https://www.xperience-group.com/case-study/endo-enterprises/
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| Key Contact(s): | Aaron Martin |
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“The biggest benefit for us is collaboration and the ability to work together as a team. There's been situations when someone's not in, and you need the answer to a question for a customer. Then you find yourself walking around the office and trying to find someone who knows something. Well, now with Act we can quickly find out everything about a customer at the touch of a button, - so relationships flow much more smoothly."
Endo Enterprises provide environmentally friendly solutions for water treatment, infection control and energy efficiency. Right from the start, the company showed a real determination to improve the livelihood and health of their customers through their water based treatments, however with a tight budget they struggled to find the right software to support their objectives.
Aaron Martin, IT and Marketing Manager at Endo Enterprises explained, “In the early days, there was not much budget when we were trying to get off the ground. We started using a free version of Sugar CRM, which was fine, but there was some performance issues, and it wasn’t loved by the sales guys.”
“We then switched to Salesforce, which I felt was a step in the right direction performance-wise, but I don’t think it was adapted well in the business. We basically just purchased it of the shelf and were left to crack on with it – without any training or support. This led to us not really committing to using it properly.”
The journey to find the right software has brought Endo Enterprises to Act, provided and supported by Xperience. Aaron commented, “We felt Act looked to be a good fit for what we were trying to do – we wanted a simple solution to track calls, emails, meetings, and manage all customer service activities. As for choosing Xperience, it was their responsiveness that got the deal done. The help we got when we were looking into the product was really great, everything was clearly explained to us.”
Endo Enterprises have used Sage 50 to manage their accounts. With Act came an opportunity to integrate the two for a comprehensive view of client’s financial status and accounting history, without having to log in to Sage.
“Initially, we weren’t looking to upgrade our Sage 50. However, the team at Xperience made us aware of synchronisation issues while trying to display our financial information in Act, so we took a plunge. To go from an older version of Sage to a more automated backup system with an easy remote access was a blessing. We have an accountant who works remotely, which we had to provide a VPN access for. With the new version of Sage, everything is much easier.”
Speaking of remote access, Aaron described how important it was for them to provide their field based and remote staff a secure access to Act data.
”We have an office in Canada and the staff there accesses a locally installed version of Act which then syncs back to the main database via the server here in UK. This doesn’t slow the performance and allows us to maintain the server in the office here, rather than having to look after the equipment over in Canada. Other field based staff here in UK are using Act over VPN, directly logging onto the server. Despite our initial concerns over remote access slowing the server performance everything is working absolutely fine.”
Act has proved particularly effective for Endo Enterprises in its ability to improve collaboration between the staff as well as enhance their sales effectiveness.
“The biggest benefit for us is collaboration and the ability to work together as a team. There’s been situations when someone’s not in, and you need the answer to a question for a customer. Then you find yourself walking around the office and trying to find someone who knows something. Well, now with Act we can quickly find out everything about a customer at the touch of a button, without having to disturb someone on a day off by ringing them or while they’re travelling – so relationships flow much more smoothly.”
“With the ability to record any email or phone conversations, Act has become our bible when it comes to monitoring and managing customer relationships, as it lets us track the entire sales chain from initial contact, so we always know who’s done what.”
“With the guys in the field, Act allows us to see their activity a lot clearer. We’re not necessarily relying on them to report everything all the time, and can keep an eye on what they are up to at all times.”
