The situation
The Motor Trade Association (MTA) represents more than 4,000 automotive industry professionals in New Zealand. The ‘MTA assured’ brand provides members and customers assurance that they are dealing with the best-of-thebest by providing information about members’ automotive products and services, and supporting automotive industry professionals nationwide.
According to MTA’s Chief Financial Officer, Kaetrin Stephenson, “Our members are not typically sitting at a desk; they’re working in their businesses. We have a wide spectrum of industry professionals, including vehicle dealers, repairers and fuel retailers. We communicate with our members and their customers via phone, electronic communications, print material and face-to-face contact. To ensure that we know each member and their customer well we want to provide a personalised communication approach that suits them and ensures communication levels are at their best.”
The pain
MTA needed a transparent view of both the ‘MTA assured’ members and other MTA stakeholders to ensure a full understanding of everyone’s needs. “We needed a single view of our members and stakeholders and all our interactions with them,” says Kaetrin. “Information about our members and our stakeholders was [previously] held in myriad databases and in the heads of staff – capturing this in one place was top of mind. We needed a knowledge portal that gave us one version of the truth.”
Intergen got their engines started and embarked on the ERIC (Every Relationship Is Captured) project with MTA. Intergen’s Senior Project Manager, Katherine Debney, recalls, “MTA’s old CRM system was difficult to use. It didn’t talk well with their other systems, including their Microsoft Dynamics AX financial system, website and event management system. And any reporting and analysis was difficult to extract.”
Confirms Kaetrin, “Our previous CRM [system] was difficult to use; it had a scary look and feel and details were too complex. Staff lost interest and confidence and usability was minimal. We needed a system that was user friendly, as well as one that could talk with our other key systems, including Microsoft Outlook, our website and event management system.”
When it came to updating their CRM solution, MTA needed a system that all staff could update easily, in real time, no matter where they were, resulting in reduced duplication of effort and resource. “If a member of the public calls our mediation line to register an issue, and John our business manager visits the same member, having the mediation line case recorded in CRM in real time is essential,” says Kaetrin.
Everyone at MTA needs to use CRM, from the member benefits team, advocacy, mediation, event management, marketing and communications teams to the finance and corporate team supporting our Committees. All need to produce reports and analyse data differently. According to Kaetrin, “Our old system didn’t allow us to easily customise our own views. Reporting and analysis was done manually, using many disparate spreadsheets, and the time and effort to generate a report became more difficult than necessary.”
The gain
“Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 has been adopted extremely well. Staff are now collaborating with each other to see what can be done to make their jobs easier. All staff can now create and customise their own columns and views that suit their needs, removing the lengthy process of generating spreadsheets. It allows us to see the bigger picture,” says Kaetrin.
MTA now has a powerful, user-friendly system to drive their ERIC (Every Relationship Is Captured) strategy. As Kaetrin says, “We now have the capability for real time information across every facet of the business and a CRM system that our team are confident in. Microsoft Dynamics CRM has the flexibility to be used offline, anytime, which allows our business managers to use it on the road when visiting members. Staff can now easily slice and dice data from within a single knowledge portal. We now see opportunities ahead to extend our use of ERIC for our other external stakeholders, such as suppliers, business partners, sponsors and industry related bodies.”