Retail group ADM Londis plc has invested €200,000 in a customer relationship management system (CRM) to give the company a 360-degree view of the company.
Partnering with iSite Solutions and Microsoft, ADM Londis has developed an integrated IT platform which will enable 360-degree view of the customer lifecycle, faster response times and higher levels of service, as the retailer is placed at the centre of the CRM model.
Entitled ASSIST (Accountability, Synergy, Service, Interaction, Supreme Care and Teamwork), the new system enables ADM Londis staff to have ease of access to retailer/supplier history and details.
Information capture is also significantly increased, with telephones, PDAs and web portal devices all captured into a single application.
Outlining the rationale for the CRM investment, Claude Tonna Barthet, head of supply chain at ADM Londis, said: “The power of this system is how successfully it is facilitating greater team-working within the organisation to deliver improved customer service.
“The greater visibility and accountability for customer queries means that everyone feels empowered to resolve queries quicker – which, in turn, leads to happier customers.”
Accessible through the Microsoft suite of products, the CRM platform which has been launched in a phased basis represents a considerable investment by ADM Londis.
The initial €200,000 investment focuses primarily on the development of functionality for ADM Londis. However, the group has also placed considerable time and resources into the development, co-ordination and implementation of the new system.
This latest investment follows a further €650,000 invested in a Voice Picking system for its Warehouse & Distribution facility in 2008.
Detailing the challenges of the deployment, Fergal Geraghty, business development manager, iSite, explained: “The previous CRM application used by ADM was very cumbersome to navigate and turned users off.
“Microsoft CRM is embedded within Microsoft Outlook and hence the user interface is both easy and seamless with its day-to-day activities. This meant the application was easy to roll out and was quickly accepted within ADM Londis.”
“By capturing data on how successfully ADM is responding to customer queries, the CRM platform provides great insight into both our retailer’s needs and also how well ADM respond to these,” Barthet said.
By John Kennedy
Pictured at the launch of Londis ASSIST is Breege McTigue, customer relations manager, ADM Londis plc, and Fergal Geraghty, business development manager, iSite Solutions
