1to1 Magazine Demo

The Linc Group The Linc Group Builds Better Customer Insight SILVER t he Linc Group’s 20,000-plus customers rely on the provider of facilities management and building systems to cost-effectively maintain and improve their facilities, maximize energy efficiency, and optimize operations. It’s therefore critical for the firm to keep its 100 salespeople up to date on the information clients need to make them more successful. “We didn’t really have a problem; we had an…opportunity for improvement,” says CIO Greg Lush. That opportunity included the need to capture, store, and make more readily available to its sales team customer data in an enterprise system, as opposed to “holding it” in employees’ heads, Lush explains. “We believe in capturing new customers and keeping them for life through exemplary service,” he says. “To achieve this high standard we enlist everyone in the organization to participate in satisfying our customers.” Thus, the need for shared information. Instead of having sales managers use static reports based on dated information, The Linc Group, via deployment of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, now allows sales managers to conduct coaching sessions with salespeople while accessing real-time information, and can easily reassign accounts with every scrap of historical information intact. As a result, Lush says, “CRM allows us to deliver an exceptionally high level of service with a personal touch that is essential to achieving our high customer retention rates. We couldn’t do that before trying to use the ‘tribal knowledge’ that existed in people’s heads.” The company’s close ratio has increased by 20 percent, with the added benefit of more quickly meeting customers’ needs in a consistent and predictable way. The Linc Group now plans to continue integrating CRM into its other divisions. “We’ve discovered that we can be a lot more successful and provide a lot more value both to external and internal customers by creating very robust integration scenarios,” Lush says. “We’re trying to get everybody addicted so they can’t do anything without it being in CRM.” —KZ Mortgage Lenders of America BRONZE Mortgage Lenders of America Rises Above an Economic Downturn i t’s no secret that this isn’t the best time to be in the mortgagelending business, but Mortgage Lenders of America has more than risen to the challenge. Automating its manual lead management processes has led to improved lead conversion and delivered new customer insight. “We had fairly traditional types of processes to originate loans,” says president and owner Philip Kneibert. “Our loan officers would talk to Realtors and borrowers and financial planners to solicit referrals for mortgage loans. But that wasn’t consistent with where we saw the market going. More borrowers were going online, more Realtors and builders were offering in-house financing, things like that were happening.” MLA started buying leads at $20 to $30 a pop, and “it doesn’t take very long for those costs to mount up into a significant expense,” Kneibert says. “We knew that we just had to measure and manage [the process] to make sure that it didn’t kick us in the butt.” Manual spreadsheets were cumbersome. “It wasn’t long before we figured out we needed a better system to identify what was happening with our leads, not only to keep track of where each one was in the sales cycle but also what the training issues we needed to work with our loan officers were…. Basically, how to squeeze more value out of that investment.” Implementation of a Sage SalesLogix CRM system has been a godsend, Kneibert says. “We’ve been able to automate our sales process, making loan officers more likely to follow each step and minimizing the possibility that human error could account for lost sales.” Kneibert says the results have been immense. “Lead conversion has increased significantly, and our customer satisfaction survey scores are typically very high. We made up our investment in SalesLogix in four months.” And, he adds, despite the current state of economic gloom, “the last quarter was the best one in our eight-year history. If you can survive [the current market], you can grow stronger and continue to compete.” —KZ “We’ve been able to automate our sales process, making loan officers more likely to follow each step and minimizing the possibility that human error could account for lost sales.” September/October 2008 31 http://www.1to1media.com/View.aspx?ItemID=30794 http://www.1to1media.com/View.aspx?ItemID=30794

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of 1to1 Magazine Demo

1to1 Magazine Demo Contents 1to1media.com Editor's Note Feedback Putting Care in Patients' Hands Loyalty at Work Redefining the Contact Center Agent Introducing Enterprise 2.0 Cigna Dental Drills for Loyal Customers On the Beat 19 Ways to Succeed Miami Heat Schools Its Staff on Sales and Service Marketing Lends a Helping Hand More Than Meets the Eye Customer Service by Committiee Textron's Business Soars by Tracking Customer Loyalty Resources Contact Center Agent as Trusted Advisor Mastering Global CRM Face to Face with Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, Ph.D.

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