regency Supply’s Shift to Faster, Smarter Quoting

Isaac has spent nearly 30 years shaping operations, sales, and strategy at Regency Supply. In October 2018, he stepped into the role of COO, taking broad responsibility for driving operational excellence and aligning cross-functional teams to support the company’s growth and customer focus.

The Gap between Request and Quote

Regency Supply’s quoting process was entirely manual and dependent on reps to translate what they received from customers into orders. They searched the ERP for each line item, added them to the quote one-by-one, and typed in the customer information. It consumed a lot of their day, but the team had come to see it as just part of the job.

Over the years, Isaac had explored import tools that would facilitate the process of creating an order once the right items had been identified, but none stuck. They couldn’t match customer requests to items they carried, so reps still had to do most of the heavy lifting.

But when Isaac came across Canals at a trade show, it caught his eye as something unique and that met a real need. Canals didn’t just automate entry, it also understood customer intent—bridging the gap between vague requests and accurate product matches.

You guys are doing a really good job matching items. That’s the secret sauce, it’s where you're saving just tremendous amounts of time.

What stood out wasn’t just the functionality either—it was how well the Canals team understood the electrical industry and how naturally the tool fit Regency Supply’s tech stack. 

Isaac immediately recognized that Canals could have a big impact on the day-to-day of reps. The productivity gains, combined with the positive reviews from existing customers, made it an easy decision to move forward.

Core challenges

• Unstructured requests: Reps receive orders with imprecise product descriptions, missing part numbers, or informal references to past jobs
• Product matching: Import solutions lacked the intelligence to connect unclear requests to the right items and were still reliant on a reps’ product fluency
• Manual ERP entry: Adding line items to an order one-by-one was slow, repetitive, and prone to error—especially for large BOMs

Simple Setup, Responsive Support

Isaac had overseen plenty of software rollouts in his career, but this one stood out.

This might go down as one of the easiest, dare I say “simple,” implementations. It came really fast, really easy, low technical debt, not a lot of oversight or overhead tied to keeping this thing running. It’s just plug it in and it works.

And your team just picked up the ball and ran. They’ve always been super responsive and feel very agile. Your team was phenomenal.

Regency Supply got up and running in just about two weeks. There was no complex configuration, no heavy lift from IT, and no drawn-out training process. 

The Canals team already knew how to integrate with Prophet 21. Within days, they scoped requirements and spun up a test instance. Immediate hands-on usage followed.

As reps put Canals to the test over the next season, only a few minor tweaks had to be made to align with the way Regency Supply operates. Overall, the implementation stayed smooth and lightweight. 

Key benefits

• Understands customer requests: Canals interprets imprecise inputs and quickly returns product matches
• Improves with use: The AI gets smarter over time, learning customer preferences to accurately surface the most relevant SKUs and frequently quoted items
• Light IT, no templates: Canals needed minimal IT support and no customer-specific setup, minimizing disruption to the business

Adoption that Fuels Growth

Regency Supply took a hands-on yet flexible approach to rollout. They began by introducing Canals to top-performing reps. From there, the team hosted short, focused training sessions in small groups.

There wasn't much training needed on how to use the tool itself. Because Canals is so intuitive and streamlined, most of the time was spent on how Canals could be used in real-world quoting situations—from the desk, the counter, or even the field.

Once reps got going, the productivity gains were immediate:

• Large quotes take only minutes to prepare
• Reps skip slow, manual ERP searches in favor of using Canals to quickly identify items
• Outside reps can start the quoting process while on the go
• Reps turn around quotes faster and have the time to keep customers updated on deliveries

Literally the day you start using it, you immediately start recognizing the benefits. It doesn't take long for the team to get excited about how this impacts their day. And when they are working on large quotes, those are the times when the light bulb goes off for people–this is saving me an unbelievable amount of time.
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Our team has absolutely loved this. It’s pretty easy—they took to it really quickly.

Love at first quote (a true story)

The night after his first training with Canals, one of Regency Supply’s top sales reps sent a simple text message to Isaac:

“I’m in love.” 

No explanation needed—the value clicked instantly.

As Canals became a daily habit for top performers, the rest of the team took notice. Reps began comparing usage, swapping success stories, and challenging each other to get more out of the tool. That visibility created a healthy sense of competition, fueling even deeper adoption across the sales org.

Sales managers quickly bought in too. They weren’t just seeing reps move faster—they were seeing them more engaged and proactive.

Business impact

• Stronger customer relationships: With quoting no longer a time suck, reps have more time to follow up, provide guidance, and build trust —often face-to-face
• Improved customer service: Reps have more availability to quickly answer questions about delivery schedules, delayed shipments and back ordered products
• Trusted daily tool: Canals is now an indispensable part of the sales workflow

Equipping the Team for Now and What’s Next

For Regency Supply, the value of Canals has become a strategic advantage—one that helps the company plan for the future, not just react to it.

Hiring in the distribution space is never easy, and the product knowledge required for quoting has historically slowed internal mobility and new hire ramp-up. Canals changes that. The AI learns from experienced reps and builds institutional knowledge into item matches, so even new reps can be as effective as their tenured counterparts.

With fewer dependencies on knowledge that’s stored only in people’s heads, Regency Supply can train faster, promote from within, and make smarter personnel decisions.

Being able to move people around is a pretty big piece of this electrical distribution game. You’re often limited on how fast you can hire and train. Canals makes that easier. It lets us move people a little more freely—even those without deep product experience.

In a tight labor market, that flexibility matters. It’s not just about covering gaps—it’s about unlocking growth potential across the organization.

Advice for Other Distributors

Focus on utilization. The sooner your team starts using a tool like Canals, the sooner they see value, and the sooner your business does too.

You hear things like, ‘This is cutting my time in half or in a third.’ But what we’re really tracking now is usage. Time savings can be subjective, but utilization is hard data.

Ultimately, it’s not just about moving faster. It’s about freeing up reps to focus on work that adds value and drives your competitive advantage.