Zenith for food and beverage distribution
When will my order arrive? The ERP already knows.
A distributor's phone is restaurant buyers and store managers asking about today's delivery, a short-shipped case or last month's invoice. Every answer sits in the ERP. Zenith reads it, answers on the call, and sends substitutions, credits and pricing questions to the rep who owns the account.
The calls
Calls from buyers who need an answer before service.
| Call | What Zenith does | Your team |
|---|---|---|
| When is my delivery | Reads the open order, the route and the ship date | Nothing, unless the truck is late |
| Short-shipped or wrong item | Takes the order, lines and quantities and logs it | Customer service decides the credit |
| Can I add to tomorrow's order | Checks the order cutoff you set and passes the change on | Order desk enters it, or Zenith does if you allow |
| A question on an invoice | Reads the invoice, its lines and the balance | AR answers anything disputed |
| Wants to see a rep | Books a sales visit on the rep's calendar | The rep sees the visit and the account |
| New account inquiry | Asks your qualifying questions and books a call | Sales picks up the thread |
Account context
The account, not just the caller.
A buyer calls on behalf of a customer account. Zenith shows the account as the ERP holds it.
Open orders and ship dates
What is on order, and when it leaves the warehouse.
Last invoice
Its date, its total and whether it is paid.
Balance and terms
What is open and the terms the account is on.
Account rep
Who owns the account, so a transfer reaches the right person.
Open quote
Pricing in progress for a new item or a new location.
Last conversation
The last call, text or email, from anyone on your team.
Systems
Read from the ERP your warehouse runs on.
SAP Business One
Customers, open orders and ship dates, invoices and balances.
NetSuite
Customers, sales orders, fulfillments, invoices and balances.
HubSpot
Contacts, companies and deals for the sales side, with calls and notes written back.
Google Calendar
Reps' calendars for sales visits and tastings.
On its own, and where it stops
Zenith handles the routine. Your people handle the rest.
Zenith answers delivery, order and invoice questions from the ERP and books sales visits on its own. Credits for short shipments, substitutions, pricing and disputed invoices go to the person who owns them.
Zenith answers, routes, books and handles routine questions on its own. Refunds, discounts, complaints, low reviews and campaigns wait for a person, and anyone on your team can take over a conversation at any time.
Your dataThe voice model carries the spoken conversation and nothing else. Your customer records stay in your own database, read only by your own agents.
Start here, keep the foundation
Start with one function. Add the rest without starting over.
Distributors usually start with the order and delivery calls, because they arrive in a rush before service and every answer is already in the ERP. Once customers, orders and invoices are connected, the same records serve the reps' sales visits and bringing back accounts whose orders have slowed.
FAQ
Questions, answered plainly.
Can Zenith take an order over the phone?
It can take an addition or a change and pass it to your order desk with every line. Writing orders straight into the ERP is something you can turn on once the mapping has been checked, and it respects the cutoffs you set.
Will it tell a buyer their balance?
Only after the caller is matched to the account and verified. By default, balance and invoice questions show the figures to your team, and Zenith reads them out only if you allow it.
Who decides a credit for a short shipment?
Your team. Zenith logs what was short, against which order and lines, so customer service can decide without calling back to ask.
Which ERPs does it work with?
SAP Business One and NetSuite, connected to your own company database. The connection is set up and checked against your own customers and orders before calls go live.
How is this different from Ferrata's order agent?
Ferrata's Swift turns purchase orders into sales orders. Zenith answers the people calling about those orders. They read the same records, so a buyer's call and their order sit side by side.
Does it know our delivery routes?
It knows what the ERP holds: ship dates, the route or delivery day on the order, and fulfillment status. If you track trucks in another system, that can be connected as well.
Related in Zenith
- SAP Business OneBusiness partners, open orders, deliveries and A/R balances from SAP Business One.View
- NetSuiteCustomers, open orders, ship dates, invoices and balances from NetSuite.View
- Caller contextThe caller's orders, bookings, balance and last conversation on screen before hello.View
- Call routingEvery call sent by the line dialed, the time, who is calling and why.View
- Customer reactivationLapsed customers found in your POS or ERP, with offers drafted for a person to approve.View
From Ferrata Labs
- Ferrata in food and beverageRestaurants, distribution and procurement.
- Swift, the order agentTurns customer purchase orders into clean sales orders.
- The platformThe Brain: retrieval, models and audit inside your own environment.
- Book a discovery callThirty minutes on one workflow, and an honest answer on where to start.
Start with Zenith, or talk it through first.
Thirty minutes with Ferrata Labs on how calls and messages reach you today. You leave with a view of where Zenith fits, and an honest answer if something else should come first.
Your menu, your policies, your routing and the way you talk to customers are yours. Zenith is configured to them. You are not fitting your front desk into a template.