CRM - January 2009 - (Page 46)

SECRET OF MY SUCCESS Music in the Key of Savings Yamaha cuts down on its paper trail and customer-correspondence time with an electronic-signature tool with a roll-out in May of 2007. It was about a two-month window of time to prepare for the launch. One of the main things was obtaining the contact information for all of the dealers in order to begin emailing rather than snail-mailing. Now, all the documents reside on DocuSign’s hosted server and they’re linked into Salesforce.com. Describe the results. This really was attacked by two sides. One was a green initiative: We cut down on a gigantic paper trail, so it helps protect the environment. Second, from a business continuity plan, the key benefit is that we now have secure copy stored of these agreements where, in the past, they were one-of-a-kind documents without a backup. It also eliminates the inefficient mass-mailing costs. Accuracy is now 100 percent, whereas in the past, docuTell us about your organization. We’re responsible for sales, ments were returned with pages or signatures missing, requiring more work. marketing, and distribution of Yamaha musical products The time-saving is significant because, in the past, the and instruments, AV products, and commercial audio prodpreparation of the hard copy, the mailing of the hard copy, ucts. We offer a full line of musical instruments and audioand then the follow-up of the docuvisual products to the U.S. market. ment would require a significant We’re headquartered in Orange Brian Jemelian, amount of time. The visibility we County, Calif. SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, FINANCE ADMINISTRATION, have helps to pinpoint where we are YAMAHA CORP. OF AMERICA | as told to Lauren McKay in the process. Our CRM team can What challenges were you facing? see exactly where the document is in We were dealing with a very laborithe signing process. Has it been sent? Has the dealer signed ous contract management process. It involved sending hardit? Has the division manager signed? Has the sales manager copy documents to the [Yamaha] dealers, often through signed it? We can see where we are in the process of the apFedEx. The documents were many pages—15 to 30, on averproval. Now we can turn documents around in just minutes. age. Each required multiple signatures and As long as customers have access to Internet and email, they initials. We have a standard dealer agreement, “We now have can basically sign a contract. It takes the time down from a but supporting attachments were customized secure copy stored for each dealer. It would take months to com- month to a day. of these agreements plete customized contracts. Sometimes conwhere, in the past, tracts would not be returned and we’d need to follow up. Contracts would be lost and HOW OLD IS THE INITIATIVE? We implemented DocuSign they were one-of-a- we’d need to generate a new packet, or we’d in May 2007. WHO WAS INVOLVED IN THE DECISION PROCESS? All of the kind documents need to have a district manager go make a personal visit just to follow up on the consales and IT team members. without a back-up.” tracts. It was a very inefficient process. We BIGGEST SURPRISE? The positive reaction of our dealer network. Another surprise was the improvement in require up-to-date signed dealer agreements; accuracy and visibility that the automation brings to making that happen was quite labor-intensive. It would be Yamaha and to the process. fair to say that the process involves more than 7,000 docuWHAT WAS THE BEST IDEA? Including credit applications ments that need to be signed. and resale certificates in the electronic signature five fastfacts 5 program—that added tremendous value. What was the tipping point? Mike Machado, the systems specialist in the music marketing group, led the process. We evaluated five or six different candidates and narrowed to a short list of two. We made the final selection of DocuSign 46 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | JANUARY 2009 BIGGEST MISTAKE? Data quality. You don’t always realize how important it is to identify the appropriate people associated with the business, and to record any changes. It’s so important to keep contacts and information as accurate as possible. www.destinationCRM.com http://www.Salesforce.com http://www.destinationCRM.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CRM - January 2009

CRM - January 2009 Contents Front Office Feedback Reality Check Customer Centricity The Tipping Point The Shots Heard ’Round the World 30,000-Foot Views Of the Cloud Stuffing the Ballot Box— With Complaints The Marketing Line for ’09 CRM on Twitter Technology Helps Insurance Weather the Storm Required Reading The Google-ization of CRM The Feedback Funnel Email: What’s Inside? Shake Your Moneymakers Lead Sweet Lead Incentives at the Speed of Lightpath Sales Contentment for Content Management A Worthwhile Excursion Into Call Recording Secret of My Success Re:Tooling Connect Pint of View

CRM - January 2009

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