Weidmüller is one of Europe’s leading manufacturers of components for electrical connection technology. It develops, produces and sells a wide range products, from terminal blocks to relay sockets.  Based in Detmold, Germany, the company has operations in more than 60 countries and employs more than 2,800 staff worldwide. In the late 1990s, market pressures led Weidmüller to initiate a strategy to improve the effectiveness of its sales and service operations.

Faced with a rapidly consolidating market and knowing that it depends on repeat business in electrical components for much of its revenue, the company decided that improving sales and service effectiveness was key to its continued success.  ‘As Weidmüller became a more global business, we began to lose clear visibility of our customers because our field and telesales, customer service teams and marketing departments in the UK were all using different systems. To succeed in this market environment, the UK side of the business recognised it needed to create a unified view of its customers because sales performance and customer retention depended on it,’ explains Kevin Saggers, MIS programmer at Weidmuller, whose support was crucial to the success of the project. 

To achieve its goals, Weidmüller needed to address several key issues. First, the company’s sales process and reporting was inefficient and unreliable. Weidmüller salespeople entered sales activity, forecasts, and competitive analysis information into individual spreadsheets on a weekly basis. This information had to be consolidated by sales managers, all of which was incredibly time-consuming and often produced unreliable information. 

Sales data and customer information regarding purchase history, special pricing, and returned goods was housed in a back-office system that was difficult to access.  As a result, Weidmüller was unable to maintain a coordinated dialogue with customers from one call or sales visit to the next. Salespeople were sometimes blindsided during visits or phone calls with customers because they were unaware of recent developments at an account. Lacking a central database to track account activity, sales, marketing and service personnel often struggled to synchronise their efforts and present a unified front to customers.

It turned to IT Services Group Touchstone for some help and after an evaluation of five different custom,er relationship management CRM solutions Weidmüller plumped for Maximizer as the best-value solution available.  The competitive review demonstrated its strong ‘out-of-the-box’ functionality, its cost-effectiveness and the fact that the solution would enable Weidmüller to import sales information indirectly from its SAP R/3 back office system.

Maximizer was deployed to more than 70 customer-facing employees in the UK, ensuring that all service,  sales  and marketing professionals shared the latest interaction history and profile of each customer and prospect. The application now gathers and maintains a single, consistent source of customer information that it can transform into better customer service and additional revenue. In addition, the sales team enter their activities and forecasts into the system and all the information automatically rolls up to management. This provides a real-time view of the company’s pipeline and progress against sales information concerning the sales targets – and eliminates multiple spreadsheets.

‘The system has dramatically improved management visibility of the sales pipeline,’ comments Saggers.  ‘We can now immediately see everyone who has touched the account, what their activities have been, what the next steps should be, and exactly how we can best move the opportunity from first contact to closure. This gives us much better insight into managing and developing business opportunities.’

Another benefit of the system he says is the rapid synchronisation – appreciated particularly by the field staff.  When sales people visit their clients, they have access to the most up-to-date client information from their laptops. Ahead of a customer meeting, the sales people can now quickly review all current and historic sales and service activity. In a few clicks, they can understand what electrical components the customer has bought and in what quantities and when, what the electrical components are being used for, details concerning recent marketing communications the customer has received, information regarding competitor suppliers, and the status of any outstanding customer enquiries. They can also draw upon the experiences of dealing with other customers elsewhere in the UK. With this rich insight, they can enhance their sales effectiveness, and respond more quickly to customer needs. The application also reduces the time it takes to familiarise sales people with new territories because it offers an instant, up-to-the-minute snapshot of the sales environment.

Weidmuller’s telesales force can now respond quickly and accurately to customer enquiries. ‘From a
single screen, a telesales professional can access the details for all of his or her clients,
access contact history covering most interaction points, and answer detailed product enquiries,’ says Saggers.  Previously, there was no easy way to manage the assignment of opportunities. By sharing the account history, sales leads can either be routed to telesales to follow up, or routed to a field sales professional, depending on the size and complexity of the opportunity.  Follow up can be managed through workflow routines set up by marketing.

Since the implementation, efficiency at Weidmüller has been on the rise says Saggers. ‘The new system is very easy to use, helping our sales professionals get to know the customer, locate hot prospects, and organise a calendar of appointments,’ says Saggers. ‘In fact one engineer who left the company and recently rejoined admits to being very attached to the system. “I can’t believe how much I relied upon the depth of information available” he says.’

By connecting its front and back office, Weidmüller has an uninterrupted, company-wide view of customer information, orders, products, and the number of customer lines. ‘Our CRM deployment and indirect integration with SAP has been highly successful,’ Saggers concludes. ‘By replacing several different systems with one solution, it has enabled us to streamline and enhance our marketing and focus our sales efforts, as well as developing accurate management reports of the sales pipeline and much else.’