Aloette Cosmetics (www.aloette.com) is a very successful cosmetics business that franchises its party plan business model. With nearly 60 franchises operating in the U.S. and Canada, creating a global software solution was a challenge that no other direct sales software provider has ever accomplished. In fact, on two prior occasions Aloette attempted to create a unified software system for its entire franchise organization, but each attempt failed.

In 2004, after a year of careful research and evaluation of the leading software providers in the direct sales market, Aloette chose Brookline to help them create the software system their franchises and Beauty Consultants anxiously needed. The result was a web based enterprise system that supports all of Aloette’s franchise organizations on a single application and database hosted at Brookline’s datacenter. Additionally, the system was flexible enough to meet the unique needs of individual franchises and was localized for franchises residing in different countries.

The management, administrators, and Beauty Consultants of each franchise log in to this system using a unique franchise login. The system allows franchise management to monitor and manage their organization and conduct business transactions; and it allows their Beauty Consultants to view their volumes and commissions, downline organization and statistics; register new customers and Beauty Consultants; and place active as well as pending orders.

Using the Microsoft Solution Framework methodology, Brookline helped Aloette achieve a very successful software implementation for all of its franchises, Beauty Consultants, and their customers.

Of his experience with Brookline, Bob Roche, Director of Franchise Operations, had this to say:

“Brookline Technologies has been a dream come true. After a year of long intensive search, we chose Brookline Technologies to bring us into the 21st century. We had multiple challenges between being a franchised business requiring several individual systems to being multi-lingual which requires English and French applications. Much to our delight, Brookline has been on time and on budget!

Brookline's ability to ask the right questions and get a full understanding of our business has been invaluable. It alone has been a huge time saver as the bulk of the application was correct, to our business rules, the first time around. The service from the entire Brookline team, especially from our account manager, has been extraordinary. With everything they have to manage they make you feel like you are their only customer, and they are there just for you. We are excited about having a long term relationship with Brookline. They are as excited about our vision of our future as we are!”

Doug Struve, a successful franchise owner, offered these comments:

“After working with the current Aloette system for 10 years, I am very excited about what Brookline has developed for the Franchises as well as our Beauty Consultants. The experience Brookline has acquired by working with other Direct Sales companies I believe has played a big part in the knowledge they have brought to our development. The one on one relationship I have developed with our account manager is one that I have never had with any other company. To me this is the heart and soul of making a business successful. I know the transition to this new system for our Consultants will be very easy. I believe the Team at Brookline has done an excellent job on developing this system, for each Aloette Franchise do things a little bit differently. They have been able to work thru all of those items and make a wonderful operating system. Thanks again for a great experience!”