As with a lot of companies, particularly small and start-up organisations, it seemed easy to manage the customer information challenge with software already available, such as Excel and Access. These options may have suited in the initial stage, but as the company expanded its customer base it quickly became evident that neither would be a practical long-term solution.

Textilia At Work – Instye was using an Excel Spreadsheet to store customer information. This method had a number of problems. For a start, only one person could update, add or delete information at a time. If someone else was using the spreadsheet, staff could open a read-only version where no changes could be saved without creating a new document, or would have to wait for the other user to close before making their changes. Plus, there was a chance that updates could be lost by people with limited Excel experience.

Furthermore, with spreadsheets there is no means for sales reps to have the most accurate and up-to-date information when out on the road. This information, which has been gathered throughout the customer relationship, is some of the most valuable information when building a connection, face-to-face, with a customer. Not having real-time details at hand can hold sales reps, and the company, back from success.

In addition, with spreadsheets it is difficult to store all information for a customer – such as notes, appointments, phone calls and emails. This means that you cannot search through the details to find relevant information on past communications.

In today’s online environment, a lot of communication is performed via email. As with many companies, Textilia was using personal Outlook folders to store this information.

Having it stored on a personal folder not only weighs down Outlook with the number and size of files, but also creates a risk of losing all that data if something should go wrong.

Bringing the team together
After looking into possible solutions to improve customer management, Textilia settled on Maximizer CRM.

“We are really pleased with the solution” says Mary-Jane Copeland, general manager, Textilia At Work – Instyle.  “It has kept us running efficiently and enabled us to keep all staff up-to-date with shared information such as calendars, notes and emails.”

Textilia is currently utilising both the MaxExchange remote and MaxMobile for Blackberry. “All our staff are kept up to date…whether in our office or out on the road” adds Mary-Jane “This has meant that all the valuable information that we had been storing away is now out there being used. Our sales reps on the road now know everything possible about the customer, last visit, order, any points to follow up from the last meeting. This information has kept us ahead and is assisting in retaining customers and gaining new sales opportunities. We are making that information work for both ourselves and our customers.”

Visible Benefits
Some of the key benefits from the implementation of Maximizer have been:

• Storage of contacts and related communication is in one central repository allowing all employees to easily access the details.
  
• In-built calendar and email functionality helped Textilia in making a customer’s communication transparent across the organisation without having to explicitly share material.
  
• Provided mobility choices such as offline accessibility of information (using MaxExchange remote) and accessibility of information through BlackBerry smart phones. These devices have provided on the road Reps with easy access to customer details.
  
• Textilia can rely on the data as Maximizer stores an audit trail of all updated information - when and by whom it was update.
  
• Minimised accidental loss of data.
  
• Simultaneous updating of information.

Going forward
Mary-Jane is looking forward to having the whole team at Textilia up and running with Maximizer with the future benefits coming into realisation.

“We are working on getting the most from our investment in Maximizer, with more staff getting up-to-spend and learning new processes to ensure the effectiveness of our sales process. We are enjoying the predictability Maximizer brings to the sales process and the immediate visibility of opportunities and leads.”

FOR MORE INFO//

FUSION 5
www.fusion5.co.nz

Sven Martin
P: 09 379 0525
F: 09 379 0523
sven.martin@fusion5.co.nz 









11/12/01_ex