With their headquarters located in Mentor, Ohio, Great Lakes Power Products has excelled in the distribution, custom manufacturing and repair of internal combustion engine parts used in marine and industrial applications.Great Lakes Power Products has 14 sales and repair centers throughout the eastern United States, from New Hampshire south to Florida, and as far west as Indiana.With 22,000 separate clients to support, a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System has always been an important tool – facilitating Great Lakes Power’s success and growth.
The Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Challenge
Great Lakes Power had a 20-year-long history of CRM Systems that failed to achieve their desired goals. In some cases, the CRM software features were not a good fit for the company’s business processes. Other issues included that their prior CRM systems were cumbersome for the sales force and management teams to use consistently, so enthusiasm and participation waned within the team.
The Solution
The Adatasol system captures the information routinely found within most CRMs, including each customer’s contact information, the sales representative assigned, specific customer notes, and the most recent customer contact made by each sales representative. But the Adatasol system offers important differences and resolves Great Lakes’ long-standing CRM woes.
The Adatasol system is “simple, clean, and easy to use”, states Denise Monty, Great Lakes Power Products’ Manager of Systems and Networks. Broad CRM participation by both the sales team and management has resulted.
Great Lakes Power’s management can now access up-to-date sales information and run reports as soon as data is entered by the sales representatives – no uploading of data is required.
The Adatasol system is highly intuitive and allows for in-house training of new CRM users and some basic system administration. For example, the Adatasol CRM system allows for Great Lakes Power to adjust their data reporting techniques and manage their system users (as when staff changes occur) without any outside assistance. CRM functionality now can be explained to newly-hired sales representatives over the phone.
One person within the management team now enters brand new account information not previously assigned to a specific sales team member. New first-time sales calls are now captured and new accounts are immediately assigned to the appropriate sales person.
Conclusions
Great Lakes Power Products’ management is better able to assess the effectiveness of the company’s sales strategies and keep customers satisfied.
One example is now management can review how many sales calls are being made to new versus existing customers. This allows the management team to re-focus the balance of sales effort between new and existing clients.
“If the company is receiving many new customers through Internet inquiries or calls to the main office, that is good, but it is also a sign that we need to knock on new doors to increase our business where we can throughout our service territory” states Denise Monty.
Management is able to make sales team staffing decisions – for example should certain sales territories be expanded or should additional sales staff be hired? These questions can now be asked and answered.
Another benefit has been in the oversight of customer accounts. Great Lakes Power’s management can objectively review information captured in the CRM system, and speak with an informed voice regarding current events within each account – which helps resolve any customer complaints received.
The CRM system installed by Adatasol creates efficiencies for Great Lakes Power Systems. It significantly reduces company overhead and frees valuable management staff time that can be applied toward other important activities, including business growth.
