Multiactive Software Inc. used an old-fashioned skill to sell its high-tech product: it listened.
This is according to a customer who recently installed the Vancouver company’s customer relationship management (CRM) package,
Maximizer Enterprise 7. Walter Bonnett, marketing technology coordinator, Wilden Pump & Engineering Co. in Grand Terrace, Calif., says the open lines of communication with Multiactive played a role in selecting the vendor.
“”We’re able to talk to professional services on a personal basis and ask questions that we need and the support is outstanding,”” Bonnett says.
Max 7, however, wasn’t sold on company charm alone. Multiactive president John Kellett says the latest edition offers a number of improved features.
“”We have spent a lot of time enhancing the Microsoft Outlook integration, and there’s improved remote access and Palm synchronization,”” he says. “”We have what we think are unique Web portals for the customer, the employee and the partner.””
While these elements might not be unique, they might be new to the target customer: small and medium businesses (SMBs). Kellett says SMBs haven’t had much of a choice in the CRM department. Packages targeting tier one enterprises, he says, are too cumbersome and expensive for many businesses.
Bonnett agrees. He says Wilden investigated Oracle, PeopleSoft, Siebel and mid-market companies, but none were as complete as Max 7. If this wasn’t enough, implementation time sealed the deal.
“”What we were impressed with was how fast Multiactive was able to install and get us up and running. It was less than about two months, where Siebel and these other companies were taking about six to eight months to get us up and running,”” Bonnett says.
The implementation was completed in mid-February, but Bonnett says the company is already reaping the benefits. He says customer services calls have been reduced, sales process efficiencies have increased, data integrity has improved and response times to customers and partners is much quicker.
“”Siebel and Oracle and all these other guys, they just had a box, a program they wanted to install. And they wanted to just give us a piece of software and not work with our business model. Multiactive was willing to work with our needs and our business model,”” Bonnett says.
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