With more than 300 employees in three main office locations as well as a network of sales offices and an established distribution network, Wika Instruments Ltd., , the Canadian subsidiary of Wika Alexander Wiegand GmbH & Co. KG, was challenged to review quotations, bids, sales calls and types of products for its customer base. The sales force automation efforts by the team consisted of a "pen and paper" approach augmented by Microsoft Word and Excel call activity sheets.

"We basically scribbled notes on cocktail napkins and fed the information into Word docs or Excel spreadsheets," said Victor Pawluk, national sales manager for Wika Instruments Ltd., Edmonton, Alberta.

Wika tried one customer relationship management (CRM) software solution before migrating to Sales 5.0 from Selltis LLC, New Orleans, in February 2008.

"One of the single most important features that Wika has optimized is the capability of Selltis Sales to handle quotes," said Pawluk. "Plus, the reporting is unbelievable. Even canned reports are useful and easily customized for filtering. The system is so intuitive that we are able to continually customize the Selltis system. If we want a different view or need to add a 'hot button' for a SIC code, we can customize it easily," he added.

Now the manufacturer of electronic and mechanical pressure and temperature instrumentation is equipped with software that can help it satisfy customer inquiries quickly and effectively, no matter what location the customer calls.

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