How Do You Sell More in Less Time Without Forfeiting the Human Touch?

What if you had the technology that enabled you to grow while retaining that personal touch with staff, customers, and community members around the world? That would be amazing. And it is.

It is fashionable for larger businesses worldwide to move away from personal, human connections with their customers. That is an early symptom of a compromised customer experience and often leads to contraction.

This is not a foundation necessary for growth and this is something that Pro-Ma Systems founders, Val and Sandra Fittler realized.

More and more businesses are removing phone numbers from their websites and replacing them with chatbots and frequently asked questions. The philosophy is that technology can replace people.

It is a fashion that our client Pro-Ma Systems has rejected outright, and they are now and will always be available to speak with their customers and members to handle enquiries.

This ‘old-fashioned’ approach to service and more generally, to being a people-based business, is something that Pro-Ma Systems has had as a core philosophy since the very beginning, over forty years ago.

How Selling Was Done in the Past

Founded in 1983 by Val and Sandra Fittler, Pro-Ma Systems is a direct selling organization that operates very differently from other multinationals in its stable of competitors, and in fact quite differently from many other businesses full stop.

Pro-Ma Systems is famous amongst staff and customers for its deep people-based values. This deep care for people—whatever relationship they have with the business—is closely aligned with our mission at StoreConnect to free staff and people from the mundane things that software and technology should do, so they can focus on the human interactions that make businesses successful.

“Whilst the business sells a range of high-quality products, the business is really founded on the value of prioritizing the individual.”

In the beginning, this was the Pro-Ma Systems members and the company’s proud tradition of helping people around the world to start and run their own business selling the Pro-Ma Systems range.

How Selling is Done Today

In recent years, more and more people have become members simply to buy products for personal use, but many still run their own direct selling operation backed by the Pro-Ma Systems head office.

Pro-Ma Systems has a wide and diverse range of products including Grace Cosmetics skincare, Optimum Health nutrition, Pro-Ma Systems Performance fuel additives & lubricants as well as home cleaning products. Each range is manufactured right here in Australia, bucking the other trend for businesses to take manufacturing offshore for cost reasons.

In the Grace Cosmetics division, they are passionate about helping people find natural solutions to their skin concerns using skincare based on certified organic Aloe Vera.

All Optimum Health formulas are Australian-made, backed by real science, crafted to the highest Australian standards and listed with the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA).

Finally, Pro-Ma Systems Home Products feature biodegradable, phosphate-free Australian made formulas that are tough on dirt, but gentle on families and the environment.

The Purpose

The passion for helping people doesn’t just stop at our shores, however, and the company’s Light of Hope, charity arm of the Grace Cosmetics business, supports orphans & people in need in far-flung regions such as Kenya, India and PNG. Helping individuals start their own direct-selling businesses, helping create jobs in the local manufacturing industry and helping people in need around the world. A company would be happy creating an impact in one of these areas, so to do so in so many is a truly remarkable and unique achievement for this business.

How StoreConnect Helps

Rob Hill, Senior Manager of Online Sales & Marketing at Pro-Ma Systems, explained that the team wanted to find a tightly integrated system that was flexible, customizable and responsive to a fast-paced environment of time-sensitive promotions and pricing changes.

“We selected StoreConnect because you offered professionalism and the ability to adapt to what we needed. We felt that you were looking to help us find a way to solve our challenges as opposed to the cold interaction we got with other eCommerce solutions.”

They had a legacy system that was not very customizable and this was supported by an in-house developer, which meant they were reliant on one person.

He mentioned that they also had to add a number of different systems as the companies grew, and needed to remove the risks inherent in fragmented data.

“We’ve significantly de-risked our technology stack by moving our eCommerce into StoreConnect based on the Salesforce platform.”

“The most obvious benefit of StoreConnect has definitely been the ability to integrate our eCommerce solution almost seamlessly with Salesforce. All our marketing, CRM and eCommerce systems are in the same ecosystem - giving us a 360 degree view of our sales, marketing and customer service.”

“Everyone from support staff through to senior management is now able to quickly and easily access information on orders, products, cases, website content, and even syncs to our SAP ERP software. Access to these systems and relevant data is all easily controlled via Salesforce.”

“Both Salesforce and StoreConnect continue to add new features to the software. Our legacy infrastructure was high risk with a very limited ability to develop new features cost effectively. Our new platform is now a foundation for growth and we feel like we have only scratched the surface of what we can do with it.”

The Future

The team at StoreConnect are proud to say our solutions now help Pro-Ma Systems sell their diverse business and product lines in multiple stores with multiple languages and currencies. All built in the world’s number #1 CRM — Salesforce.

We believe many companies around the world could learn from this marriage of technology underpinning personal human connection and service.

We wish Pro-Ma Systems continued success on their journey in business and with StoreConnect.