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Ames Brothers' mission is to be Western Canada's leading supplier of ceramic tile products. The Company's offerings combine the traditions of delicate handcraftsmanship with the modern-day innovations of production technology. To help its customers - builders, architects, developers, and home improvement retailers - succeed, Ames Brothers wanted to be able to surpass the quality and price expectations with fast and efficient service.
The Challenge
Ames Brothers was using a conventional paper filing system to track their customers and projects, which resulted in the slow delivery of proposals and inefficient tracking of customer projects. Furthermore, Ames Brothers' personnel in the Calgary and Winnipeg offices weren't able to access the same customer information as those in the Vancouver head office, even though customers were often shared between locations. Sales people were forced to search through paper files for information on previous jobs, and often ended up repeating quotes on projects. They were all using completely different strategies to approach and deal with customers, and management was left in the dark with little access to information on upcoming sales, or why certain deals were lost.
The Maximizer Enterprise Solution
With the assistance of Alpha Pacific Technologies, Ames Brothers installed Maximizer Enterprise in its three offices and provided comprehensive training for its sales and marketing staff. By implementing Maximizer Enterprise and establishing process rules, the productivity of sales people has increased and made their procedures much more efficient. With their new system in place, sales people throughout their offices are now able to access the same customer information to better collaborate on projects. Most importantly, each new customer project, such as an architect designing a new hotel, is entered as an 'Opportunity' into the system with a lead representative from Ames Brothers assigned to manage it. The Opportunity Manager enables the sales rep to track all information and correspondence with the architect plus everyone else involved including: designers, consultants and builders. In conjunctionwith this, they are now able to document the strategy they used on a successful sale or project, for other sales people to use afterwards.
Maximizer Enterprise has also enabled Ames Brothers' sales personnel to more easily meet customer needs resulting in increased customer satisfaction.
"We are making a better impression on customers because we have immediate access to information on past projects and orders," said Duigan Mitchell, Corporate Marketing Manager of Ames Brothers. "We are now more consistent in preparing quotes for customers, and can deliver them a lot faster."
Management is also now able to see how many projects are in the pipeline and what stage they are at, so as to better anticipate quantities required from the tile manufacturers. With the Company's sales team using the Opportunity Manager to document why some sales were lost, management can also make business adjustments as necessary, whether related to price, product inventory, or service.
Mitchell said, "Maximizer Enterprise is the best way we've found to organize our business functions, and manage our projects and customers. Doing business is definitely easier, but most importantly, we're able to deliver on our promise of fast and efficient service."
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