Boosting profits with SalesLogix CRM

The company
Stanford Marsh was established in Worcester over 30 years ago to provide design office equipment and consumables to all sectors of the design and drafting environment including architects, engineers and local authorities.

The company provides a range of consumables, print and output hardware as well as the full range of reprographic services and comprehensive CAD and data management services. It also offers equipment leasing contracts, as well as extensive product support, servicing and CAD training.

With 120 employees over five sites covering the South West, Midlands, Wales and North East, Stanford Marsh is the largest independent dealer in the UK of design technology with a turnover in the region of £12 million.

"CPiO's knowledge of our existing systems and their ability to
integrate Sage into SalesLogix were very important to Stanford Marsh.
We wanted to have one coherent IT environment supported by one
organisation to ensure consistency of service and support and create
a scaleable environment to support business expansion."
Andrew Potts, Group Business Systems Manager

The challenge
Several acquisitions had created a service contract customer base in excess of 1,000. Stanford Marsh needed to provide detailed information on service history for the support engineers in the field. In addition call centre operators needed to maximise the utilisation of the engineers through central call scheduling.

The company had been using Contact 2000. However the product's use of separate databases for different business areas resulted in a lack of consistency with customer information. With no easy integration between the databases it was impossible for Stanford Marsh to create a coherent picture of the customer across all business areas.

The lack of consistency led to delays in responding to customers' requirements. It also prevented Stanford Marsh from attaining a good understanding of customers' business drivers and how best they could address their needs to improve customer service and maximise customer value.

The solution
Stanford Marsh decided to implement SalesLogix and integrate it with Sage Line 500, which they already had in place. This would enable them to gain visibility of sales and payment history throughout the organisation and improve credit control.

The implementation was straightforward; CPiO used SalesLogix's customisation tools to create tailored user views of the information to meet Stanford Marsh's exact business requirements.

SalesLogix was primarily deployed to improve the efficiency of the support engineers, for help desk and call centre staff to log calls, track the progress of support problems and arrange service calls for engineers.

The benefits
The creation of a single, coherent IT infrastructure across finance, sales and support has enabled Stanford Marsh to improve the responsiveness of support service and increase the utilisation of engineers. The increased visibility of customer information has aided proactive support calls that has in turn helped improve customer relationships.

Since implementation Stanford Marsh has seen device sales increase by 24%. Sales staff have up to date information access, either via VPN from home or to PDAs in the field. This information is enabling sales staff to spend more time visiting customers. They also have direct access to stock information of the 40,000 product lines held within Sage Line 500, enabling them to place orders immediately for the customer and set delivery time expectation.

Engineers have access to the complete service history of each customer. Problems are flagged and repeat issues highlighted, ensuring any issues are rapidly addressed to help maintain good customer relationships. Furthermore, the number of support visits required to resolve a customer problem can also be tracked, enabling Stanford Marsh to analyse product performance and customer behaviour, taking appropriate remedial action.

The future
The seamless integration of SalesLogix and Sage line 500 has enabled sales staff to increase service to customers and boost sales. Stanford Marsh are now analysing detailed customer information to track sales history, spot gaps in their buying cycle and boost cross selling opportunities.

The company has seen revenues grow to £12 million since it adopted SalesLogix. In addition to the boost in sales, the clarity of information and integration with Sage Line 500 to provide a single up to date database has considerably supported the use of credit control. This has enabled the company to reduce debtor days by more than 20%, from an average of 53 days to 46, releasing more than £500,000 of capital back into the business.

The implementation of SalesLogix was justified simply by improving engineering efficiency and service to support customers. Stanford Marsh will continue to leverage this investment, analysing information to further improve customer value.