Saacke: How a manufacturer ditched spreadsheets for a 9% boost in orders with Workbooks CRM

While Saacke was strong on customer support, the organization needed to improve customer management and sales coordination.  

The team found it tough to keep track of customer communications because they used various uncoordinated spreadsheets, specifically around customer management and sales. The data wasn’t accurate and couldn’t be tracked because everyone had different versions of documents. It was impossible to know what Saacke had in the pipeline, where their opportunities were, or what value sectors of their business they could take on as opportunities to generate new business. This made it difficult to develop a sales strategy.  

According to Jose,

We were very strong on the service and customer support, but we weren’t developing any new business. The customer support and sales functions were running off various uncoordinated spreadsheets. Our biggest pain point was coordination and the accuracy of data, and that’s why I brought Workbooks into the discussion and ultimately implemented it.

Jose mentioned the need to carry out a Shared Success workshop before implementing Workbooks CRM to help identify which areas the business needed improvement.  

“The benefit of the Shared Success workshop, which I had not done in my previous job, was to focus on which areas we needed to commit to as a business. Were we going to focus on cases? Were we going to focus on invoicing? Were we going to focus on contract management? The answer was no; we needed to focus on our clients, i.e., people, activities, and sales within Workbooks.” 

“That’s where the Shared Success workshop offered a lot of value, in narrowing the focus so that in the limited time we have, we could roll out Workbooks successfully to the organization.“ 

Jose shares his experience of the day:

“It was a very positive experience. The subject matter experts were able to help guide us where certain things wouldn’t be a good idea. The discussion was open-ended enough for us to express our concerns and what we needed. It was clear enough to let us know what Workbooks CRM is capable of and not overpromising and giving us expectations we couldn’t fulfill in the future.“  

The workshop helped unite departments at Saacke by uncovering pain points and challenges they were facing, such as the lack of coordination and accuracy of data, which in turn helped them understand the benefits of a centralized CRM system.

“Workbooks are easy to work with, and it’s one of the reasons why we chose them. The platform is complex enough to meet our requirements but simple enough to use at a user level that it won’t be overwhelming, which some CRMs often are not.” 

Implementing Workbooks CRM allowed the team at Saacke to improve their sales strategy by providing a centralized location for customer data. They could track their opportunities accurately and in real time, allowing them to develop a sales strategy based on accurate data.  

Accurately tracking opportunities also helped the team prioritize their sales efforts based on the value sectors of their business. They were also able to manage their customer data more efficiently, which improved the accuracy of their data. 

“The first six months since Workbooks CRM has been implemented have been phenomenal. We increased our order intake by 9% from the previous year in a very flat market, which could have been only achieved by Workbooks. We would have never achieved it without it. The foundations are strong!” 

“The ability to manage your contacts all in one place has given us a good return on investment in our marketing efforts. It’s allowed us to do more targeted marketing, and we now know who we’re talking to. It’s been an absolute game changer for our business!” 

One of the key benefits of Workbooks CRM for Saacke is the ability to generate reports and analytics. The team create reports on their sales activities, which helps them identify areas where they need to focus their efforts. The analytics give the team insights into their customer data, helping them make more informed decisions that drive their sales strategy. They can clearly see patterns in their customer data, which helps them identify which value sectors of their business were generating the most revenue. 

“Workbooks are committed to their customers, and I know that by the fact that you are constantly evolving and releasing new updates to the system. The pre-populated reports in the platform has been a huge time saver!”    

“With the implementation of Workbooks CRM, we are probably one of the most sophisticated organizations in the industry. The platform has given us the competitive edge to focus our energies and efforts against the opportunities we have. We now know exactly what projects we need to target, why we are doing them, and when they need to be done. It’s helped us internally with our focus and productivity.”