CRM - October 2007 - (Page 44)

BEST KITEBOARDING SPLASHES INTO E-COMMERCE USING NETSUITE Best Kiteboarding supplies all manner of gear and equipment for kiteboarding, one of the world’s fastest-growing watersports. Having built a reputation for flexibility and quality, the company was running into a serious flexibility problem of its own: Its front- and back-end operations were not fully integrated. “The original system that was put in place never linked up properly,” says Troy Lawson, the company’s chief operating officer. “Our front end wasn’t as stable or flexible as we would have liked, and there was a lot of duplicate entry required to keep the systems in sync.” Furthermore, the customized shopping cart Best Kiteboarding was using for its Web site was close to wiping out. “We had customized our shopping cart to the point where we couldn’t develop it anymore; we were stuck,” Lawson says. “We could never upgrade or increase its capabilities.” Unwilling to let a more-limited technology in the office limit growth on the water, Best looked for a better solution. After an exhaustive search, the company adopted NetSuite in February 2005. “We evaluated approximately 80 systems, and this was the only one that met all of our requirements,” Lawson says. “I could go on for hours about how great this system is.” In particular, he notes that few vendors were prepared to meet his requirements for customizable products, or to support automatic tracking and crediting of affiliate marketers who provide buyers to Best Kiteboarding through third-party Web sites. The affiliate performance is recorded in NetSuite’s Partner Center, where internal sales managers and the affiliates can all monitor it. Best Kiteboarding even found a new method of tailoring the NetSuite Web Store to allow customers to configure their custom kiteboarding rig on fewer screens using inline frames and the NetSuite product matrix. “Having fewer screens gets our customers through the shopping cart and to the checkout quicker,” Lawson says. —Colin Beasty OutClick Media Gets a Second Opinion A medical marketing company fills its sales transparency prescription with Entellium Few vendors were prepared to meet the company’s requirements for customizable products. ospitals and doctors’ offices program,” Cheong said, referring to keep extensive records on their OutClick’s staff. “Everyone had their patients, but medical market- own version of ACT! on their computers ing companies don’t always do the same and nothing was shared.” With multiple with their clients. When Mark Cheong ACT! databases, it was almost impossible signed on as a vice president at OutClick to know what was in the pipeline, where prospects were in the sales cycle, Media, a digital marketing comand what sales revenue to forepany serving the medical indus- “From a sales cast. Adding to the complexity try, he discovered the truth. perspective, was a new site the company had OutClick’s core businesses create customized marketing for that’s what a lot just launched—UrFlick.com, video/social networkphysicians, clinics, and hospitals of people find an online targeting the action ing site to generate leads for elective services—such as cosmetic sur- beneficial You sports industry. Cheong considered installing gery and dermatology—not typically covered by insurance. can actually see a group version of ACT! so everyone could access it, but he “Selling to our target market the progress.” wasn’t thrilled with the interpresents a bit of a conundrum because we’re trying to sell a technical face. “Plus, I wanted something Webservice—although not something ex- enabled that people could access from tremely complex—to someone who is anywhere,” he says. OutClick needed a usually averse to it, so our sales cycle single, Web-based CRM solution for all varies dramatically,” Cheong says. He was its businesses with the flexibility to tasked with better managing and fore- clearly segment its audiences, yet easily casting OutClick’s efforts to sell lead gen- manage all sales efforts from one system. Cheong then looked at Salesforce.com, eration services to a wide variety of medical customers, from private practice but read an article that suggested Entellium’s CRM services had a price point physicians to hospitals. It wasn’t very easy.“They had no CRM and capabilities that catered better to www.destinationCRM.com H 44 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | OCTOBER 2007 http://www.destinationCRM.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CRM - October 2007

Contents Front Office Reality Check Customer Centricity Coupons Without the Clipping Something Special in the Air Oracle’s Name Game Market Focus: Sports & Entertainment: CRM Scores for Sports Franchises Statistically Speaking The Pulse Required Reading Are We There Yet? Help Them Help Themselves The Chain Gang Pay Day OutClick Media Gets a Second Opinion Best Kiteboarding Makes a Splash with NetSuite True-Blue Service Documentation Secret of My Success The Tipping Point Re:Tooling Pint of View

CRM - October 2007

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