Johannesburg, 28 February 2008
The CRM used by highly effective people
 

By using Maximizer CRM from Camsoft Solutions, FranklinCovey SA not only raised the bar for high-performance sales, marketing and customer service, but also gained the ability to track transactions and relationships from within a single application with remote access and business process enhancement.

A world leader in the development and delivery of leadership and productivity training and services, FranklinCovey has been in operation since 1993. FranklinCovey SA is the exclusive representative of FranklinCovey in Southern and East Africa, extending to 17 African and Indian Ocean countries. With a focus on training solutions and intensive customer relationships, FranklinCovey SA relies on effective CRM as a priority business system.

Providing Excellence
FranklinCovey SA has its head offices in Johannesburg and representatives in Stellenbosch, Hilton and Nairobi, Kenya and is dedicated to providing the local market with effective training services and has a long list of satisfied and regular clients. The company has adapted its training programmes for the South African market and marketing manager Emma Smallman says that the company’s workshops deal mainly with change management. The heavily service-orientated business conducted by FranklinCovey SA requires an effective and flexible CRM solution that can be used to track sales, integrate with the company’s accounting solution and provide remote access to representatives.

“And, of course, the primary function of our CRM system is to track relationships with our customers,” adds Smallman.

The company has been using Maximizer Enterprise since the late 90s, but required an updated CRM solution to accommodate the growth of the organisation, bring its systems up to date and additionally provide integration into its Pastel Accounting application. Remote access tools were also required.

An Educated Decision
While FranklinCovey SA had already been using Maximizer for some time, the company did not take the decision to upgrade lightly when it was time to move up with enhanced capabilities and carefully analysed competing CRM solutions in the space, including products from Microsoft and Accpac.

“The company did research into the leading CRM products available,” affirms Smallman. “A variety of other possible solutions were considered but it was decided that Maximizer CRM offered the best solution. Staff at FranklinCovey SA were satisfied that local Maximizer business partner Camsoft Solutions came to the party and together with Maximizer met all of the CRM requirements we had.”

Maximizer Enterprise’s CRM flexibility provided by the wide range of modules available for the product meant that FranklinCovey SA could easily acquire the functionality it needed without requiring large amounts of custom development. “There are 28 full time staffers employed at FranklinCovey SA with an additional ten associates,” explains Smallman. “Everyone in the company uses Maximizer on a daily basis.”FranklinCovey SA selected local Maximizer Certified Business implementation Partner Camsoft Solutions in South Africa, to deploy and configure the solution.

Camsoft was also be required to do custom development in integrating Maximizer Enterprise with the Pastel Accounting application used by the company and provide FranklinCovey SA employees with training on the new Maximizer solution. Part of the implementation was also MaxExchange, - a module for Maximizer Enterprise that allows for remote access for mobile computer users. According to Smallman, the upgrade and development process went smoothly and everyone was looking forward to using an updated and improved version of Maximizer CRM.

Improved Functionality and Time Savings
Smallman says that FranklinCovey SA is now able to use Maximizer to trigger business processes. “The company uses Enterprise Maximizer to track sales and enhance the operations side of our business,” she explains. “If one of our sales representatives sells a training programme, management and stock are automatically notified. In this way Maximizer has provided functionality that email was used for in the past and is saving the company a lot of time”, adds Smallman.

Besides the enhanced sales capabilities, Smallman adds that Maximizer is also a powerful marketing tool for the company, which FranklinCovey uses to improve progress products based on customer feedback. “Thanks to the Pastel integration it is also possible to track at what stage invoicing and payment processes are with clients,” continues Smallman. “This is a powerful sales utilisation of Maximizer which the company did not have before.” FranklinCovey now also uses Maximizer to automatically import and update customer data from Pastel Accounting.“Information is kept up to date between the two applications and our staff are able to view invoicing information and track transactions from within Maximizer Enteprise without having to switch applications,” says Smallman.

Representatives are also able to connect to Maximizer Enterprise from anywhere in the world using MaxExchange, saving the company more time as information can be accessed and updated without having to be in the office. Thanks to Maximizer Enterprise, FranklinCovey SA is saving time and has a range of new functionality available that has significantly enhanced the company’s processes.

 

PROMOTIONAL OFFER
Camsoft Solutions is giving away a free copy of Stephen R Covey’s
“The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”
to businesses wishing to trial Maximizer CRM.*

*Offer valid for Maximizer CRM10 only until 30 April 2008 and is limited to software trials for 5 or more users of the Group, Professional or Enterprise versions.

About Maximizer
Maximizer Software is the world's leading provider of affordable and easy-to-use customer relationship management (CRM) software applications. The Maximizer line of products help companies develop more responsive, personalised and profitable customer experiences. Built on a modern, Web-based architecture, Maximizer is easily integrated with existing corporate systems and features the latest in sales force automation, marketing automation, e-mail marketing and customer service technologies in a single mobile-accessible business management system. Maximizer Software has sold more than one million licences of its award-winning software solutions to companies ranging in size from entrepreneurs to multinational organisations. Customers include: Siemens, Playground - an Intrawest Company, HSBC, Cathay Pacific, TD Securities, Brian Tracy International, South Carolina Department of Commerce and Lockheed Martin. Maximizer Software is a global business with an ecosystem of more than 8 000 corporate customers, 400 business partners and offices in the Americas, Europe/Middle East/Africa and Asia Pacific.

About Camsoft
Camsoft has actively been involved in providing CRM solutions in Southern Africa since 1995 and received Maximizer’s Africa Business Partner of the year award for 2007. Camsoft is capable of providing a full turnkey CRM solution, including sales, training, support, development and service level agreements, where required. With full service offices in Johannesburg and Cape Town and a technical office in Durban, Camsoft provides a full range of technical services to a wide range of customers, including ISPs, banks, insurers, manufacturers, retailers, recruitment agencies and call centres, among others. For more information please visit www.camsoft.co.za or call Ingrid on 0800 616765 (ingrid@camsoft.co.za).

Maximizer Software is a global business with an ecosystem of more than 8 000 corporate customers, 400 business partners and offices in the Americas, Europe/Middle East/Africa and Asia Pacific.