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Background
Amstore is a leading Digital Media production company, servicing the corporate and entertainment markets. The company started life as a CD and DVD manufacturer with a large digital print facility, recording studio and video studio. It then added USB manufacture and SD card manufacture to its portfolio of products and services, as well as creative packaging for the corporate sector. Its most recent products are VideoPak and DSD box – both innovative marketing and communication products.
Now Amstore has evolved from a commodity manufacturer to a creative production agency with clients, re-sellers and suppliers around the world. This new direction that the company has taken combined with the strong manufacturing background that they already had, makes the company completely unique. Amstore is also a versatile company with the ability to add new products to its product range which empowers them to continue grow in their market sector.
Growing pains
With these ambitious growth plans, Amstore quickly realised that they would need a new CRM system. They were previously using Sage SalesLogix and with no easy way to change or adapt the system, Amstore were feeling growing pains and were looking for a CRM that could help them to grow.
Marcelo Bustamante, Director at Amstore, said, “Sage served us well for the time that we used the system. The pain areas were linked to the fact that it couldn’t be adjusted to meet our needs in a cost effective or time efficient way so we made the decision to look for a new vendor.”
Due to the nature of Amstore’s business, the company needs a CRM system to manage every single part of their business, from the sales team to the accounts department, to the artwork department through to the finance department. It needed the full spectrum of CRM and SOP functionality; the ability to manage a database of people and organisations, and manage the relationships between those records; the ability to monitor and manage prospecting; and the ability to track orders as they go through the various aspects of production. Therefore, the new system had to combine all the departments, from sales through to finance, as well as being effective and easy to use.
The only other problem that Amstore faced was difficulty reporting. Marcelo said, “Reporting was difficult in Crystal Reports. It is key for any business to have clear visibility of how the company is performing and it was very time-consuming and challenging for us to pull this kind of information.”
Workbooks – a balance of everything over the competition
Amstore hired a free-lance CRM specialist to advise them on the right CRM solution to select, but the specialist simply pointed them towards the big brand names such as Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics. Amstore found Workbooks through a Google search and were immediately impressed with the offering. Marcelo explains, “We were instantly attracted to Workbooks for a number of reasons. Not only did it offer easy implementation without a large set up fee, but the pricing was also very reasonable and the amount of support and training, both online and human, was very appealing. Another key factor was that we wanted to migrate from a land based system to a cloud based system and we felt it was comforting knowing that it was a UK based vendor. Everything about Workbooks felt right – it was a balance of everything over the competition.”
Up and running in no time
Amstore sent three members of staff to the 2 day training session and Marcelo felt that this was pivotal in taking them from novices to competent users. “By the time we had finished the training, we were eager to get a live system and were excited to start moulding the system to meet our requirements.” says Marcelo, “Workbooks really suited our needs because we are able to customise it. It’s comforting to know that we can open up the bonnet of our CRM system and adjust and improve it as we see fit. And the speed at which changes can be made is amazing.”
Feeling the results
The implementation was stress-free and Amstore could immediately feel tangible benefits. For instance, they have many different websites offering a wide range of products and services. The web-to-lead functionality in Workbooks has enabled Amstore to set up an enquiry form that sends contact details directly to their Workbooks CRM system, saving the Amstore employees the manual hardship of having to enter these details into the system every time they received an enquiry. Marcelo said, “The web-to-lead functionality is a real benefit for us. It saves at least 10-15 minutes of admin time, several times a day, spread over several people. That is quite a lot of saved minutes per day / week / month / year, and certainly frees up my sales team to spend more time selling and speaking to customers.”
Another feature that has saved the Amstore team a lot of man-hours is the Workbooks reporting engine. “It is hard to imagine a day without out. It is so easy to run a report and have visibility of any area of your business.”
Only just scratched the surface
Marcelo feels that Amstore are only at the beginning with their Workbooks system and that there are many other ways that they can use the Workbooks functionality to their advantage. “I feel like we have only just scratched the surface and I look forward to using Workbooks to its full effect. There are so many features that we would like to make use of and I am learning more and more about how Workbooks can streamline the way our business runs.”
He continued, “I would recommend Workbooks to anyone looking for a CRM system and I have already done so in the past. I believe in championing things that I believe in and Workbooks is one of those things.”