Mailboxes delivered on time with new CRM system

More and more Danes are having their new mailboxes installed by BOX-OP. In just one year, the company has become Denmark’s leading supplier of quality mailboxes. BOX-OP offers advice on installing its products at blocks of flats and in summer house areas, and has its own fitters who travel all round the country.

When BOX-OP was first set up, the company used a little-known web-based program to keep track of its customers. However, this program was unable to keep up with the company’s rapid growth. The company then migrated to Microsoft Dynamics, since the employees were already familiar with Microsoft Outlook and Word. But this choice still proved unable to cope with the company’s needs as it continued to experience explosive growth. After researching the market thoroughly, the choice ultimately fell upon the Open Source system SugarCRM:

“MS Dynamics wasn’t any good for us, as the system had some fundamental problems,” explains BOX-OP’s consultant Lars Nielsen. “We experienced a lot of difficulties adapting the software to meet the business’s needs, and our employees didn’t find it particularly user-friendly. After three months, half of our sales representatives were still using their own individual sales systems, and information wasn’t being shared across the organisation. Obviously, this situation wasn’t sustainable. After researching the market thoroughly, we chose SugarCRM instead, with Redpill Linpro as the supplier. SugarCRM has a user interface which is easily adapted to suit the needs of the individual user, according to the user level. This meant that all our employees could start using the system at the same time, and we finally had a much-needed way of sharing information across the business. SugarCRM is easy to use, since it’s web-based and communicates with Outlook/Exchange, so you can reach everyone from any PC.”

A new management tool

BOX-OP uses SugarCRM to control all the business’s processes, from the initial customer contact, closing the deal, placing the order and receipt of goods, through to delivery and on-site installation. The Open Source system has also provided the company’s management with a new tool:

“SugarCRM makes it much easier for management to monitor the sales process and produce forecasts and reports in the areas they want to know about,” continues Lars.

“In a business which is growing at this speed, knowing exactly how many orders are in the pipeline and how far along we are with deliveries to all our customers are real challenges. Thanks to SugarCRM, we can now keep track of this.”

Time is money

SugarCRM has also had a positive effect on the bottom line:

“SugarCRM saves us money,” concludes Lars, “since it allows us to save a lot of time. It also gives us a full overview of our business, 24/7. BOX-OP has three sites in Denmark, and we can now always tell what’s happening at our other locations. Our management and administration functions no longer need to worry about the paper trail which we had to contend with before. For example, our head fitter, who orders products each month, receives an e-mail report providing an overview of orders completed within the last 24 hours. This allows him to order products in time. Our bookkeeper then receives a report once the goods have been ordered, and an order confirmation and invoice can be sent to the customer. Previously, the physical contract had to be sent round to each individual employee within the business before things could get done. Now the process is much more pain-free, and mistakes are extremely rare.”

Redpill Linpro often finds that its clients make significant savings when they replace their old CRM system with SugarCRM:

“We estimate that our clients save up to 50% when they migrate from an older CRM system to SugarCRM,” says Kristian af Sandeberg, Product Manager SugarCRM at Redpill Linpro.

“What’s more, Open Source brings a greater degree of freedom, meaning that clients aren’t tied to a specific IT environment, and a modularised tool which can be better tailored to suit the client’s individual needs offers far greater synergies.”