“We found Maximizer refreshing and very easy to use and the office team got to grips with the system very, very quickly. Maximizer CRM is very straight forward and is a great way to automate and streamline much of what we were doing already.”
ANDREW WISE, DIRECTOR
Thames Valley Asset Finance
Key outcomes
- Repeatable business
- Improved efficiency with fast access to centralized data
- Streamlined processes for quicker delivery and response
- Increased productivity via process automation
- Cost effective solution, scalable as company grows
- Refreshingly easy to use, ensuring employee adoption.
Thames Valley Asset Finance on the fast track with Maximizer CRM
Fast Car Finance is a leading UK independent car finance brokerage and a division of Thames Valley Asset Finance (TVAF). While TVAF provides business finance for capital equipment and plant, Fast Car Finance specializes in financing quality prestige and sports cars – such as a classic 1980 Ferrari F40 worth £300,000 – for private individuals, company directors and owner managers of businesses.
The business challenge
Fast Car Finance has grown rapidly since its launch five years ago, to the extent that its existing business systems just couldn’t cope with the significant increase in business activity. The company relied on a suite of Word documents, Outlook and online systems linked to the lenders who provided the underlying funding, together with a mix of paper-based processes. This not only meant that a lot of data was being duplicated but also it was increasingly difficult to efficiently access information and quickly process business. Of particular concern was that Fast Car Finance was not storing valuable client information for future use, essential to help generate repeat business and continue the company’s impressive growth.
“We needed one central, focused point for information so we could continually retrieve, cleanse, refresh and upgrade data so we are well-prepared when clients come back to us for a second or third time for additional finance requirements,” recalls Andrew Wise, Director and founder of Thames Valley Asset Finance.
Why Maximizer CRM?
TVAF looked at a number of different CRM solutions but found there was not a bespoke software package for the broker financial services market, other than really expensive systems. Conscious of the need to control business overheads as a solid foundation for profitable expansion, TVAF decided in favour of Maximizer CRM.
“A key aspect of Maximizer was that we could go with a cost-effective solution that would meet our initial requirements from day one. But we were also safe in the knowledge that as we expanded we would be able to plug-in the additional functionality in line with the changing needs of the business and our clients,” adds Andrew Wise.
The implementation
TVAF sat down with Maximizer Business Partner, Advoco Solutions and explained the company’s workflow processes from sales enquiry, to finance proposal, and through to a converted sale.
Kevin Smith of Advoco Solutions comments, “The devil’s in the detail, and because in finance services the detail is very important, it was vital to get this right from the outset. We agreed a comprehensive approach that included creating a custom proposals tab using the Synergy add-on application.
“This allows all the data entered to be entered in one place, with much of the necessary calculation being carried out automatically. This helped reduce duplication while improving and speeding up the process which in turn helped increase peoples’ productivity. Following rigorous testing, phase one of the system went live without a hitch.”
Maximizer in Action
“We found Maximizer refreshing and very easy to use and the office team got to grips with the system very, very quickly. Maximizer CRM is very straight forward and is a great way to automate and streamline much of what we were doing already. Being able to efficiently input and recover data has helped improve management of our sales leads as well as our underwriting processes,” Andy Wise adds.
The results
“We’re much slicker now,” Andy Wise continues. “We have all the information we need in a single location which means we don’t have to search through office and paper files. Plus using the Synergy add-on enables us to produce cleaner proposals much more quickly, while getting underwriting information to our lenders in one concise report. This speeds up our turnaround and delivery times – and as we don’t have to go over old ground with clients, we have a much faster speed of delivery and better client response.”
The future
TVAF is already planning phase two of the Maximizer CRM implementation. This includes further reducing data duplication, and speeding the automated flow of information for both the company and customers even more. This includes a suite of customer welcome and retention letters, (such as when an agreement goes live it will send a welcome letter automatically) cross selling with an introductory letter to any third party or supplier, plus ensuring positive cash flow by fast billing of finance commissions to the companies TVAF deal with. “This will cut down paperwork, freeing up more time that can be spent on making more sales and increasing business productivity,” Andy Wise concludes.
A particularly exciting part of phase two is integrating the Fast Car Finance web site fully with Maximizer. So client information captured online will feed directly through to Maximizer for automatic processing. This will avoid the need of having to rekey information while reducing errors and helping the business get to the finance proposal, acceptance and arrangement stages more rapidly.
