Position your business ahead of the competition

John Fredrickson, 17 March 2012

In continuation from my last blog I now will demonstrate how a VRM (CRM) will be a solution and improve efficiency levels for this Marine Company (ABC) and go through each question and discuss each solution.

ABC wanted to know their customers better than they knew themselves. This is relatively basic for any reputable VRM solution. It is all about having custom fields to retain the desired information in real time. For example we introduced fields to retain information such as The Vessels name, What Pier it is located on, how many owners and their contact details. Is the vessel under management or owner managed etc.?

The customer contacts ABC. ABC are now able to promote competence as all this information is on a screen as they speak with customer. Let’s imagine a customer phones up to have a boarding ladder repaired. The conversation might go something like this.

Customer:  Mike Smith here could you please organise someone to repair my boarding ladder
Company:  Certainly sir, I trust this is for your vessel called “REEL MAGIC” and it is moored on H Pier at Westhaven Marina
Customer:  Yes that is her
Company:  I will book this in for tomorrow morning. Is the key still held XYZ boat managers?
Customer: Yes it is I will phone them now and advise them to release the key to you

How do you think the customer feels after this conversation? I believe he feels known and a bit special but most of all he will feel that he is dealing with a competent company. This simple conversation has saved both parties a lot of time plus removed the risk of an engineer turning up to find he does not have access due to not having a key.

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Q: ABC wanted to store technical information on any one Vessel. This also is not rocket science for any reputable VRM solution. ABC claimed that much time was lost with seeking information prior to a job commencing. For example a simple oil change or belt replacement. Currently we have to visit the vessel which might be across town to gather specification information to insure that that we take the correct tools and parts. If this information was stored on file it could in some cases half the time required to some jobs. We can never rely on our clients to have this information on hand.

ABC wanted to be able to do selective marketing to his clients: This also is all about having the correct information available on the VRM. For example one of my ABC’s suppliers has a special on a particular model of water filter. My customer knows that this filter will only fit certain models of pumps. Now that he has VRM software he is able to create a marketing list that consists only of customers who have a pump on board that is compatible with this filter. Once this marketing list has been created he has the choice of sending an email, Letter, Fax or simply phoning all the customers. He will not be marketing (spamming) customers where this filter is of no benefit.

ABC is always finding it difficult to speak to right person about a vessel: Some vessels have multiple owners, some are under management and of course others are sold to a new owner. My customer will now be able to manage this with ease. All owners of a vessel and their details will be recorded against the Vessel in an order showing hierarchy. Should a Vessel be sold all the history will stay with the Vessel.

ABC wanted to lower the highs and lift the lows in a normal business year: This was easy as most Vessel owners almost forget they own a vessel during the winter. So I set an automated reminder prompt for various maintenance groups. For example a drive shaft needs to be serviced annually. There is always a pre-season rush to get this work type completed before departing port for their annual holiday. The initial service prompt is set up manually so as it falls due in the low season (winter). There after an automated letter/email or fax would be sent to the client with maybe an incentive to encourage them to book the service out of season.

ABC wanted to explore ways of reducing admin work with the implementation of the VRM: While there are many solutions for this with VRM software I will talk about Invoicing. Currently the engineers fill out a Job sheet it is then checked and OK’d by the service manager and then sent on to admin where the invoice raised and posted to the client. What if we were able to do away with a job sheet and had the engineers work straight off a mobile tablet or similar device. The service manager checks & edits the invoice and then passes it for processing. At this point an invoice is automatically generated in their accountancy software. There would now be no need for the admin team to be involved with invoicing at all.

After reading this and my last blog I hope you now agree with my initial statement that you are simply not in business today without an effective CRM solution. The benefits are very clear. Companies that invest in this technology will have a clear advantage over those who do not

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