Pronea saves several years of work with SugarCRM

As northern Norway’s largest fibre network company with both private and commercial customers, Pronea needed a solution that improved customer management. The company therefore started an investigation to find the CRM solution that gave the best results in terms of both price and functionality. At the same time, scaleability, flexibility and adaptability were also important. This was particularly important following a process which involved the company merging with two new companies, increasing the number of customers five-fold to 15,000.

The company’s customer centre, managed by Lene Knutsen, has responsibility for all contact with customers, from sales, marketing and invoice issues to technical questions and troubleshooting.

“We needed a good system to get a better overview of the customers. In order to have complete service deliveries, we need a solution that follows up the processes from the moment the service is sold until it is delivered, and afterwards documents the processes for individual customers,” explains Knutsen. “Many CRM solutions can be heavy, less flexible and difficult to introduce, and you can be locked into functionality that is difficult to get out of. SugarCRM differs because the software is free and simple to adapt to both current and future needs. The modular-based construction also makes it easier to design solutions adapted to individual customers.”

Open vision

SugarCRM is currently the most popular CRM product based on free software on the market.

The system uses concrete tools to improve a user’s communication with customers and partners. It increases the control of the sales cycle and helps to create closer relationships with the company’s different target groups.

“We decided in February 2008 to go for SugarCRM, and during spring the first users were linked up. Since then, implementation has been an ongoing process in which we have added solutions as soon as they have been needed with the help of the program’s modular functionality,” comments Knutsen.

All users were on the solution by later summer 2008.

“There were many reasons for other solutions being rejected and SugarCRM being chosen. The most important was that it was Open Source, and the fact that the price was the best. Our vision is to be open, and so we have largely chosen to invest in Open Source software right across the company.”

The fact that the solution is based on Open Source code makes it much simpler for us to continuously customise the solution.

In total, thirty-five people are linked up to SugarCRM. Twenty-four within the company and the rest at external service suppliers.

“SugarCRM gave us the best price viewed in the long term. We have also signed a support agreement with Redpill Linpro, which we are very happy with. We have a dedicated contact who knows us well, and is great at following up on us when the need arises. They absolutely deliver what they promise, and the service is excellent.”

“The combination of the purchase and the terms for support meant that the choice was never particularly difficult,” says Knutsen.

According to Knutsen, their experience of the system is that it is very flexible, and ideal for solving the many needs of the company.

“The users find it very easy to use. The company has allowed their partners and service suppliers to access the system. They can therefore go in and document processes themselves, while they can also access facts, and can download reports and analyses. They find that really useful,” according to Knutsen.

Saves years of work

“There is no doubt that SugarCRM saves us huge costs in the form of numerous years of work. In a market characterised by strong competition, it is important to operate as cost-effectively as possible, and for the CRM system to contribute to this as much as possible. All the processes have been simplified,” she says. The scaleability makes it possible for Pronea to handle larger influxes and greater numbers of customers with fewer resources. They have also noticed that they receive fewer enquiries from customers, something they interpret as a very positive signal of customer satisfaction.

“We have been very good at retaining our customers. Most of the ones we have lost are because they have moved to areas outside Bynett.”

Steady expansion

Based on these experiences, Pronea is planning to use more modules in the long run. In particular, functionality within sales and marketing, but they also want to incorporate the process with SMS messages for customers directly into SugarCRM. Pronea has joined a Nordic users group and, according to Knutsen, has been presented with many new options which they are eager to take into use.

“So far we have only used basic modules and some we have developed ourselves. The first thing to do is introduce a campaign module, for which we have huge expectations.”

So far, the solution has mainly supported sales and customer needs. In future, we will focus on ensuring that the technical department gets even better use of this, with automatic messages to customers when the network will undergo maintenance or if problems are being experienced in certain areas.

“It cannot be denied that we are extremely satisfied with the solution and service from Redpill Linpro. We have never regretted choosing SugarCRM, and the assumptions we made during the acquisition process have subsequently proved to be true,” concludes Knutsen.