Mercers
A Microsoft CRM Case Study
Case Study Summary
Situation:
Mercers needed a contact management solution that would also provide sales and marketing automation
Solution:
Dynamics CRM 3.0 with customised fields provided the flexibility that was required from a business solution for Mercers
Benefits:
- Easily customised
- One unified data suppository
- Easy to maintain
- More accurate information
- Easy to use
Our client said:
"Excitation were both professional and knowledgeable in their implementation of Dynamics CRM. They took into account the needs of our business and devised an IT solution that was tailored around us"
Jo Read, Mercers Ltd.
The Challenge
Mercers have over 24 years experience in selling freehold Spanish property. In this time it has built up a solid reputation as one of the UK's leading agents with offices in the Costa Calida and Costa de la Luz. Jo Read of Mercers explains more.
"We are a forward thinking, client-orientated company. We specialise in specific areas, where we can concentrate our efforts and resources to supply our clients with the best available properties. We are considered by many to be pioneers in Spanish property. We are normally the first to break into new areas and this benefits our clients, who not only get the best choice of properties but also the lowest prices."
Mercers needed an IT solution that would keep pace with their business. With customers from the UK and Europe, and with complex custom fields needed to make contact management run efficiently, Mercers needed a powerful and adaptable application to meet its demands.
"We needed an application that would enable customisation in sales and marketing fields as well as being a management solution for our customer contacts. Due to the nature of our business we also wanted a user-friendly integration with Microsoft office", says Jo.
Mercers also needed an IT solution that would provide a user friendly interface with modules for sales, marketing, and customer service. They already had installed Dynamics CRM 1.2, which they wished to upgrade. With the aid of Excitation they also wanted customisations that would make Dynamics CRM more functional for their business.
Solution
Mercers Ltd has been using Microsoft CRM 1.2 for a number of years and has found that, while this system provided the required contact data storage capability, there were restrictions which could not easily be worked around.
Dynamics CRM provided the powerful contact management tool that was needed whilst providing more advanced customer relationship management tools that would be able to help make Mercers' sales processes more efficient. It also provided a better platform for the customisation which Mercers required.
Dynamics CRM is able to manage the most complex of sales processes, it provides easy-to-use features and integration with all Microsoft applications such as the Microsoft Office Suite. It also provided an easy platform for customisation, so that it could provide the business specific abilities that Mercers required.
Excitation provided Mercers with the customisation of Dynamics CRM that was required. Data could be captured for fields such a commission percentages and advanced contact details such as property requirements could be recorded. This truly made Dynamics CRM the perfect vehicle for capturing Mercers' business processes and Excitation the experts for interpreting them.
Excitation was ideally suited to helping Mercers with their needs. With more Microsoft certified Dynamics CRM staff that any other company in the UK Mercers could be sure that their implementation would run smoothly.
"Excitation were both professional and knowledgeable in their implementation of Dynamics CRM. They took into account the needs of our business and devised an IT solution that was tailored around us", says Jo.
With any implementation of Dynamics CRM it is always recommended that staff are both confident in and know the benefits of using the product. Excitation provided simple and cost effective user training for Mercers' staff. Excitation's certified trainers made sure that Mercers would be getting the most out of their Dynamics CRM application.
Benefits
Easy customisation: With customised data fields Dynamics CRM provided more flexible data entry. This allowed Mercers to use customised fields into which they could enter business specific information. With more flexible data entry, contact management could become immediately more efficient. The ability for Dynamics CRM to work the way their business does was of major benefit for Mercers.
One unified data suppository: By using Dynamics CRM, Mercers could create one unified data suppository that could be used by its staff in both the UK and Spain. With customers needing to be tracked over international boarders, Dynamics CRM provided the powerful customer management tool that was needed.