CRM - December 2007 - (Page 41)

CUSTOMERS GAIN TRACTION WITH OFF-ROAD VEHICLES In the narrow-margin business of producing allterrain vehicles (ATVs) and motorcycles, customer service can get downright dirty, both in terms of servicing ATVs and keeping customer data clean. This certainly holds true for CPI USA, a subsidiary of The CPI Group, a Taiwan-based manufacturer and distributor of motorcycles, ATVs, and dirt bikes. “These products sell based on three factors: quality of service, price of product, and service,” says Johnny Tai, administration manager of CPI USA. Due to outdated IT systems and mistakes caused by data-entry errors, the division was finding it basically impossible to provide accurate information to (or about) customers on a timely basis. “It can take three or four days for a manufacturer to respond to a dealer question about availability of a part or a product in a certain color,” Tai says. “In the meantime, the dealer probably has lost the sale.” Realizing that CPI USA needed a system in order to get a realtime view of its parent company’s factory operations and to give its dealers an edge, Tai turned to on-demand business software provider NetSuite. NetSuite’s accounting and reporting capabilities allowed CPI USA to solve both problems by crunching sales and forecasting data. “Either party can see, for example, how many units are sold during a particular time frame, such as [the duration of] an advertising campaign,” Tai says. And because NetSuite has been configured to track parts and products by their Vehicle Identification Numbers, dealers can also input warranty claims. Tai estimates that CPI USA saves almost half a million dollars a year in employee costs, and has boosted both customer and partner satisfaction. One competitor, he says, needs nearly 25 employees to maintain the paper-based workflows supporting order management, inventory, warehouse processes, and customer service records. CPI USA is able to maintain a higher level of service and productivity with only 12 employees, a fact Tai credits to NetSuite. “If we had to hire the additional people to remain competitive, it would cost us $480,000 a year.” —Colin Beasty Document Management That’s a Breeze An international provider of air compressors gets Longwood Software to pump up its extensive library Q To give its dealers an edge, CPI USA needed a real-time view of its parent company’s factory operations. uincy Compressor, an EnPro Industries company that produces reciprocating and rotary screw air compressors, vacuum pumps, and air treatment components, was feeling suffocated by its 900-plusitem literature collection. The organization of documents ranging from brochures to images to flyers was completely disjointed: Some files were contained on CDs or stored on computer; others were freefloating hard copies. Constantly having to get materials out to distributors, Quincy felt the pressure of inefficiency and found relief in a document management system. The company implemented Longwood Software’s TagTeam to host an online library. Documents are now stored onto TagTeam as PDF files and everything is maintained and accessible online both internally and to the public. Distributors and customers alike—as well as any other Web-site visitors—now have the ability to instantly download files or request that materials be emailed or mailed to them, all at no cost. “Prior to [TagTeam], we mostly just did print, hard copies, and some PDFs,” says Greg Owens, Quincy’s Webmaster and creative designer. “But we really didn’t do any sort of online or Web-type delivery.” Marketing departments often have to deal with the repercussions of what Scott Richardson, president of Longwood Software, refers to as a “broken asset management system.” When materials aren’t readily accessible, marketers struggle with chasing them down, a tedious and time- Marketing consuming endeavor that departments often commonly results in people getting extremely frus- have to deal with trated, and customers not what one vendor receiving optimal service. calls a “broken “It’s the experience of not putting your best foot for- asset management ward,” Richardson says. system.” Prior to TagTeam, distributors of Quincy Compressor’s products placed orders over the phone and materials had to be packaged and mailed, a process that was significantly slower and less reliable. “It was a very manual process,” Owens says. After 41 www.destinationCRM.com CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | DECEMBER 2007 http://www.destinationCRM.com

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

CRM - December 2007 Contents Front Office Reality Check Customer Centricity SAP’s Midmarket Design A Shift in SAP’s Growth Strategy: Buy Big to Get Bigger The Buyer Is Your Owner Prime Time for Streaming TV The Word on the Floor Market Focus: Energy/Utilities: Speaking Truth to Power (Companies) The Pulse Required Reading It’s All Coming 2.0gether Power to the People Speak Up! Document Management That's a Breeze Customers Gain Traction With Off-Road Vehicles Getting Connected With Surveys Mobile Data Gets Better Reception Secret of My Success Re:Tooling The Tipping Point Pint of View

CRM - December 2007

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