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              CRM Success Stories

 

ACME Truck Line Inc.

ACME Truck Line Selects SageCRM to Drive Its Customer Service Network

ACME Truck Line turned to SageCRM to streamline operational overhead and strengthen customer relationships with outstanding service. Now, ACME Truck Line provides its employees with powerful Web-based access to customer data across 70 distributed offices. It even extends that functionality to the wireless PDA devices used by its sales staff.
 
Founded in 1960, ACME Truck Line Inc. is a flatbed trucking service with a fleet of 1,300 trucks. It handles 4,000 loads weekly, each weighing 50-50,000 pounds. Specializing in short hauls of 100-180 miles within the Gulf Coast states, the company maintains 70 offices throughout the South and wanted to link these offices with Webbased applications and streamline its entire business infrastructure.

“We had been relying on separate LANs in each of our offices to facilitate local operations,” explains Mike Coatney, president of ACME Truck Line, “but were unable to leverage information across offices. As the price of broadband links decreased, however, we realized that we could create a Web-based WAN between all of our offices so that every individual in our company could leverage common data to improve internal operations as well as the customer experience.”

CRM ... and Then Some

To facilitate the company’s operational improvements, Coatney searched for a Webbased CRM solution capable of delivering a consolidated view of customer activities to every staff member involved with clients, including sales staff, dispatchers, and the credit/collections department. In addition, the solution had to support sales force automation tasks; for example, delivering— through a wireless PDA device—critical information used by field sales staff to convert prospects to customers and ensure customer satisfaction.

Coatney also wanted management tools to allow regional sales managers the ability to track and analyze each phase of the field sales effort and share data with national account management staff. In order to accommodate such broad utilization of customer and sales account data, the system needed a robust security capability that would limit “read” and/or “write” access features to specific individuals. Finally, the entire solution had to be easy to use.

“This is a trucking business: we pick up something at point A and bring it to point B,” Coatney says. “There is virtually no consultative selling or complex technical customer support. Our processes are simple and straightforward and we needed a solution that was equally simple.”

SageCRM Meets Every Requirement

After a lengthy market search and detailed proposals from five vendors, ACME Truck Line turned to the only solution that met each of its requirements—SageCRM. “The solution was easy to implement,” Coatney says. “With the help of the Sage Software Professional Services Group, we were up and running and fully integrated with our existing IBM AS /400 back-office applications over the course of a few months.”

ACME Truck Line’s SageCRM solution enhances the all-important client-customer relationship by providing an integrated framework for applying value-added services and support to new and existing customers. Using its new system, the company was able to simplify many of its procedures.,/p>

Once a sales rep meets with a new customer, he completes electronic forms provided by SageCRM on his wireless PDA. In addition to standardized fields such as name, address, and industry, the rep is prompted for information about the potential business opportunity and competing trucking services being used by the prospect. If this form is not completed within a pre-specified interval, the system automatically alerts the sales rep for further action.

All of this data, along with information about subsequent customer activities, is centrally stored in the SageCRM database where it can be leveraged by authorized users. Before a national accounts manager visits a customer, for example, he can obtain up-to-the-minute information about issues that may have occurred at any of the customer’s multiple sites serviced by ACME Truck Line, and can address them directly with the customer.

“We have built our business for more than 40 years by offering the best possible customer service consistent with available technologies,” Coatney says, “and SageCRM is empowering us to continue that commitment. By giving our managers, sales staff, and dispatchers the information they need to address all customer issues, this solution is letting us streamline operational overhead and strengthen customer relationships with outstanding service.”


Asbestway Abatement Corporation

Asbestway Cleans Up Their Customer-facing Processes With SageCRM

Major improvements in customer service, intra-department communication, and day-to-day processes have enabled Asbestway to grow 40-50% in revenues, in the last 12-24 months, without dramatically increasing their workforce.
 
Since 1992, Asbestway Abatement Corporation has provided environmental consulting services, focusing on asbestos removal, lead paint testing, and mold abatement. High quality service earned them a reputation for excellence, so the company was able to thrive for more than twelve years using manual customer relationship management methods.

By 2004, however, Asbestway was beginning to see the signs of having outgrown their manual processes. With only a document management application in place to store key documents, the company struggled to give employees centralized access to customer information, which in turn made it very labor-intensive for them to provide thorough customer service. Also, communication across departments was becoming increasingly difficult because other than the data kept in the document management application, each group maintained separate records. Sharing information meant sending emails, giving verbal updates, or exchanging paper records.

Thanks to a prior relationship with a SageCRM business partner who had helped them implement document management and an accounting application, Asbestway got their first introduction to CRM. According to Mendy Gorodetsky, president of Asbestway, “Within 15 minutes, we were convinced that we needed CRM.”

Working side-by-side with their partner, Asbestway evaluated four leading solutions. Fortunately, the decision-making process was incredibly fast and direct. “SageCRM made everything else go out the window,” said Gorodetsky. “It wasn’t what we wanted; it was what we needed.”

Integrating SageCRM into All Areas of Business

Today, SageCRM sits at the center of Asbestway’s business, along with KnowledgeSync, both of which were expertly implemented by their business partner. The solution not only enables advanced customer relationship management, but also automates critical processes, particularly time-sensitive ones. Now, when Asbestway is working on a project with a city-mandated deadline, key players receive email reminders to meet due dates throughout the project. Similarly, if salespeople don’t receive a response to a proposal within a predetermined period, they receive email instructions to follow-up with the account.

Asbestway takes advantage of SageCRM in every functional area of business. For example, when a new contract closes, a member of the sales staff scans or downloads the information directly into SageCRM, which then sends automated emails to the job-scheduling staff. Once scheduled, an Asbestway technician receives the job order, which was printed out of SageCRM. On-site, the technician scans the job order’s barcode to transmit a date and time stamp back into SageCRM.

It’s a full-circle solution that enables management to track every aspect of every project, even field work. End-users also appreciate the conveniences that SageCRM affords. Gorodetsky explained, “At first, they were skeptical of using a software solution, but now they’re giving praises. It makes everyone’s job easier because they’re not chasing paper. Everything is right in front of them on their desktops.”

Experiencing Immediate and Long-term Benefits

Since the implementation, Asbestway’s customer service has dramatically improved because representatives can access any account in SageCRM and provide to-the-minute status on projects. Previously, the rep would have had to search through filing cabinets to piece together an answer for a customer.

Asbestway leveraged SageCRM reporting to further improve customer service. Some clients require weekly or even daily job-status reports, often in a format particular to that customer. Asbestway’s staff used to manually create each report. Now, SageCRM automatically generates the reports according to the customer’s specific requirements. The time savings from this activity alone has rippled through the organization, enabling employees to focus on customer interaction, instead of laboriously compiling data.

The solution has also helped to expedite payment collection. Now, when an invoice is processed, the Accounting system sends an automated notice into SageCRM. If the status of that invoice doesn’t change from outstanding to paid within the appropriate timeframe, the sales person for that account receives an alert to contact the customer.

With one centralized SageCRM database, Asbestway has resolved their intra-department communication challenges. Teams can easily access shared information, each contributing to their particular area. Projects flow from sale to invoice with fewer incidents—internal and external.

All of Asbestway’s achievements with SageCRM have enabled the company to grow 40-50% in revenues, in the last 12-24 months, without dramatically increasing their workforce. “We’re able to hire less, even though we’re doing more business because of SageCRM,” said Gorodetsky.

Asbestway plans to generate additional benefits going forward by adding five more SageCRM licenses and implementing SageCRM Web Self Service to give customers online access to project status and other related information.

 


Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Rochester

SageCRM.com – Helping Create Lifetime Relationships at Big Brothers Big Sisters

The Big Brothers Big Sisters organization is one of the nation’s most respected charities. The Greater Rochester affiliate helps children in eight counties find a nurturing mentor and reach their potential through one-to-one, professionally supported relationships. SageCRM.com is the tool the organization uses to support this mission.
 
The Big Brothers Big Sisters organization is one of the nation’s most respected charities. The Greater Rochester affiliate helps children in eight counties find a nurturing mentor and reach their potential through one-to-one, professionally supported relationships. SageCRM.com is the tool the organization uses to support this mission.

It’s All About Relationships

In 2004, the organization’s growth showed signs of slowing. Donations were flat and volunteerism was down. Jeffrey Newland joined Big Brothers Big Sisters about that time as the new executive director. He spent most of the first year studying the organization’s business model and looking for avenues of improvement. What the organization obviously lacked was a cohesive method of tracking individuals involved with the charity. Newland believed that the organization’s fractured data often led to fractured relationships. “What came through loud and clear is that our greatest successes come from the relationships we develop. Increasing donor satisfaction and creating donors for life had to be our priority.”

So, the answer was a strong, cohesive customer relationship management (CRM) solution that would allow Big Brothers Big Sisters to nurture and develop those relationships.

SageCRM.com Fits Right In

Newland began by looking only at solutions targeting the nonprofit sector, but couldn’t find a suitable solution. After widening his selection criteria to include CRM products generally considered for commercial enterprises, one captured Newland’s attention—SageCRM.com. Watching an online demo started the wheels turning, “We have customers: those we serve, and those who donate their time and money. We have products: opportunities and events to donate that time and money.” SageCRM.com would be the perfect fit for Big Brothers Big Sisters.

With employees scattered throughout the Greater Rochester area, the ability to access the software using the Internet is crucial. In addition, the cost structure of SageCRM.com is attractive to the organization. With a fixed monthly cost, budgeting is simplified. Additionally, a hosted system, such as SageCRM.com, eliminates the IT overhead and expense required to maintain, support, secure, and upgrade a locally installed system. “With SageCRM.com, we started out $5,000 ahead of any other system, and keep saving each month,” says Newland.

Cohesive Database

Once Big Brothers Big Sisters imported its data into SageCRM.com, the staff was surprised that it had more than 6,000 names. For the first time the organization had all donors, volunteers, clients, and opportunities in one easy-to-access location.

Big Brothers Big Sisters uses the SageCRM.com Customer Service module to track its matches between adult and child. “Companies probably use it to track a customer complaint, but we use it to track who’s a big, who’s a little, who’s the parent, what’s the school, and what the outcomes are. It’s ideal!” Information once stored in disparate databases or even on handwritten lists is now quickly and easily available to staff members. “It completely brought our two worlds of fundraising and service delivery together. We have one place where we can see all of our constituents and the opportunities associated with them—plus all the details of our match relationships,” explains Newland.

Creating Relationships For Life

One capability of SageCRM.com that Newland is most excited about is the ability to show donors the overall impact they’ve had on the organization. By assigning an “Outreach Code” to each volunteer or donor, Big Brothers Big Sisters can track not only the monetary contributions that an individual has made, but can also associate other contributors and volunteers that this individual has introduced to the organization. “We’re able to track the legacy of each of our constituents and literally show them how many matches and how much money resulted from their involvement,” explains Newland. “This is a crucial part of building donors for life. The satisfaction an individual gets by seeing the overall impact they have is immeasurable.”

Empowering Staff

Newland says that SageCRM.com empowers his relatively small staff to reach a large number of constituents. By setting up automated reminders, the staff is prompted to initiate new communication and be proactive in their follow up. Every activity is tracked and the results are captured. The organization is now setting bigger goals, and the entire staff has a confidence that they can reach those goals. “SageCRM.com has been a unifying factor for this organization. Not only has it produced measurable results, it also boosts the morale and satisfaction of our staff. They are able to do their jobs better and make a difference. It was like pulling out the hamster on the treadmill and putting in a HEMI®!”

 

 

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