"If a rep moved from one territory to another, the new rep coming in wasn't given a whole lot of information. They started from scratch, without knowing who had advertised with us in the past," said Brian Jonas, advertising CRM administrator for the company. "We wanted an approachable and intuitive tool sales reps could use to capture who they were talking to and share that information."
After looking at three-dozen products including GoldMine, Onyx and Siebel, Jonas discovered Sage CRM SalesLogix. He got in touch with Scott Adams, a Sage CRM SalesLogix Business Partner with SalesPath Corp.
"We decided Sage CRM SalesLogix would be easily understood and would enable us to share information," Jonas said.
Adams added, "They liked the flexibility Sage CRM SalesLogix provided — the way it could be customized to meet their exact needs. Plus, they could work with Sage CRM SalesLogix very much like they did with ACT! by Sage. That combination of flexibility, familiarity and ease of use really sold them on Sage CRM SalesLogix."
Sage CRM SalesLogix KnowledgeSync Brings Advertisers Back
In addition to the problem of salespeople moving territories, Seattle Times Co. was faced with the complication of tracking occasional advertisers. These businesses place seasonal or special-interest ads only during certain times of the year. "Many of these were falling through the cracks until we rolled out Sage CRM SalesLogix," Jonas said.
To address the organization's unique business, SalesPath also recommended the use of Sage CRM SalesLogix KnowledgeSync, which provides automatic business alerts and notifications. SalesPath created check boxes in Sage CRM SalesLogix for seasonal customers so that 60 days before their advertising time, the appropriate salesperson receives a reminder to contact the customer. "That's been a huge help!" Jonas added.
"The simple, easy e-mail alerts that we're generating from Sage CRM SalesLogix have been very well received. Reps say, 'It's great. This is just what I need.'"
- Brian Jonas, Advertising CRM Administrator
The Seattle Times Co.
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Sage CRM SalesLogix KnowledgeSync also generates alerts in Sage CRM SalesLogix for advertisers who have been inactive for a time, encouraging sales reps to get in touch with them.
"Sales reps previously had that information available to them through business system reports, but they didn't look at them, as there were too many," Jonas said. "The simple, easy e-mail alerts that we're generating from Sage CRM SalesLogix have been very well received. Reps say, 'It's great. This is just what I need.' I know we've saved a lot of advertisers from going inactive. It's difficult to track that, but that surely translates into revenue."
Only the Beginning
Jonas has long been involved in helping The Seattle Times Co. apply technology to its sales processes, but his background is as a salesperson. In doing so, he said, "I've always taken my sales background and said, 'You run the machine this way, but here's how you sell with the machine.' Here's what you do to make a sale using this program."
He expects to be applying Sage CRM SalesLogix to the company's business processes for a long time to come. The Seattle Times Co. currently has nearly 130 people using Sage CRM SalesLogix and will soon expand that number to about 150. It's just the beginning of a four-year plan the company has for its CRM initiative with Sage CRM SalesLogix.
But, that plan is built on a series of little successes. And little successes, like small, occasional advertisers, can add up to a lot. Jonas summed it up well: "Sage CRM SalesLogix stops those little disasters from happening."
