In the third of a series of stories on the Safmarine Transition Plan, we talk to Safmarine Global CRM Manager Marina Cooreman who is helping her colleagues at Maersk Line introduce a new customer relationship management system.
Over the past year, Safmarine’s customer relationship management system (CRM), Salesforce, has proved popular with both employees and customers –and, best of all, it has helped to boost business.
As its name suggests, the CRM system manages Safmarine’s relationship with its customers, supporting all sales activities and allowing employees to track every single customer interaction at any time, from any location.
“Our old CRM system was cumbersome and no longer fit for the needs of a modern-day company. It had become very difficult for the sales people to do their jobs,” recalls Marina Cooreman, the company’s Global CRM Manager.
Safmarine examined all the available options on the market, plumping for the Salesforce CRM system and its up-to-the-minute cloud computing technology. Cloud computing enables data, which is stored on remote servers, to be accessed from a desktop or mobile device with an internet or 3G connection.
According to Salesforce, its CRM system simplifies the business of selling: “[There’s] no more digging through various spreadsheets, emails, and databases – everything you and your colleagues need is stored in one place and accessible from anywhere.”
Following a pilot scheme in January 2010, Safmarine launched Salesforce globally in October of the same year. “It has made a huge difference. For the first time we have full visibility of our business,” says Cooreman.
Safmarine sales staff have developed a closer and deeper relationship with their customers. “At all times we have an overview of the customers’ status, what we quoted last time and what their worries are. We’ve got a quoting system that our customers like – and we have fewer disputed invoices.”
Cooreman says that the Safmarine sales team is similarly pleased with a system that is also helping the company win more business. “We can keep track of our bookings on a weekly basis – we can see when they’re going up and down. We can find out why we lost a piece of business and how to do better next time,” she adds.
Maersk Line will be moving to the Salesforce CRM system from March 2012. Cooreman has been working closely with Maersk on the implementation plan and is greatly encouraged by the progress being made. “The feedback I’ve had from people in Maersk who are going to be using the system in a few months’ time is that they think it’s going to be great success,” she says. “It’s a flexible tool that supports our business processes and not the other way around. We won’t have to adapt our processes to it.”
“Lighthouse”, Intranet for Safmarine Container Lines NV
