If you’re a New Zealand exporter with dealers in more than 20 far-flung overseas countries, how do you make sure they’re following up sales leads? In more flush financial times, you might pay a flying visit to test their grasp of Business 101: that winning new customers involves attending promptly to enquiries.

But these aren’t flush times. And, with growing awareness about limiting our carbon footprint, more people are thinking twice before jumping into aeroplanes quick smart.

That leaves the phone or email as the obvious ways of keeping tabs on a distant sales force. But David McKee Wright, chief executive of Auckland boat-builder Sealegs, doesn’t like to breathe down the neck of his staff, so he didn’t feel these tools were the answer.

“I hate asking, ‘Have you done this; have you done that.’

You feel as though you’re constantly checking up on people, as though you don’t trust them,” says McKee Wright.

Enquiries ‘not attended to’
Yet the company, whose unique boats feature retractable wheels that allow them to travel on land, had a problem. Its website, www.sealegs.com, was receiving enquiries from all over the world, but many enquiries weren’t being responded to.

“I knew some of our dealers weren’t following up the leads coming to us,” McKee Wright says, “although I couldn’t actually prove it.”

The solution Sealegs has found is SugarCRM, a web-based open-source package from Auckland-based company, TEIQ.

It is used specifically to allocate web enquiries to the relevant overseas dealer, so allowing McKee Wright to check on what follow-up action is taken.

“Prior to using Sugar, we would send internet enquiries to one of our sales agents or dealers and hope that they would do something about it.

“By saying all our dealers must use Sugar, I can log on and see whether they’re replying in 24 hours or 48 hours, I can see the form of the communication — make sure it’s corporate and professional, and our brand and product is being represented properly, and that our dealers aren’t overstating their capability.”

“It means, from way down at the bottom of the world, in New Zealand, I can see what people are up to.”

McKee Wright, who before Sealegs ran accounting software company Exo-net, set out to find a web-based, open-source solution. It needed to be accessible via the web, so dealers could log in from anywhere, and he wanted an open source package, so it could be customised to his business.

“I think of businesses as like people — they’re unique, they all do things slightly differently. You can’t grab a shrink-wrapped piece of software and make it work exactly the way you want it to.”

“But, with open source, you can take 80 percent of the code and change the remaining 20 percent to suit your requirements.”

TEIQ’s expertise gave him confidence Sugar could be moulded to fit Sealegs. And, in fact, it took minimal effort to shape it to the company’s needs.

“It was very simple and remarkably cost-effective to get up and going for my business. Having been in the software realm before, I thought it was a well written, easy to use program.

“We’re probably using about 20 percent of Sugar’s functionality, but I would be very surprised to find anyone who uses 100 percent of it, because it’s a very broad-based product and people pick up the segment they need that suits them.”

McKee Wright says Sugar is giving him oversight of what dealers are up to and confidence that the company’s communications are of a high standard, without him having to nag.

“Sugar only has to allow me to follow up two leads that I wouldn’t have followed up last year and I’ve made NZ$200,000,” he says.

FOR MORE INFORMATION//

TEIQ CRM
www.teiq.co.nz
James Beamish-White
P: 09 527 0260
www.sugarcrm.com







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