Explore Planograms, Promotions, Orders, and Surveys

Dorothea has set up the stores and products, and related them to each other. Before she proceeds further, she wants to know what other aspects of the business are critical to Alpine Group’s growth.

After running through the company’s reports and meeting with some executives, here’s what she finds out.

• Planograms: Sales managers at Alpine Group use planograms to keep close track of how products are placed and arranged at the primary display locations such as refrigerators and shelves.
• Promotions: For increased sales at stores and to establish closer relationships with customers and channel partners, Alpine Group runs promotions at the NTO stores.
• Orders: Field reps capture orders for products when they visit NTO stores so that the right products are always available on the right shelves.
• Surveys: Alpine Group collects insights on their business and customer satisfaction and conducts surveys with store managers and buyers.

The data model supports all these use cases for Alpine Group, so it’s time for Dorothea to get busy.

A planogram is a visual merchandising mechanism. It shows exactly where specific products are placed. To attract customers, it’s critical for Alpine Group to maintain a good share of its products on the main displays in the NTO stores. The visual appeal of a well-stocked shelf is hard to beat!

Alpine Group puts a lot of effort in keeping the shelf displays updated and well-stocked with energy bars and superfoods and having adequate product facings (number of products and their orientation on the shelf).

Alpine Group also tracks the following three key metrics for planogram compliance in the primary aisles where its most popular brands are placed.

• Share of shelf for the Alpine Group products
• Count of product facings at eye-level and competitor facings on each shelf
• Missing products or misplaced products on the shelves

You upload your planogram image to the Image object. You can also list your planogram specifications by saving the specification document to the Files object and referencing it from the Image object.

Here is Dorothea’s planogram data model. 

Dorothea is in luck! The In-Store Location object refers to the Image object foreign key, which makes the relationship easy. So for instance, the in-store location Shelf has a foreign key to the planogram Image object. The actual image of the shelf that the sales rep takes during the visit is called a realogram. Both the realogram and planogram records get stored in the Image object.

Alpine Group's promotional strategies drive business, brand loyalty, and product awareness. Alpine creates unique promotions for specific products, product categories, or a range of products. Field reps discuss promotional offers with store managers and upsell products so that stores place Alpine Group’s products on their shelves.

When reviewing the data model Dorothea has two primary considerations for promotions.

• Level: While some promotions are product-specific, such as a launch of a new product, some are for a whole product category. Alpine Group also offers stores a free refrigerator installation as part of a non-product promotion.
• Reach: Alpine Group runs multiple promotions at any given time. While some promotions drive sales at the account-level, some are targeted for specific store groups where Alpine Group has experienced a slump in revenue. The promotions can also be for all stores supplied by a particular wholesaler, or all stores in a particular geographical area. Alpine also runs promotions at the store-level once in a while. The reach of a promotion is defined through the Promotion Channel object. A promotion record is associated with a store, store group, or account record.

Dorothea creates a Promotion record for the free refrigerator installation promotion and reviews the information.

This promotion record is not tied to a product or product category. So the Level is None. The other applicable values are Product and Category.

• If you define the level as Product, the relationship of a promotion and its related products is defined and stored in the Promotion Product object.
• If you define the level as Category, the relationship of a promotion and its related categories is defined and stored in the Promotion Product Category object.

YetiBar Launch Promotion

Now let’s look at a product-specific promotion. Alpine Group recently launched a new product called the Alpine YetiBar and has a product launch promotion running across all its retail stores. The name of the promotion is Alpine Product–Launch YetiBar. As part of this promotion effort, Alpine Group places a few product display units on a fancy secondary display near the checkout counters. Alpine Group also places banners with details of the discount above the stand to grab customers’ attention.

The key objects in the data model for this promotion are:

Standard objects:

• Account: NTO
• Category: Energy bars
• Notes and Attachments: Image of banner and display
• Product2

Consumer Goods objects:

• Retail Store Groups: NTO Miscellaneous Stores
• Retail Store: For example, NTO Ferry Plaza Market
• Promotion: Launch of new product
• Promotion Channel
• In-Store Location: Checkout Counter

Consumer Goods Junction objects:

• Promotion Product: Alpine YetiBar
• Assessment Task Content Document: This object stores the notes and pictures that a field rep takes during a visit while performing a promotion check task.

Here’s how Dorothea can define this promotion at a granular level. 

Remember the In-Store Location Category? Dorothea already created a category for checkout counters for both the store groups. She can simply associate the Checkout Counters in-store location category to the Alpine Product–Launch YetiBar record through the Promotion Channel object. She can also add a picture of the banner to the Notes and Attachments object. This provides better context to field reps visiting the stores. The field rep can see exactly where the display must be placed, what the banner should look like, and other details related to the offer.

Alpine Group maintains a good share of shelf at the NTO stores and ensures that products are replenished regularly. When a field rep upsells a product to a retail store and the store manager agrees to place the product in the store, it’s time to capture an order!

Dorothea looks at the various objects related to orders and how they fit in with other objects.

There are a few objects tied to order capture that Dorothea reviews.

• Order: When a field rep places an order during a store visit, a new order record is created in the Order object. Orders can be tracked through a contract, agreement, or independently at the account-level.
• Order Product: A field rep can place a single order for multiple products. Each Product2 ID is mapped to the Order ID through the Order Product object.
• Price Book: A price book is a list of products and their associated prices. Each Order Product is associated with a price book. Alpine Group uses separate price books for each account.
• Retail Store: While orders are managed at the account level, orders can also be tracked at the store level if field reps capture orders during visits. Field reps have visibility into orders from previous visits for a retail store and it allows them to reorder the same list of products.

This is Dorothea's orders data model. 

Alpine Group puts a high priority on gathering feedback from customers and store managers. This helps the company analyze how products are performing and see any areas that need improvement.

Alpine Group gathers feedback in two ways.

• A standard set of questions that reps ask store managers on each store visit
• A specific survey about some new promotions that are going on

Salesforce Surveys integration makes it easy for Alpine Group to do this. Dorothea can link the Survey Invitation object to the Visit, Contact, or Retail Store object through the Survey Subject object.