The Central American Bottling Corporation (CBC) is a Multi-Latin Beverage company with the most extensive beverage portfolio in the region and exports to more than 35 countries. They were the first PepsiCo bottler outside the US and they have been determined to generate value for customers worldwide through remarkable service, winning new brands, and building great partnerships.
For over 130 years, CBC has been dedicated to being retailer's best solution and a reliable purchase option by building solid relationships and a customer-centric ecosystem; their recently launched "Krezco" program exemplifies this. Through this program, they have created a digital ecosystem that provides corner store owners with access to education and capital to transform their stores into payment hubs that will potentially change the communities they serve.
To fully empower stores, guarantee their growth, and boost their businesses, they have partnered with Yalo. Like CBC, Yalo is committed to helping customer-centric businesses drive revenue and grow their business. Yalo’s conversational commerce solution combines the best of in-person retail relationships with the best of e- commerce, on the platform that retailers prefer.
CBC has found that the technology is essential to reach retailers at scale. However, in the markets where they operate, business owners value relationships but are overwhelmed by multiple supplier channels and visits. In addition, their digital adoption is constrained by a low-end spectrum and data, but WhatsApp is one channel where they are digitally fluent.
Some companies have tried to give me economic incentives to remove personal photos from my phone to make room for their apps. This isn't customer-centric."
CBC Retailer - Guatemala
In just the first 6 months of 2022, CBC used Yalo’s platform–in partnership with Yalo’s implementation partner Yalutec to enable conversational commerce for more than 50,000 stores in Latin America. Their goal is to enroll more than 100,000 stores in the region by the end of the year!
We strongly believe that the future isn't that each CPG company will have their apps on the store owner's phones. We have to take advantage of their digital trends on WhatsApp, where we can capitalize and maximize adoption at the fastest rate to promote digital communication."
Alfredo Castañeda - Digital Transformation Leader, CBC.
A fully integrated, omnichannel journey
To achieve digital transformation for the stores they work with and provide them with the best experience, CBC is betting on an omnichannel strategy.
Their WhatsApp channel–called Pepsichat– is a key piece of this strategy. Pepsichat allows store owners to place orders, receive promotions, and review suggested orders based on their preferences and consumer behavior. It also gives customers access to credit loans, diversify their inventory at their points of sale, and promote their cash flow.
This new WhatsApp channel, built on Yalo’s conversational commerce platform, is fully integrated with CBC’s ERP so that orders are placed directly from the stores in real-time.
Lifting sales and store engagement with customer-centric solutions
CBC was able to execute the Yalo's Playbook for B2B conversational commerce success:
Rapid Store Adoption
The first step CBC was to ensure massive WhatsApp enrollment from retailers. To do this, they gave Pepsichat access to more than 70% of their retailer customer database in Latin America, and provided a first-class customer enrollment experience through 5 main strategies:
They created an interface on Yalo’s platform to view their entire product catalog, seamlessly integrated to WhatsApp, and also to their ERP.
As a result, CBC enrolled 20% of their stores on their new WhatsApp channel in only 5 days!
Store engagement with a unique experience
Like many CPG companies, CBC struggled to get stores to engage on other digital channels such as their web app. These channels were less familiar to retailers and had high friction experiences. There were many steps to complete a purchase. In contrast, they offered a unique experience through their new WhatsApp channel for stores where store owners receive notifications including hard-to-resist offers, combos, and promotions.
As a result, many store owners are incredibly active and place orders twice per week. Roughly 90% of CBC’s active stores are tracking towards this level of usage. Since launching Pepsichat on Yalo’s platform, CBC’s has led to a greater than 80% conversion rate on WhatsApp!
As the majority of retailers own smartphones - around 70% of the Latin American population, forecast to reach 73% by 2025 - the conversational commerce experience is so easy and valuable that store owners are proactively seeking this channel out.
I don't have a smartphone, but I'm going to go and get one because the promotions that CBC is sending are going to make me more money, so the next time you come back I will have a smartphone."
CBC Retailer - Guatemala
Increase sales with personalization
CBC’s third step was to develop personalized and targeted tactics that helped them skyrocket their WhatsApp sales conversion rate through their c-commerce channel. These include:
The CBC distribution network has more than 1 million customers, and it is hugely important for them to understand those customers to keep being successful. This allowed CBC to send the right messages to the right people, at the right time, ensuring deep levels of personalization and the best product offers for their customers.
As a result of this effort, CBC estimates that by the end of 2022 more than 10% of their trade channel sales will be placed through Yalo. They expect that number to keep growing!
Uplevel the sales team
Lastly, CBC optimized their route-to-market by shifting their sales representatives’ roles from “order-takers” to strategic business development.
An average CBC sales representative has to visit upwards of 60 points of sale every day. Weather conditions, transportation challenges, or city traffic are just a few of the reasons that sometimes, they don’t make it.
Yalo’s tools save the CBC salesforce time, and energy, and relieve them of menial tasks, letting them make the most of the few minutes they have with each retailer. Today, CBC relies on Pepsichat -Yalo’s platform- to meet their sales quota.
The right platform, and the right partner
Choosing the right partners to achieve a flawless digital transformation is key to CBC’s success. CBC used Yalo’s platform in partnership with Yalutec, an implementation partner that gave them the opportunity to personalize and customize their experience even further.
By using an implementation partner, CBC is able to continuously update and optimize their experience on Yalo’s platform, and get critical guidance during implementation and adoption.
Expanding to new use cases
Conversational Commerce on Yalo’s platform has been so successful that CBC wants to do more! Today, they are piloting solutions to expand this program to new points of sale, including quick service restaurants that order and serve their beverages.
Congratulations to CBC–we can’t wait to see what the future holds!
