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By now, you are likely using CRM (client relationship management) software in your dealership. Or are you? Perhaps you are utilizing a homegrown collection of tools that get the job done. Or do they? Following are profiles of three BTA member dealerships, providing a brief look at their CRMs. Perhaps the comments and insight they share will provide you some guidance as you seek to add a CRM to provide for analytics of sales data and time-saving automation of your processes.
Budget Document Technology, a Konica Minolta, Lexmark and Xerox dealership, is based in Lewiston, Maine, with additional offices in Hamden, Maine, Manchester, New Hampshire, and Amesbury, Massachusetts. Tom Ouellette is president of Budget. His brother, Steve Ouellette, serves as CFO. It was in 2013 that Budget began using SalesChain as its CRM, says Kevin Kelliher, vice president of sales, noting that for a period of time, it remained a hybrid environment, with both the CRM and legacy paper-based processes in place. “Tom and Steve started using SalesChain for its integration with e-automate, for managing accounts, rep notes and client contacts,” he says. “But our sales process remained manual and paper-based, outside of the CRM.”
When he joined the dealership nine years ago, the hybrid environment was still in place, Kelliher says. However, in 2019, Budget “implemented SalesChain’s Proposal module, which allows sales reps to create quotes and submit orders right in the CRM,” he says. The dealership also added SalesChain’s Delivery Desk workflow automation system, a set of tools designed to help a dealership organize, automate and measure the efficiency of its fulfillment processes. “That meant that our sales team’s order forms, equipment setup sheets and paperwork would go straight to our schedulers and, ultimately, to our service team for implementation — all from within the CRM.”
When Budget “went all in” with SalesChain, “the time savings were huge for both our sales and admin staff,” Kelliher says. “We now had published lease rates and product pricing right in the CRM, eliminating the need for manual calculations and removing the possibility of human error.” Going “all in” has “opened new trackable channels of communication and added redundancies as we hand off from sales to admin to service. Overall, that has been a huge win.”
The use of SalesChain by Budget’s sales reps is “100% mandatory,” Kelliher says, noting that when he took on the vice president of sales position he “knew the software’s capabilities and our current processes well, and helped to enable some of the latest features offered by SalesChain. They include a more advanced Service Module and integrations with CEO Juice that allow reps to request copies of recent contract invoices and generate comprehensive quarterly business review (QBR) documents to review with clients.”
Kelliher shares a glimpse into the daily routine of Budget’s sales reps and their use of SalesChain. “Reps start the day by checking their SalesChain calendars, which have all their meetings, account reviews and blocked time for planned sales activities,” he says. “They use the MIF [machines in field] feature to identify devices that are approaching end of life and the Lease Desk feature to track upcoming lease expirations. This allows them to start informed conversations with clients and create custom solutions with long-term focus. We live and breathe by that calendar.”
Each time a rep engages with clients, he (or she) is going to make a note in SalesChain of what is found, Kelliher says. “So, if ‘John Smith’ is no longer the purchaser at the client location or is retiring and a new person is being onboarded, put that in the CRM,” he says. “We want to know that.”
Kelliher has nothing but praise for SalesChain in terms of its level of support and training. “They’re awesome; in a word, ‘excellent,’” he says. “Email requests to support at SalesChain are going to result in a response within an hour or two with a resolution. Plus, they’ll schedule sales training as needed. In fact, they added a hundred or so topical training videos under the support tab. So, the reps can use those as reference tools for activities they may not be doing every day.”