About the Client

Tribute Inc. provides enterprise-wide software to distributors and fabricators in the fluid power, fluid handling, hose, sealing, belting, automation, motion control and related industries. With real time phone support, online options, on-site training, implementation, self-directed users groups, industry-specific tools and more, Tribute provides the software for successful industrial distributors.      

Business Challenge

Tribute had previously aligned with another implementation partner to get Microsoft Dynamics CRM up and running for their business. The partner failed to understand the complexities of their business and Tribute ultimately decided to sideline the project. Their current support tracking system was outdated and support for the product had lapsed over time. Administrative staff had to export data off of the server, and then import the data onto another machine in order to run their monthly billing reports because the server was undersized and was challenged to handle the load. There was no capability for any sort of automated emails to go out to customers who had logged issues, nor was there any tie to email in general, meaning that all email activities needed to be done outside of their support tracking system, and contributed to support reps spending less time with customers and more time navigating a system. On the sales and marketing side of the business, Tribute realized that Microsoft Dynamics CRM provided best in breed sales and marketing functionality and concluded that the sales team should centralize all of their sales accounts and contacts in place. With a now complete understanding of the business processes that enable sales, marketing and service automation, Tribute decided to give the Microsoft Dynamics CRM implementation another try; this time with the help of Sakonent.

Our Approach & Benefits

Understanding that there were some complexities in Tribute’s processes Sakonent completed a business review/requirements diagnostic.  As a result of this, Sakonent was able to understand and streamline the way Tribute received their service calls, and then tracked timed activities against various levels of service contracts. Tribute also benefited from automating communication with their customers, as well as the automation of their activity review process. Furthermore, their complex reporting needs could be met with real time data and they no longer needed to export any data out of the system. Within the first months’ time, Tribute was able to take full advantage of the processes and capabilities Sakonent helped put in place. By the end of the month, they actually used the system for their month-end billing process.

Results

• Project completed and training delivered in 8 weeks
• Real-time reporting
• Activity-based time tracking
• Custom activity/contract solution to meet unique needs
• Support queues configured to receive customer service emails
• Automated email communication workflows

 “Our successful CRM implementation is a testament to Sakonent’s process.  With their guidance, we were able establish the right goals, set a timeline, involve our staff, hit the ground running with a business-critical application on time and within budget.’’

  - Susie Hopper, VP TrulinX Division at Tribute Inc.