A perfect match: Brewers with a passion and CRM from the specialist

 Ernst Barre Private Brewery:

• Brewery

SMARTCRM at Barre:

• CRM introduction
• Standard interface to INTEGRA ERP
• Use in the field and in the office
• 10 licenses

Requirements and project goals:

• Connection to INTEGRA ERP
• 360° view with the help of a central information pool
• Display direct and indirect sales to end customers
• Improved visit planning and other field service processes

We are very pleased that our CRM solution has been so well received by the brewing industry and welcome Privatbrauerei Ernst Barre GmbH to our customer base!

The brewery has been located in Lübbecke, Germany, since 1842 and is now in its sixth generation of ownership. Previously, the company had not used a CRM system, but local data storage and numerous Microsoft Excel lists that had to be sent to colleagues made information gathering and retention costly and time-consuming. A complete view of internal and external communications and appointments was not available.

Barre is a member of Freie Brauern, an association of medium-sized, family-owned breweries in Germany, Austria and Luxembourg. After a presentation we gave on the importance of CRM, the brewery became aware of SMARTCRM. Several reference discussions with our customer breweries confirmed Barre’s first positive impression and they decided to implement our CRM solution.

Another decisive factor was the easy configuration of the interface to INTEGRA ERP. We have already connected Barre’s ERP system to SMARTCRM and have the necessary interface expertise. In the future, customers, contact persons, product master data, quotations as well as sales, order backlog and open items will be automatically transferred from INTEGRA. At the push of a button, SMARTCRM delivers up-to-date figures in comprehensive reports. The desired quantity information in hectoliters can also be easily displayed.
Another important requirement was the presentation of indirect sales. The brewery delivers supermarkets and beverage wholesalers, which means that the company does not actually sell directly to end customers, such as restaurants supplied by the beverage distributors. To keep track of sales, the wholesalers sent Barre information on their sales on a monthly basis before the CRM was implemented. In the future, this data will be imported into SMARTCRM. This means that it can be viewed and analyzed in detail at any time. Overviews on the SMART Board, the start screen of our CRM solution, give the sales team an up-to-date overview of the most important sales figures and quantities.

In addition to information about refunds, the brewery will also store contracts, including terms and conditions, in the CRM customer file.

SMARTCRM will also support the field sales force, for example in scheduling visits. To facilitate this, Barre will define a visit cycle in SMARTCRM based on the customer’s classification. In this way, the responsible sales representatives are automatically reminded of upcoming visits in a SMART Board overview. When planning visits, the area search provides a quick overview of all potentially interesting dealers in the vicinity. For route planning, these can also be visualized in Bing Maps and supplemented with a corridor search. Appointments can be created in SMARTCRM with a single click. During the visit, the sales team documents information about the assortment and the presentation of their own goods in the CRM solution. With the SMARTCRM.App, the visit reports can also be conveniently recorded via voice recognition and photos taken with the smartphone can be attached to the CRM activity.