Karl Strauss, the San Diego-based brewer of beers such as Red
Trolley Ale, Woodie Gold and Stargazer I.P.A., had an outdated
process for its dozen or so field reps, according to John Snead,
the company's director of beer operations. The reps would write
down sales and order information and either fax, phone, email or
physically bring it into the office so the CRM data could be
entered by a processor.
"We can't have our reps bound to desks," Snead said.
The company deployed the Apex Mobile platform from
Salesforce.com, which integrates back-end CRM systems to the field
reps' BlackBerry devices.
Now, field reps enter CRM data into their BlackBerrys through
Salesforce.com's Apex Mobile to create real-time orders from the
customer site and to synchronize data. The brewery customized its
Salesforce SFA and Apex Mobile applications and also used partner
apps from the AppExchange directory to integrate data from
Microsoft Dynamics GP with Salesforce. The integration made for a
single, centralized source of customer data for sales
operations.
Snead said that Strauss customized Salesforce to track
multi-level relationship information about current and potential
beer buyers, including funnel-status for in-process opportunities,
demographic profile data, potential volume, alcohol licensing
status, geographic detail, and personal information of customer
contacts.
All necessary forms can be completed via BlackBerry without
switching between screens. Account data is wirelessly transmitted
to the home office within minutes, an order invoice number is
assigned, and the data is available in the Salesforce
applications.
To help integrate back-office data in Salesforce, Strauss
deployed partner applications from AppExchange, including:
- Scribe Sales Order Component, which extends the functionality
of Salesforce to support order integration with ERP systems,
allowing users to convert opportunities to orders and automatically
pass those orders to the back office.
- Scribe Insight for AppExchange, which integrates the Salesforce
environment with existing on-premise third-party and custom
applications.
- Salesforce Integration for Microsoft Dynamics GP, which gives
real-time integration of customers, products, orders and invoices
between Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics GP.
"With Salesforce, our field team is more effective and business
data is readily available for our sales, finance and management
teams," Snead said. "By integrating data across our organization,
the Salesforce solution has enabled us to more accurately forecast
our sales and manage overall costs. It's been a great success and
key to growing our business."
The biggest hurdle, Snead said, was "how do you get salespeople
to use it, to adopt it?" But illustrating the time it saves and the
boosted productivity, he said, was a strong enough argument and
convinced the team.
"If this helps us sell an extra keg or two a month, it pays for
itself," he said.
The mobile Salesforce solution has increased the company's close
rate by half an account per rep per month, according to Snead,
yielding $500 in additional monthly income. It has also boosted
retention, yielding two new accounts per month. He added that
better management insight has also increased the average volume per
account, raking in an additional $2,600 per month.
The system also improved productivity, giving field reps an
extra 90 minutes a day for four days a week.
Overall, Snead said, the system brings in $3,400 a month in
increased income and about $360 in displaced or redirected
expenses.