Implementing and Customizing CRM Systems

Comprehensive Customer Relationship Management (CRM) packages often fail to return the desired or often promised ROI. In many cases they have failed to gain significant user acceptance because the cost-benefit analysis often presumes increases in top-line revenue by way of employing customer profiling, closed-loop sales and marketing techniques, exploiting up-sell and cross-sell opportunities, etc. In reality, such CRM packages can rarely be justified solely by the actual bottom line operational efficiencies achieved.

Using LANSA to implement a CRM solution does not require a rip-and-replace approach – why replace tried and trusted customer information systems? LANSA solutions enhance, extend, and integrate with your existing systems to deliver significant new functionality. This type of approach can deliver a new CRM system at a fraction of the cost and in less than half the time of mainstream CRM packages. Many LANSA customers have built and deployed CRM systems using this methodology and have reported immediate ROI.

Customers who have implemented a LANSA CRM system

Hayhurst Elias Dudek Inc. (HED), one of the largest independently owned insurance brokers in Canada, has specialized in providing unique and cost-effective insurance and risk management solutions for independent businesses since 1982. HED has a mixture of LANSA and .NET systems and Web sites, as well as legacy RPG applications, running on multiple Windows and System i servers. HED uses LANSA Web services and a Visual LANSA Framework built CRM system to integrate these heterogeneous solutions and move towards an SOA environment.
Read the HED Case Study

Wilson Bowden plc, one of the U.K.'s leading house builders and property developers, has implemented an end-to-end integrated Customer Relationship Management (CRM), sales and lead generation solution. LANSA Integrator provides content in XML format to an outsourced Web site and maps incoming sales leads from the site in XML format to a Visual LANSA–based CRM system. Customers who leave an inquiry on the Web site, can expect to be called by a sales advisor 15 minutes after pressing the submit button.
Read the Wilson Bowden Case Study

The Federated Group, based in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, provides a complete range of customs and logistics services across North America and around the world. Federated used the Visual LANSA Framework to deliver a Client Management System (CMS) that integrates directly with existing System i backend systems. The Windows rich-client system is distributed to hundreds of users in over 50 locations using LANSA Just-in-Time deployment. LANSA Client is used for reporting and analysis over operational files and the data warehouse.
Read The Federated Group Case Study

LANSA solutions for CRM

LANSA CRM Framework is a solution for Customer Relationship Management, with a highly functional and intuitive user interface to access all information about a customer – from many levels of the organization. The CRM application framework can be tailored to fit an organization’s unique needs and integration requirements.

Visual LANSA is the only Integrated Development Environment (IDE) you will ever need. You can easily add functionality to your existing core applications or build new innovative applications such as a CRM. Visual LANSA is a development tool tightly focused on just one thing – rapidly creating high quality commercial applications. But it is not simply a more productive IDE, Visual LANSA’s platform independent meta data repository and high-level business-focused 4GL let you develop 5250, Web and Windows rich-client programs – from a single code base.

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Designing and Integrating Wireless Solutions >>

We expect to see a 30 to 40 percent drop in phone calls over the coming year, allowing our Customer Service Representatives to provide a better one-on-one service. We are looking at a labor savings of 2-3 hours per day for each customer service representative and will not need to expand manpower as our business grows. Looking into the next year we expect to have little or no wait times when our customers call customer service.

Mike Bullard, customer service manager at Holley Performance Products, Inc.

Technicians on the road have up-to-date customer information at their finger tips, raising the customer service level and our records get updated instantly using wireless handheld devices communicating with the LANSA central application. There is no re-keying involved. We can now share and divert incoming calls because our call center and the branches have real-time access to the same customer data. It allows us to respond faster and more accurately to customer queries, improving the service level.

Lee Crump, vice president and CIO Terminix

The effectiveness of the CTI system is undeniable and our quality of customer service has been reinforced. Instantaneous access to order history lets anyone in the company react to an urgent enquiry about the delivery status of an order. Everyone, from the receptionist to the chairman, uses the system and can see in one window the full history of a client. The receptionist can see instantly if someone is free to take a call or leave a follow-up message. The sales assistants appreciate the ability to pass on a call in one click instead of consulting directories.

François Xavier Moya, IT manager at Pierre Lelong Service

Barely five months after going live we had over 7,500 leads and 400 successful sales from our CRM system. This shows how powerful the new CRM system is. We now have a proven strategy in place to handle leads. Customers who leave an enquiry on the Web site can expect to be called by a sales advisor 15 minutes after pressing the submit button. We get more people to our development sites and we get them there sooner then our competitors.

Bev Weston, David Wilson Homes Group Marketing Manager