Since 2017, the ALUJET employees of the sales, marketing and service departments have been working with SMARTCRM. The company decided to implement a CRM system in order to put an end to the local recording of customer-related information and instead to maintain all important information centrally. Another goal was to improve the connection of the field service. To get a complete customer picture, they should also be able to access the up-to-date data on the go and to easily communicate with the back office. In addition, ALUJET relies on the CRM system for tours planning and expense reports.
Requirements
- Mobile CRM
- Interface to Microsoft Dynamics NAV
- Up-to-date sales analyses
In the CRM selection process, key in ALUJET’s decision was SMARTCRM‘s ability to provide all customer-related data quickly and easily. The CRM solution scores with intuitive usability, user-friendly surface as well as its modular design which allowed the company to only purchase the needed modules.
Project goals
- Central, transparent management of customer information
- Optimized field connection
- End-to-end tracking of quotations and sample consignments
- Documentation and analysis of tickets
ERP connection to Microsoft Dynamics NAV
Moreover, SMARTCRM scored with the interface to Microsoft Dynamics NAV which was adapted to ALUJET’s requirements with low configuration effort. The CRM system imports addresses, product master data, quotations as well as turnovers, order backlogs, open items and orders of purchasing via the connection. The contact persons deposited in SMARTCRM can be transferred to the ERP solution at the press of a button.
Diverse analyses at your fingertips
The connection of SMARTCRM to the ERP system guarantees a targeted sales work. Before the CRM implementation, the field employees had no access to the ERP Microsoft Dynamics NAV and therefore no access to the current turnovers, order backlogs, etc. These were just consultable over Excel spreadsheets. Today, every employee can call current analyses in SMARTCRM at any time – per drill-down on different levels like the whole company, customer, product groups or product. If several customers belong to the same association, ALUJET can consider their analyses both individually and cumulatively.
Extensive sales support
SMARTCRM enables ALUJET to significantly transparently manage customer information as well as to considerably improve internal communication. Even customer care was simplified, since the employees can provide their customers better and faster support just by having a look in the CRM customer file with the complete activity history. Thus, the sales staff can track the sample consignments or to address the customers having a pending offer. These are indeed automatically imported from the ERP system.
The dispatch of technical sheets and other product-related documentations was clearly simplify as well, since they are selected directly in SMARTCRM and sent per e-mail to each contact person.
The sales employees have therefore a full overview of the customer activities.
CRM always with you even on the go
The field employees can conveniently plan their visits and can access a fast and comprehensive visit preparation. For instance, the suitable customers are thus determined by the area search and visualized for route planning in Bing Maps. Then, appointments for the sales itinerary are automatically created as well as the activities for later documentation of the tour. Given that SMARTCRM is accessible either online per app or offline per notebook, the employees can document the customer visit directly afterwards. Predefined values for the reason of the visit for example or conversation guidelines, available as text modules, help to considerably reduce the costs.
The recording of the expense reports in SMARTCRM is equally convenient for the field employees.
Uncovering and using service potentials
Moreover, the service department relies on SMARTCRM. All phases of the ticket or complaint processing as well as the necessary corrective measures are created in the CRM solution. Links to the construction projects and contact persons guarantee the full overview. The information remains traceable and exploitable. This enables ALUJET to identify possible material, manufacturing or logistic errors and to optimize customer satisfaction.
Targeted marketing campaigns
The marketing staff benefits from the free definable features in SMARTCRM. In case of an invitation to a trade show, ALUJET can select its customer depending on appropriate criteria and therefore minimize wastage. The contacts are transferred to the e-mail marketing tool Inxmail Professional in which the dispatch of the personalized mailing takes place.
Outlook
In the near future, ALUJET would like to use more functions of SMARTCRM such as the CTI integration. In addition, the company intend to connect its document management system to SMARTCRM for conveniently transfer and call documents.
Since our field service did not use a CRM tool and had no access to our ERP system, the changeover to the CRM implementation was very high. However, the benefits of SMARTCRM on a daily basis convinced everyone.
Barbara Kolbenschlag, CRM project manager at ALUJET GmbH