CQS - Serving The Financial Community       

Founded over 10 years ago, Johannesburg-based CQS Technology Holdings is a software development and distribution company that specialises in IT solutions for the financial services industry. Since its inception the company has used Maximizer, starting with an early version of the solution in 1994 and upgrading over the years to Maximizer Enterprise 7.5.

Business Backbone
"The company has been built on the back of Maximizer," asserts managing director Ashley Cohen. "We are very strong on sales and marketing precisely because of the 360 degree view Maximizer gives us of our customer base. This means we are quickly able to identify which clients may be in the market for a particular product and work out how to develop a sales opportunity out of that based on how similar clients have reacted to similar offers."

Service Proposition
However, while the company attributes consistent revenue growth from inception to its use of Maximizer software, it felt it was failing to capitalise on its customer service potential in a sector where this is absolutely critical. "In the computer industry in South Africa there is a real cynicism about service levels and if you can address that there are real benefits to be had," says Ashley.

Status Reports
To tackle this, the company recently installed Maximizer's customer service module through the CRM software supplier's South African partner Camsoft Solutions.This enables customer service staff to see the exact status of each customer complaint or enquiry, allowing them to deal with problems efficiently and appropriately, armed with the full facts. "The customer service module has been phenomenal and has made a remarkable difference to our business by boosting the performance of our customer service staff, which in turn has boosted customer retention rates," enthuses Cohen. "It has also helped from a management point of view because we can track very closely the activity levels of our staff - how many calls sales staff are making and how many calls services staff are taking in a day."

User verdict:
“The company has been built on the back of Maximizer”