Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Case Study

Business Challenges: 1.Current Sales Opportunity Tracking System did not provide enough actionable information for manufacturing demand forecasting, due to; a)Limited use and adoption by field sales representatives b)Poor information accuracy 2.End User and Channel Partner data was not useful for direct marketing campaigns, or for providing a 360 degree view of the customer experience. 3.Service center contacts with customers where managed on a disparate system with no visibility to Field Sales Representatives. 4.Sales Rep ramp-up time in selling process effectiveness was running months, due to process and technology complexity, thus impacting field sales turnover. 5.Current technology platform was Lotus Notes with a software supplier who provided limited functional improvements or enhancements. 6.Company experienced a failed attempt to deploy CRM solution 12 months earlier under executive sales management leadership.

Approach: 1.Established a cross-functional project team. 2.Surveyed and interviewed field and inside sales representatives, district sales managers, regional sales vice presidents, customer service managers, and customer service agents to understand their needs for managing their sales pipeline and customer relationships. 3.Developed a current state and future state process map and information data flow models. 4.Defined user information system access requirements (mobility, off-line, and tethered). 5.Developed project ROI and gained executive approval. 6.Reviewed current CRM software technologies and providers. Developed and deployed an RFI and RFP process to 3 selected vendors and performed software selection. 7.Conducted a test pilot with sub-set of user population. 8.Implementation strategy provided for a phased roll-out through internal corporate departments and then through field sales districts, conducting user surveys after each group implementation documenting “lessons learned” to be leveraged w/ each subsequent group.

Results: 1.Implemented an integrated CRM SaaS application across customer service, inside sales, and field sales for 300+ users in a 12 month timeframe, while meeting a <1 year payback on the $500,000+ investment. 2.“Use Rate” or adoption by field sales increased to 83% from less than 35% with previous application. (based on accounts, contacts, and opportunities added or updated per week.) 3.Established key performance metrics for field sales beyond traditional Incoming Orders, Shipped Orders, and % to Goal metrics. These new metrics provided the basis for sales management to begin to measure the “effectiveness” of each sales representative. 4.Integrated Customer Account Masters, Project Quotations, Customer Sales History, and MS Outlook systems with the CRM application. This provided detail product forecasting data for manufacturing, and improved visibility of the “customer experience”. a)These integrations where enabled through the deployment of a “cloud based” data integration appliance. 5.This project eliminated 3 other disparate information technology systems.