Vigilant provides invoicing, inventory and financial control and marketing information for management and growth decisions of Bobbie's Passport to Fashion

by Andy Shaw

Once upon a time, Bobbie Riley was computer illiterate. That is, until Vigilant Point of Sale became her #1 marketing tool. With Vigilant's features, she could now carry out all the store's promotions with ease. "We now have over 5,000 people in our customer database on Vigilant," she explains. "And we are constantly using it to target customers for our sales and promotions."

Among its over 10,000 users, Vigilant has established itself with a reputation of rock solid performance and user friendly qualities. This is what led Bobbie Riley and her husband to open their doors in September 1996 with Vigilant installed. This is exactly how Bobbie's Passport to Fashion began in Kelowna, British Columbia.

"I remember making our very first sale and how nervous I was," recalls Bobbie. "I had never touched a computer before and neither had my husband. So we had the instruction book right there at the cash with us so we could figure out what to do next." She attests that she is eternally grateful for the moral and technical support she received from Vigilant from the beginning. "At first I was on the phone to them almost everyday it seemed. They must have thought I was a complete know-nothing but yet they were always very patient and helpful."

Bobbie recently added a bridal store to the empire and naturally, she decided to start off with Vigilant once more. What's more, is she still receives this supportive response from Vigilant. But even with the new company, Bobbie's need for technical assistance has been reduced to just one or two calls a year. She credits the user-friendly qualities of the program. "It's very simple to use," admits Bobbie, "And I find it very easy to instruct staff how to use Vigilant, even if they know anything at all about computers."

While Bobbie may have suffered through a steep learning curve of the computer itself, her grasp of Vigilant's potential for marketing was instant. Granted, she was already familiar with the business of selling ladies apparel. Before owning these clothing companies, she was working as a manufacturer's agent in Winnipeg, Manitoba, selling clothing to retail stores. When traveling began to take its toll, she and her husband opted for warmer weather in British Columbia. There, they began to make their clothing expertise profitable.

"And what attracted me to Vigilant was the price for what it offered," Bobbie recalls. "I had seen some of my customers spend $50,000 on a system that they ended up shelving. But one was using Vigilant and it wasn't very expensive and it seemed to work very well."

"What I like about it best is how we can use it for marketing. For instance, we do a personalized newsletter to all of our customers that tells them about new arrivals in the store and what's going to be on sale and include a coupon," she explains. "I can pull the information I need to select the best customers and make mailing labels right from the system.

But that's not where it ends. "Also, I love it because if I want to put on a promotion for one of our particular lines of suits, say, I can go into the computer and draw up a list of customers who have bought that line in the past. We can then run a special promotion to thank them for their business and give them a week advance notice of an upcoming sale. We do this kind of thing all the time." Bobbie also asserts that Vigilant's ability to produce objective numbers is crucial to keeping the business on track. "It's one thing to eyeball the sales racks to see how we're doing, but to actually see how much we're selling in black and white, that's quite an eye opener. We might think we've been selling a lot of jewelry, for instance, but when at the end of the month Vigilant tells us that we sold $1500 in jewelry but also sold $15,000 in golf wear, it helps us make better decisions."

In just a short time, she has come to know business automation. With Vigilant, she can control many aspects of her stores and handle many processes. No longer can Bobbie Riley be counted among the computer illiterate.