CRM support and interface expertise for all business units

WILKA Schließtechnik GmbH:

• Lock mounting and fitting industry

SMARTCRM at WILKA:

• CRM introduction
• Connection to proALPHA ERP
• Interface to Inxmail
• Deployed in sales and distribution, marketing and service
• 63 licenses

Requirements and project goals:

• Central information pool for all customer-related data
• Standard interfaces to proALPHA ERP and to the e-mail marketing solution Inxmail
• Connection to a QA software
• Mapping of the different requirements per business unit
• Bundling all participants as well as communication within a project
• Improved field integration
• Support for marketing campaigns

From now on, WILKA Schließtechnik GmbH will rely on our CRM solution for field and office sales, as well as in service and marketing. The family-owned company based in Velbert, Germany, has been producing and selling locking technology solutions for more than 150 years.

WILKA made the decision to introduce a CRM system because the requirements of the sales department could no longer be met with the previous processes. Thus, information was mainly managed in Microsoft Excel lists and local Microsoft Outlook accounts. In addition, the sales force had no direct access to the data stored in the ERP system proALPHA. A central system with all customer-related information that could be viewed by all employees was missing. This will change with SMARTCRM.

At WILKA, sales is divided into three business units: the support for specialist retailers and industrial customers as well as the support and consulting for retailers in the context of large-scale and customer projects. Each of these business areas has specific requirements for the CRM system. These can all be mapped by SMARTCRM, which scored us points in the CRM decision. Our interface know-how and the standard connection to proALPHA were also convincing.

As of now, customers, contact persons, products, sales items, incoming order items and open items will be transferred from proALPHA to the CRM system via the preconfigured standard interface. SMARTCRM evaluates the figures in a wide range of BI analyses and makes them available at the push of a button. Year-on-year comparisons and current developments can thus be viewed at any time and enable targeted sales work. The all-round view is supplemented by the complete activity history. For a complete overview of who has discussed what with whom, e-mails from Microsoft Outlook are automatically imported into the CRM system via Microsoft Exchange.

Calling up the communication history is possible for WILKA on both a customer and project basis. This is because the company will also manage its project business in SMARTCRM. The big advantage: in the context of a large-scale project, numerous contact persons are involved, such as retailers, planners and architects. These participants and their entire communication are bundled in the electronic project file and thus remain traceable at all times.

In the future, WILKA would also like to use quotation writing in our CRM solution. With the help of the Microsoft Office connection already integrated in the standard, stored templates and illustrated article text modules, quotations can be created, documented and sent immediately in a convenient and time-saving manner. SMARTCRM ensures optimal quotation follow-up with the help of reminders, forecast evaluations and overviews of due quotations.

SMARTCRM also optimizes field service integration. This is because all important customer information is available to employees in the home office or on the road via offline access on their notebooks or via online access on their smartphones.  This means that information no longer has to be requested from the office staff. A comprehensive visit preparation or a look into the CRM system during a customer visit will be just as possible in the future as the subsequent – also voice-controlled – recording of visit reports. In addition, SMARTCRM will support the sales force in route planning. By means of the area search, other surrounding customers or prospective customers can be determined before a visit and transferred to Bing Maps for visualization and route planning.

In marketing, freely definable characteristics for addresses and contact persons as well as extensive filter options ensure the selection of the appropriate target group – for example, as part of a marketing campaign for architects and planners. For the personalized and privacy-compliant dispatch of mailings, the connection of SMARTCRM to the e-mail marketing tool Inxmail is planned – easy thanks to our standard interface.

In service, WILKA intends to set up quality assurance software. This will also be linked to SMARTCRM so that sales staff are also informed about complaints at all times.