Issue March 2008
Overview

KIM – her name is programm

New female employee makes sure of excellent customer relations at OKI

Even at the start she attracted many enquiring looks. She is called KIM and her name stands for Customer Information Management (in German) at OKI, the specialist for professional print solutions and output management. Since May 2007, CAS genesisWorld has been on the staff under the name of KIM and as the central CRM system in the Central Region of OKI's sales network. With attractive functions, KIM is providing inter-departmental and loyal services in sales, marketing and customer service.

The customer has been at the centre of OKI’s successful corporate strategy for many years now. The company thus provides, as the sole manufacturer, three years’ guarantee including next day on location service for its much acclaimed products. The longest availability in the branch of the service hotline also speaks volumes for the customisation of the Düsseldorf company. The reward for the hard work: Recently the company secured second place in the selection of the most customised service provider in Germany. The competition, however, is not sleeping. The company therefore took the decision to replace the previous customer databases in the Central Region with a new, centralised CRM system and thus to invest in more efficient customer proximity. The aim: To extend the diverse customer relations to distributors, resellers, end customers and leads via the private and telephone contact. At the same time, internal business processes had to be optimised and the cooperation between the departments simplified.

Who can resist KIM’s charming smile?

In order to establish the new system from the very outset, the company went into the charm offensive: In a self-produced brochure for the introduction, the same-named model KIM was presented to the employees to assess the possibilities of the new system. “KIM provides a great deal of information,” explains Torsten Tauber, responsible for the project at OKI. “Who is the correct contact person? What do the turnover figures look like? Which visit reports, leads, offers, appointments, documents and assignments have been received by this or that customer? Here KIM provides at the push of a button the complete overview of our various customer groups,” explains the project manager with a glance at the screen which shows KIM in action.

"Using the intelligent filter scanning, employees are able to select customers according to the most diverse attributes in a split second." Torsten Tauber, Project Manager for OKI Germany

A system for diverse requirements

At the CRM roadshow of the computer week in Düsseldorf in March 2006, Torsten Tauber got to know CAS genesisWorld for the first time and it was quickly clear to him: “That’s the right system! We decided on CAS genesisWorld because it can be flexibly organised, it possesses a large range of functions and it fits exactly to our requirements. We did not see these special strengths as much in evidence with other systems. And last but not least the cost-performance ratio convinced us.” After the roadshow came the intensive planning phase: A roadmap and concepts were developed and established in an analysis workshop. “In the next step, it was a question of the design, the implementation and the data transfer,” as Michael Krämer and Olaf Kapulla from CAS Software report. Tauber evaluates the cooperation with the software manufacturer both before and during the implementation as being thoroughly positive. “We’re very happy with the care and the service.” Just a few months later, on 2 May 2007, the implementation was completely finished: KIM had her first working day.

The all-rounder in sales, marketing and customer service

Since then KIM has been supporting the OKI employees in almost all working procedures. She controls the development of sales and marketing projects, she helps in lead and partner management and even in event management it is difficult to think of working without KIM. The activity spectrum is comprehensive: It is the leading system from address management to product registration and inter-departmental project development and support for marketing measures to which 120 employees in the central region (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium and the Netherlands) have access through Web Client. The advantage: All the data is centrally stored in the headquarters in Düsseldorf and kept right up-to-date. For the first time it is possible to support customers as kinds of “distributors”, who are largely active in the entire central region, on the same data basis and in one customer dossier. With KIM, OKI has changed from a heterogeneous CRM landscape to a unified system that makes all customer data available. Tauber: “Everything to do with the customer, what he is interested in, what he has had to do with us to date, is in the customer dossier. An immense advantage for inter-departmental and inter-branch cooperation.”

“Using the intelligent filter scanning, employees are able to select customers according to the most diverse attributes in a split second.”
Torsten Tauber, Project Manager for OKI Germany.

Capacities that impress

The OKI team is especially impressed by the analytical capabilities of their new CRM solution. “Using the intelligent filter scanning, the employees are able to select customers according to the most diverse attributes in a split second or to create for themselves individual viewpoints, which generate a desired list at the push of a button. We couldn’t do this before in such detail in the short space of time,” emphasises Tauber and he confirms that there are many detailed functions for the employees to discover in the system. “It will certainly not be quickly boring to someone,” grins Tauber, but there is one worry: “CRM does not function with the sledgehammer approach. We have continuously increased the acceptance of our employees through extended workshops and step-by-step introductions of new functions.” For this reason, the advantages and simplifications are all the more noticed today right across the company spectrum.

Practical test passed – objective reached

KIM passed the practical test at OKI at a stroke through the ease of handling and the easy to understand structure. The objective of increasing customer proximity and customisation further at OKI has been achieved – not least thanks to the exemplary CRM introduction with well-trimmed seminars matching the OKI requirements. The company is on the road thanks to KIM to working more efficiently with the customer and to further simplifying cooperation in the departments. KIM is thus the best recommendation for CAS genesisWorld, even in other countries in which OKI, the specialist for professional printing solutions and output management, sells its printers. Soon the launch starts in Great Britain, the OKI European headquarters; Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic are following.

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