On The Road To Improved Customer Service

There are lots of companies that can ship your nephew's birthday present across the country, but there are very few that can haul generators or entire factories from one location to another. ACME Truck Line (Harvey, LA) is a 70-location flatbed truck carrier specializing in industrial hauling for customers such as ExxonMobil, GE, and Westinghouse. "We're kind of a FedEx for big stuff," jokes Mike Coatney, president of ACME, which handles about 4,000 loads a week throughout the Gulf region. Because of its unusual business model, ACME had some demanding requirements when it came to selecting a CRM (customer relationship management) solution.

ACME may be in the trucking business, but with no actual trucks of its own, the company is really a sales organization. ACME salespeople generate business for approximately 1,300 independent truckers. The challenge for ACME was sharing customer information across the enterprise and making data readily available to a mobile sales force. For nearly six years, ACME had used separate Access databases at each location to maintain customer information. "We tried a couple of times to upload and share the databases, but we were only able to do about 1/3 of what we wanted to accomplish," comments Coatney. "It was clear that we had to move from the individual LANs to the Web when it came to selecting a CRM solution." In addition to being disconnected from each other, the databases weren't integrated into ACME's dispatch system, which runs on an IBM AS/400 mainframe.

These disconnected pockets of data were a problem for ACME's salespeople, who spend much of their time on the road making calls at client sites. The need to manually enter data at a desktop and the inability to access it remotely in real time prevented salespeople from having the information they needed to service customers. For instance, a salesman could arrive at a customer site to ask for business, unaware of a problem that recently occurred or that the customer just gave them a big contract. "For us the emphasis isn't so much on the pipeline and marketing as relationship selling," comments Coatney. "The only reason a rep would be at a client site would be to ask for work, so he doesn't want to be told, 'I just gave you two orders this morning.' We want customers to feel like sales knows about them and about their businesses."

Coatney began to shop for a Web-based CRM solution that could be accessed by all of the employees both from the offices and remotely. After sending inquiries to about a dozen vendors and viewing demonstrations from almost half of them, ACME selected ACCPAC International, Inc.'s (Pleasanton, CA) eCRM (electronic CRM). ACCPAC was chosen in large part because it can be accessed via a browser and supports PDA (personal digital assistant) access. ACCPAC was also able to cite as references customers who had implemented solutions similar to that proposed by ACME. "There's lots of vaporware out there," says Coatney. "Many of these vendors had no installations."

Though Coatney says ACCPAC eCRM provided the functionality it needed virtually out of the box, he opted to have it customized to reduce the learning curve for employees. "We took the time to put our terminology in," he says. "We didn't want to change our processes or vocabulary." With assistance from ACCPAC professional services, the customization of the software package and integration with the dispatch system were completed in less than three months and went live in the spring of 2002.

Provide Wireless Access To Web-Based eCRM
Initially, ACCPAC was made available at desktops and salespeople generated printouts at the beginning and the end of the day. Last summer ACME made its first attempt at real-time, always-on access. Salespeople were given HP Jornada handhelds and attempted to access a cellular network via a cable connection from their mobile phones. Coatney admits ACME was a couple of months ahead of the curve on that initiative, which suffered due to interruptions in cellular coverage and the ability to handle data.

ACME made a more successful attempt at wireless access in late 2002. Salespeople were provided with Audiovox Thera Pocket PC 2002s through Verizon Wireless. As part of the customization process, ACCPAC eCRM was optimized for PDA users at ACME. "There are really only five or six key pieces of information you need to enter on the road," says Coatney. "About 90% of the data entry required by salespeople can be entered through pull-down menus." Pull-down menus also allow salespeople to access data such as the last 20 orders or customer notes.

Improve Customer Service With Integration, Workflow
The ACCPAC eCRM solution is integrated into ACME's dispatching system, where customer information actually resides. "When we have a new customer, that record is created in the dispatch system, which pushes it to the eCRM application," notes Coatney. "That way there is only one physical location where customer data starts and ends. Then we start layering other information on top of it in the CRM application." When an order is received, ACCPAC eCRM sets off a workflow that communicates with the dispatching system as well as the to-do lists of other employees or departments. For example, if a salesperson gets an order for an oversized load, the dispatch system arranges for the truck, but the employees responsible for getting the appropriate permits or making other arrangements are also notified. Sometimes a salesman gets a lead that his customer is opening an office in another region. He can enter that information into the system, and it shows up as an action item for the sales manager in that region.

"Because the solution is Web-based, users can get to all the information they need, whether it's CRM, accounting, or dispatch," says Coatney. In addition to 35 or 40 standard reports, ACME execs can also run reports by rep, by customer, or by region. This allows national sales managers to pull up a company-wide report, understand all of the potential issues, and plan sales calls and strategies accordingly.

Coatney reports that user acceptance for the CRM solution has been very high, and salespeople feel they are giving their customers much better service. "We have spent a million dollars in the past five years on software initiatives," he estimates. "I believe this one will provide the best return and have the biggest impact on growing the company."