Using CRM for Manufacturing

Last week, we exhibited at the North East Automotive Alliance (NEAA) Expo and, like millions of other sales professionals, we reviewed our CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system before the event to see who we might meet there, where we are in conversations with prospective customers (possible sales) and to check how new and longer term customers are progressing (customer satisfaction). So now seemed like a perfect opportunity to take an in-depth look at E-Max ERP’s CRM and the best ways to use our CRM for manufacturing as we continue our series of blogs on getting the most out of E-Max ERP’s functionality.
 

Why use CRM for manufacturing?

 
Implementing a quality CRM system improves visibility across sales processes and gives the management team a true picture of their sales pipeline. The sales process from generating leads through to an actual order can be standardised, so other benefits can be realised, including:

– Increased sales
– Easier sales projections and better planning for future
– More understanding of what activities are generating leads (or not)
– Greater efficiency and productivity across the sales or business development process
– Improved customer service and satisfaction, leading to increased customer retention

Integrating your CRM into your ERP system takes these benefits to a whole other level and gives you much more depth and accessibility of customer information to analyse and act upon. Take a look at our blog on 5 reasons why manufacturers need an integrated CRM and ERP solution for more detail on these benefits.
 

How does the E-Max ERP CRM Module work?

 
Every business needs sales and the process of obtaining these sales or orders should be clearly laid out so it is easy to follow. One of the greatest benefits E-Max ERP CRM offers is that it allows your company to create a standardised process for your sales activities. Lead generation activities such as trade shows, networking activity and advertising are all costly in terms of time and money so it’s imperative you treat these leads right. The last thing you want is for these leads to be forgotten or badly managed. E-Max’s CRM allows you to create a process for driving every lead through each stage of the sales funnel, from lead to prospect (a qualified lead) to opportunity (a potential sale) to eventual customer. With a clearly defined process, your pipeline is easy to see and plan for.

Instant Sales Analysis

Lead Creation

 
A new contact is very easy to create with our forms. Our manufacturing CRM allows you to capture just the basic details of a company or individual or add as much detail as you want, from lead source to number of employees. When a company is part of a larger group or network, other branch or site details can also be stored, including site and delivery addresses. Company detail automatically flows through to individual contact records, meaning less data input and duplication.
 

Prospect

 
Once a lead is qualified, it can be turned into a prospect by simply selecting the Prospect checkbox. This creates additional fields that can be used to collect further data on the contact, including specifics of potential orders and the ability to rate the contact, so specific actions can be allocated.

Multiple contacts can also be added to each company so that multi-level relationships can be created and managed and ensures the right information is supplied to the appropriate contact.

Google Maps is built in

Opportunity

 
As soon as an opportunity is identified, this can be easily added to the existing contact and starts the quoting process. Specific activities and tasks can be assigned within your company, with E-Max seamlessly notifying the task owner, ie estimator or design engineer, of what they need to do.

With each activity, ie phone call, provision of information, etc, the user is prompted to update the Stage field in the contact’s record. Each company can set its own unique stages of the sales process (we have 13) or use the default settings of E-Max CRM and apply their own conversion rates to each stage. This allows a Forecast Sales Funnel to be generated at any time.

Easily enter and review your opportunities

E-Max’s CRM allows you to see and manage your sales pipeline, so you can identify what orders are coming in and plan for these accordingly. It also enables management to identify any future sales growth or slumps. The more information captured within the CRM, the more accurate your sales pipeline and forecasts will be. E-Max’s ability to capture key information relating to reply dates, chase dates, estimated totals etc along with any related documents or communication increases this accuracy even further.

Project work or quotes within a tender process can also be managed. E-Max gives companies the ability to link multiple quotes and work to a single overall project.
 

Customer

 
Once order confirmation is received, a single click is all that is required to convert an existing opportunity or quote into a sales order. The record automatically updates itself at this action and converts the contact to a customer.

At each stage in the process, the contact can be rated to allow targeted marketing and communications, meaning that your sales team can dedicate more time to contacts with the highest sales potential. Our software’s task management system makes it simple to set key milestones, such as Reply by, Quote by and Follow up for every contact. These tasks are automatically synced to the sales person’s calendar and reminders generated. This information can also be displayed on each user’s dashboard and set up so that every morning, first thing, the user can see what activities need performed that day. This means that every lead is followed up in a consistent manner.
 

Sales Order history is simple to access

Reporting

Reporting is one of the most valuable aspects of a CRM. A quality CRM should allow the information contained within it to be segmented any way the user chooses. We’ve designed our CRM for manufacturing businesses so it is easy to get meaningful performance reports as well as customer trends and buying patterns. Key reports that can be pulled from E-Max CRM include:

• your order book
• forecast orders
• buying patterns – see what your customers are ordering or planning to order and identify slow/fast moving parts
• customer spend YTD (as a whole and by individual customer)
• customer accounts with no transactions over a certain period
• customer activity i.e calls, emails etc.
• conversion rates, ie, from quote to order, specific types of work/job, etc
• any outstanding customer quality issues

Comprehensive Business Intelligence means you have the knowledge to make decisions

E-Max’s CRM gives you valuable insights into your marketing and lead generation activities, such as:

• number of prospects
• source of prospects
• marketing campaign results and cost per lead
• conversion rates
• cross-sell opportunities

E-Max’s customer segmentation allows you to target key groups

We can also develop custom reports for any other metric you require. E-Max’s CRM reports allow you to take the information you have and plan for the future, whether it be weeks, months or years. We use a range of reporting software & applications so we can provide each of our customers with tailored reporting packages suited to their individual preferences and requirements.

What else makes E-Max’s CRM for manufacturing so good?

 
Everyone in the organisation has access to the data held within our CRM module. This means when a customer contacts anyone in your company, it’s easy to access their records and provide accurate answers to their queries. Having this information at your fingertips also prevents one area of the company (ie sales) making contact with a customer to offer a special rate on new business when an existing order of theirs may be running behind schedule!

Support case functionality is also included within E-Max making it a simple matter to review customer complaints and generate tasks so that any complaints can be actioned quickly.

All customer communications can be recorded within our CRM. This includes phone calls, emails, letters, faxes and even SMS messages.

Duplication is reduced with E-Max’s CRM functionality which means repeat orders can be taken and repeat quotes sent with a single click.

E-Max also stores the full history of transactions against each contact. It also records all sale items history, giving a breakdown of items previously purchased & any related items.

Marketing to your customers and prospects is easy with our Mailchimp API for email campaigns. If you’d prefer to run a phone campaign, targeted call lists can be created, based on location, product type, customer size, etc, for the team to call.
 

For more information on E-Max’s manufacturing CRM or anything else relating to E-Max ERP’s functionality, please visit our website, give us a call on 0141 644 4424 or drop us an email. If you’d like to see E-Max in action, schedule a free, no obligation demo with us and see how our wide range of features really can make a difference to your business.