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IT
Meets CRM for ROI
--
A
network administration toolmaker turns to Soffront
to tame some of its own wild technical difficulties.
--
by
Marshall
Lager
Tuesday,
May 01, 2007
Javelina
Software fixes problems for other businesses--it
develops, markets, and sells software products to
help simplify systems for network administrators.
But it had some operational issues of its own. The
company's clientele is diverse and its own databases
were as well. "Our foremost issue was lack of a
unified database--we were using several disparate
systems: one for tracking customers, one for
tracking enhancement requests and bug reports,
another to track leads and downloads, and so
on," says Dave Ritchie, president of Javelina.
"These multiple systems were causing a lot of
duplication of effort just trying to keep them in
synch.
"Because
our tools are useful to anyone with a large or
distributed network, our customer base is quite
varied," Ritchie says. "We have customers
around the globe in all kinds of industries, from
banking and insurance to healthcare and
education."
Javelina
also had difficulty accessing local systems used by
its distributed personnel. Its workforce, 80 percent
of them remote workers, had trouble accessing core
databases. The company also lacked a system for
generating and sending marketing materials: It was a
matter of exporting email lists and hand massaging
them to create targeted campaigns.
A
company-wide employee survey revealed that an
integrated CRM system would resolve most of the
existing issues. "We began searching for an
appropriate system the very next week," Ritchie
says, but that was more than two years ago. "We
tried several different products and finally settled
on Soffront for various reasons: price, Web
access, ease of customization, and local hosting,
among other things." The implementation began
in early 2006.
"Javelina
had some very complex workflow requirements,"
recalls Manu Das, president of Soffront.
"We worked with them to set up workflow using
the Soffront CRM visual workflow
manager." The implementation allowed Javelina
to streamline and automate the lead capture and
distribution process, allowing easy segmentation of
leads and prospects for targeted campaigns.
"The new system made the sales funnels more
visible and offered analytics that were never
available before," Das says. The customer
support aspect offered seamless capture and
escalation of customer issues for timely and
effective resolutions, all while maintaining
complete visibility into the process.
The
work took less than two months. "The only major
bump we experienced was finding or creating tools to
extract the data from our legacy systems and save it
to a usable format," Ritchie says. "Of
course, getting the workforce used to a new system
didn't happen overnight. But once we switched over,
the positives of the new system far outweighed the
teething pains."
Now
the sales staff spends more time talking to
customers. Tech support can easily document bugs and
share them with remote developers. "And
marketing has taken on a whole new meaning,"
Ritchie says. "Our marketing team just sent out
targeted emails to nearly 20,000 leads and customers
with the click of a few buttons. This same effort
one year ago took weeks of preparation and reached
less than 5,000 people."
Ritchie
expects more success from Javelina's use of Soffront.
"There are lots of features in Soffront,
and we are still today discovering new uses for the
database."
The
Payoff
Javelina Software used Soffront CRM to:
·
quadruple its marketing
coverage;
·
institute one
corporatewide database with increased customer
information;
·
save eight to 16 hours
per person, per week by reducing manual data entry
and streamlining workflow; and
·
solve remote employee
access issues.
Trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Article derived from DestinationCRM.com
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