Bremicker Verkehrstechnik GmbH & Co. KG

Since the beginning of the year 2014, around 50 employees of Bremicker’s marketing and sales departments have worked with SMARTCRM. Shortly after the CRM decision, the installation as well as the training of the key users were completed. Since Bremicker has been using the ERP software abas Business Suite, the company was eager to collaborate with an experienced abas partner. As a longtime cooperation partner of the abas Software AG, SMARTCRM GmbH convinced with interface expertise and a standard interface which could be customized to the company’s requirements. So, Bremicker is completely satisfied by the interaction between the ERP and CRM systems. SMARTCRM imports addresses and contact persons, quotations, products as well as figures to transactions, order backlogs and open items from abas ERP

The primary goal of the SMARTCRM implementation was to optimize the sales processes. The CRM system previously used by Bremicker could not meet the company’s needs.  Multiple Excel spreadsheets were still needed and customer information was stored within the different departments. This complicated a functioning customer relationship management as well as a professional maintenance of the master data and caused unnecessary expenses. SMARTCRM changed all this and sustainably improved many processes. The quotation system is a good example. If a customer would like a quotation, a calculation is first created and then documented in the corresponding customer file, thus all employees have access to this information at any time – in case of further queries of the customer. The quotation is also saved as pdf file in the CRM system. A complete quotation tracking is thus guaranteed and all employees involved in the process, field service, back office and the calculation departments are always informed about the current stand of the project. The follow-up tasks are sent through SMARTCRM as well. A quotation document can be directly called from the CRM system in abas ERP with just one click. If a customer has a question regarding a quotation he has received, the employee in charge can immediately give him a competent answer.

SMARTCRM takes into account the current figures from abas ERP and offers immediately Bremicker several major advantages: if the sales representative needed a detailed evaluation prior to the implementation of SMARTCRM, the IT department had to be involved for a database query. With SMARTCRM, the sales staff can independently generate the required current analyses. Time and effort as well as the necessary personnel resources were this way significantly reduced. Another advantage was the various analysis levels – e.g., up to the product level or invoice item level. The faster and the more detailed the sales employees can see these evaluations, the swifter, if necessary, they can react. Thus, important conclusions can be drawn for instance from the yearly comparisons: if as many contracts in the current month are expected as in the reference month, Bremicker can derive early on the needs of a double-shift operation.

For the marketing staff, SMARTCRM has been a great help thanks to the selections of target groups using the features. If for example, a product is in the planning stage, the customers that already expressed their interest are marked in the CRM system. When launching the product, a multi-level-information campaign can be immediately sent to the right audience.

Also for the future, Bremicker relies on SMARTCRM:  so other marketing processes, such as mailings, should be optimized, and sent for instance directly from the CRM system. Additionally, in the near future, the service department is going to be connected to SMARTCRM to build an optimal customer complaint management. For the company, it should be possible, for instance, to send a give-away to customers that are not completely satisfied with the product catalog. Bremicker wants to manage and automate complaints but also positive reactions in the CRM system. Missing information and hard copies should be therefore a thing of the past.

Conclusion
Prior to the introduction of SMARTCRM, there were still doubts among employees since the previous CRM system, which was to be replaced, had not met their requirements. That is why, Bremicker decided early on to bring several key users on board. These persons in charge also brought the other employees closer to the benefi ts of SMARTCRM and showed them which facilitations the new CRM system allows. Thus, the acceptance of SMARTCRM steadily increased. Bremicker also expects much from the integration of other departments in the CRM system.