AI for Wholesale Distributors
Nobody cancels a distributor. They just stop ordering.
Your top accounts have a rep. The other three thousand have nobody, and when one goes quiet, you find out months later. LumisReach answers the counter line off your ERP and works the rest of the account base on its own buying cycle.
- Covers
- counter line · reorders · AR
- Runs
- 24/7, through the 3pm cutoff
- Reads
- your price file and stock
- Integrates
- P21 · SX.e · DDI · NetSuite
- Built by
- us, no IT lift on your side
- Counter line answered
- Dormant accounts
- Reorder cadence
- Backorders & substitutions
- Past-due AR
- Quote follow-up
What two CSRs and a phone can't reach
- 100%Of the account base calledNot only the top 15% a rep can drive to
- 24/7Counter line answered liveThe 8am rush, lunch, and after cutoff
- 0Orders retyped from voicemailWritten to the ERP on the call
- OnlyBuying accounts reach a personEverything else is logged and dispositioned
Where the account base quietly leaks
Coverage and follow-up are phone work: high volume, low judgement, and completely invisible the moment nobody has time to do it.
- Worked by two CSRsWorked by the agent
- The tailThousands of accounts no rep can economically visitEvery account on a cadence, ranked from the buying history you already have
- An account going quietNoticed months later, when somebody happens to say the name out loudFlagged the week its own cycle slips, and called before it becomes somebody else's account
- ReordersWait for the customer to remember, or for a rep to be in the areaCalled on that account's interval, timed to land before the cutoff so it ships tomorrow
- BackordersA stack of callbacks that gets made if the phones ever ease upEvery affected account called with the real ETA and an approved substitute
- Will-call and deliveryCustomers calling in to ask where their order isTold it's on the dock before they pick up the phone to ask
- Past-due ARFirst thing dropped the moment anything else catches fireEvery bucket called on schedule, with promises to pay captured on the record
- QuotesSent, and then never followed up by anyoneChased on your cadence until it's a yes, a no, or a reason
From the order history to the order
The agent reads the same buying history your reps do, decides who is worth a call today, and then actually makes the call. We build the integration; there is nothing for you to export.
How the agents work →- 01
We connect the ERP
Order history, buying intervals, the customer price file, live stock and the AR aging come across from your system. Documented API, nightly export or a direct read, whichever your ERP supports. We do this part, not you.
- 02
It ranks the day
Accounts off their normal cycle, quotes going cold, backorders to communicate, buckets to collect. Sorted before anyone has opened the office.
- 03
It makes the calls
Between the morning rush and the 3pm cutoff, so a yes still ships on tomorrow's truck. Voice first, with the conversation continuing over SMS for the buyers who never pick up.
- 04
It hands back the buyers
Live orders go straight into the ERP or to a CSR to confirm. An account showing real interest goes to the rep who owns it, with the transcript already attached.
A Tuesday at 1:40pm, twenty minutes before cutoff
- Agent
Hi, this is Marcy calling from Delta Supply. Is this the right line for ordering?
- Caller
Yeah, that's me. Ray.
- Agent
Ray, you normally take a case of the three-inch couplings about every three weeks, and it's been six. I wanted to make sure you weren't sitting empty out there.
- Caller
Huh. We might be, actually. Hang on, let me go look.
- Agent
Take your time. While you're up, the gasket kits you ran through in March came back in stock Monday, if you want them on the same order.
- Caller
Okay, do two cases of the couplings and one of the kits.
- Agent
Two cases and one kit, at your contract price. If I put it in now it makes tomorrow's truck. Same dock, before eleven?
- Caller
That works.
The order is in the ERP before the cutoff and on the truck in the morning. Nobody at Delta Supply picked up a phone, and Ray's account had been quiet for six weeks without a single person noticing.
Both directions, on the same account record
The agent that answers the counter line is the agent that makes the reorder call, so it already knows what this account buys and what it is still waiting on.
The counter line, answered
Stock, price, order status and where's-my-truck answered live off the ERP at 8:15am, when both CSRs are already on other calls and the third caller is going to voicemail.
Orders taken inbound
A buyer who calls in to order gets an order: line by line, off their own price file, written to the ERP without a CSR keying any of it.
Dormant accounts
Anything past its own normal buying interval, called before it quietly becomes a competitor's account. The cycle is per account, not a flat ninety days for everyone.
Reorder prompts
Consumables and repeat lines called on the customer's own rhythm, timed to land before the cutoff so a yes ships the next morning rather than the day after.
Backorders and substitutions
Every affected order called with the real ETA and a substitute you've approved, instead of a callback list that never quite gets worked.
Category penetration
Accounts buying three of your eleven lines get asked about the other eight, with the opening built from what comparable accounts on your books actually buy.
Will-call and delivery
Ready-for-pickup and delivery windows go out on their own, which removes a large share of the calls that would otherwise come back in.
Past-due AR
The aging report worked on schedule, promises to pay captured with a date, and genuine disputes handed to the office rather than argued with on the phone.
The desks that only ever answer the phone
The other half of a distributor's phone bill: chasing the people who owe you an answer before a customer asks you for one.
- Vendor customer servicePO acknowledgements, ship dates and shortages chased until there's a date you can repeat to a customer without hedging
- Manufacturer repsSpecial pricing agreements, quote registrations and rebate paperwork followed through instead of expiring unnoticed
- Freight and LTL carriersMissing shipments traced, delivery appointments set, and damage claims pursued past the first denial
- Credit referencesTrade and bank references called and read back, so a new account's credit application clears in a day instead of a fortnight
- Customer AP departmentsInvoice status and check-run dates confirmed with the person who actually cuts the cheque, not the buyer
- Prospect qualificationCompetitor-held accounts called to find out what they buy, how often and who signs, before a rep spends a morning driving out there
The rules it operates inside
It never invents a price
The agent reads that customer's price file out of your ERP, including contract pricing, volume breaks and special agreements. It quotes those numbers or it escalates. It does not calculate, estimate or improvise one.
Your reps keep their accounts
You draw the line. Assigned accounts can be excluded outright, or set so the agent qualifies and hands the rep a warm lead rather than writing the order itself. House accounts and the tail are where it earns its keep anyway.
The integration is our job
You have no IT department, and we don't pretend otherwise. We build and maintain the ERP connection, the field mapping and the writeback. Nothing about how your CSRs, reps or warehouse work has to change to switch it on.
Asked before signing
01We run Prophet 21 / SX.e / DDI. Will it connect to that?
Yes, and we build it; you don't. We map order history, buying intervals, the price file, live stock and the AR aging ourselves, whether that means a documented API, a nightly export or a direct read against the database.
Prophet 21, Infor SX.e and CSD, DDI, NetSuite, Acumatica and Distribution One are the ones we see most often. If yours isn't on that list it's a scoping call, not a no.
02Does it actually sound like a person on the phone?
This is the part worth testing rather than reading about. It responds in well under a second, handles being cut off mid-sentence, and holds the thread when a buyer puts the phone down to go count shelf stock, which is what a real reorder call sounds like.
It answers to your company name, dials from your branded caller ID, and reads prices off your file. Ask us to call your own mobile before you believe any of it.
03Will it step on my outside reps?
Only if you configure it to. Assigned accounts can be excluded entirely, or set so the agent qualifies the account and hands the rep a warm lead instead of taking the order.
In practice the fight rarely happens, because the accounts worth calling are the ones no rep has been to in two years.
04Can it take a real order, not just a message?
Yes. It confirms items against live stock, prices them from that customer's file, applies your cutoff and delivery rules, and writes the order to the ERP with the recording attached.
Anything it can't resolve cleanly (an unfamiliar item, a credit hold, a request for a discount) goes to a CSR with the call already summarised rather than being guessed at.
05How long before it's making calls?
The integration is the long pole and it belongs to us; most distributors are live in two to three weeks.
We usually start with a single campaign: dormant accounts, because it's the easiest to measure. Reorders, backorders and AR follow once you've seen the orders land.
Keep reading
Start with the accounts nobody has called
Pull the list of accounts that haven't ordered in ninety days. Every distributor has one, and nobody enjoys looking at it. We'll build the integration, run that one campaign, and you can count the orders it brings back. The counter line is the next thing over.