Turtle Accelerates Quoting and Grows Their Top and Bottom Lines

With more than 18 years at Turtle, Brian has experience as a Branch Manager, opening new branches, and leading Revenue Optimization & Business Intelligence. Today he leads initiatives spanning pricing, AI, and process improvement, driving Digital Transformation to help Turtle’s teams work more efficiently and stay ahead of industry change.

Manual Processes and Missed Potential

Turtle’s inside sales team was entering orders directly in their ERP, Infor SX.e. From short, two-line orders that took a few minutes, to long, complex quotes that took hours, reps keyed in each item manually. No matter how experienced they were, the process limited productivity and capacity. If Turtle wanted to respond to more quotes, they would have to grow their sales team.

Literally everything was by hand. Infor has some capabilities to upload Excel spreadsheets, but adoption was minuscule at best because it’s not easy. This made us slower, even on the simplest quotes.

The burden of manual entry was particularly problematic because Turtle does a lot of non-stock quotes, which require extra attention and vendor coordination. With their time eaten up keying in straightforward orders, reps were left scrambling on these more complex jobs. 

Sales efficiency was a known issue, and Turtle explored order entry automation with their prior CIO. Unfortunately, that initiative did not yield the results they needed. 

Turtle’s lack of a product information management (PIM) system didn’t help either. Automation is always more challenging when data is incomplete or imperfect, and knowledge is stored only in the heads of senior team members.  

Core challenges

• Heavy manual entry: Every order and quote required keying in the customer’s information and each line item one-by-one, slowing the pace of business
• Time tradeoffs: Data entry consumed so much time that the sales team could not respond to all the quote requests they received
• Slower turnaround: Manual processes delayed responses, weakening Turtle’s ability to serve customers quickly and win more business
• Lack of data and automation: Without a PIM and AI that worked, the team had reached an upper limit on efficiency and capacity

From Pilot to Process

When he learned about Canals, Brian immediately recognized the potential and quickly moved forward with a pilot. After just a two-week proof of concept, he saw that Canals worked well, even without perfect data. 

We have thought about productivity gains and the ability to get order entries done faster and more accurately throughout our organization for quite some time. As a result, we were able to quickly adopt it when Canals came in. And frankly, Canals worked.

The platform could handle messy, real-world inputs including handwritten notes and partial descriptions. The AI surfaced the correct items for reps to select, and typically within five orders, accurately selected the right item on its own. It didn’t require a robust PIM to match items as accurately as reps did, just a few rep(etition)s to learn from live submissions.

Integration with Infor SX.e was straightforward, no heavy onboarding or IT lift. In about a month, Turtle went live across the inside sales team, supported by existing product data and close collaboration with the Canals team. 

“We had some training that we needed to do, but other than that, it was up and running pretty quickly,” said Brian.

Some reps took to it right away, and now use Canals “literally every day for every thing.” Others have been a bit slower to change, and the team is continuing to drive adoption through champions. For example, the inside sales leader at one of their major branches had a meeting about how Canals has made her life so much easier, and would “absolutely make your life easier” too. 

Brian is also highlighting the benefit when it comes to “witching hour” – the time between 3:00 and 5:00 p.m., when dozens of small orders pile up at once. While each one may not take long, the time adds up. Instead of re-keying each one, reps can send them through Canals and have them processed in seconds, while focusing their time on the more complex, specialty quotes.

What began as a short pilot is now embedded in Turtle’s sales process, with usage climbing week over week.

Key benefits

• Integrates seamlessly: Implementation was easy, even while customizing Canals to Turtle’s pricing logic and processes for smoother adoption by inside sales
• Learns quickly from real activity: Within about five submissions, the AI adapts to rep and customer preferences to accurately match items, no clean product data required
• Reduces errors: Eliminates the potential for manual mistakes and builds trust with customers
• Cuts order entry to seconds: Reps can review and complete multiple stock quotes in just a few minutes, giving them more time to work on complex non-stock quotes

Fast and Steady Wins The Race

The impact of Canals soon showed up in the numbers. Within a year of implementation, Turtle’s hit rate on quotes and orders processed through Canals has climbed to 57%— nearly triple their historical average across all orders of 20%! 

Brian attributes the lift directly to speed and accuracy. Fast turnaround gives reps an edge in competitive situations, while error-free quoting gives customers the confidence they can trust Turtle to deliver. 

Furthermore, sales has the time to respond to more quotes. Even at their historical hit rate, that corresponds to increased sales. Those dollars go straight to the bottom line. 

Efficiency also changed the day-to-day of the sales team, freeing them up for more strategic, value-add work. Clearing dozens of stock quotes in minutes means they finally have time to pursue higher-value opportunities that once went untouched.

The company reinforced this shift with new account strategies and incentives. Some accounts were consolidated as house accounts, and inside sales reps are compensated for growing these underdeveloped customers. Canals was the enabler by streamlining order entry so they could focus on growth.

Instead of being bogged down entering the same items a thousand times a day, you now have a tool that does that for you — and you can actually go solicit business from a new customer and bring in more sales.

Turtle has turned capacity into measurable sales impact. Customers have noticed the difference in responsiveness, and rewarded them with ongoing loyalty and more sales.

Business impact

• Higher conversion: Hit rate on Canals quotes climbed to 57%, a major lift tied to faster turnaround and improved accuracy
• Increased capacity: Turtle could respond to more quotes without adding more headcount, directly growing the bottom line instead
• More selling, less typing: Inside sales shifted from manual entry to higher-value customer work and account growth
• Loyal customers: Satisfaction increased as customers realized they could rely on Turtle to be quick and responsive to their needs, keeping them coming back

Preparing for the Future

Turtle is preparing for a generational shift among employees as veteran reps retire and new hires come on board. In the past, product knowledge was learned slowly, often by shadowing experienced sellers or relying on outside research. 

Canals has changed that dynamic by capturing institutional knowledge in the system, as well as embedding product search and inventory visibility directly into the workflow.

Some of my best reps years ago literally taught themselves by Googling everything during calls with customers. Now Canals does the same thing, but it’s built right into the tool. It helps new hires get familiar with products faster and gives us better visibility into inventory across warehouses.

At the same time, there is a generational shift among customers, who are sending orders in new ways that demand faster responses and more flexibility. Based on his positive experience working with the Canals team and how quickly they innovate and respond to customer feedback, Brian trusts Canals to help Turtle keep up with these changes as well. It’s a true partnership founded on a proven track record of results. 

Advice for Other Distributors

For Brian, implementing order entry automation shouldn’t wait: it directly drives productivity, customer satisfaction, and growth.

This needs to be a priority because it’s focused on the key metrics of any business — sales growth and margin growth. Unless you’re coming up with the next wheel that sells billions, this will take your team’s productivity to the next level. It has to be a priority in your tech stack.

He cautioned peers not to push it off until teams are less busy. Distributors who make AI order entry a priority now will be better positioned to grow faster, serve customers more efficiently, and stay ahead of competitors.