Customer: Crimson Trace
Web Site: www.crimsontrace.com
Customer Size: 100 employees
Industry: Consumer goods manufacturing
Customer Profile: Founded in 1994, Crimson Trace is one of the leading manufacturers of laser sight equipment for small firearms in the United States.
Software and Services: Microsoft Dynamics CRM
Based in Wilsonville, Oregon, Crimson Trace manufactures, markets, and sells laser-sighting solutions for handguns. The privately-held company, which has 100 employees, primarily serves the commercial firearms market in the United States.
For more than 10 years, Crimson Trace used GoldMine contact management software to manage sales leads, generate marketing lists, and process customer requests for product returns and repairs. As the company continued to add customers and sales territories and expand its marketing efforts, however, executives recognized the need for a more full-featured and scalable CRM system.
Crimson Trace sought to improve visibility into sales force activities and better track sales performance against benchmarks. In addition, the company wanted to accelerate the creation of marketing campaigns. “The tools in GoldMine for filtering customer data were not intuitive or easy to use, which made creating marketing campaigns an extremely time-consuming process,” says Patrick Harlan, Internet Marketing Specialist at Crimson Trace. Moreover, company leaders wanted to use the solution to add rigor to its customer service delivery by using workflow tools and process automation.
In addition to these specific functional requirements, Crimson Trace placed a priority on a rapid implementation cycle. “We knew we couldn’t afford to spend months rolling out the solution; we had to be up and running in a month or less to minimize the disruption to our day-to-day business,” says Nate Hoke, Director of Customer Service at Crimson Trace.
Complicating the company’s need to complete the project quickly and ensure rapid widespread adoption of the solution was its lack of internal capacity to provide IT management and staff training. Crimson Trace outsources its IT function to a single contract employee, who also provides IT services for other local companies.
Concurrent with a broad-based feature and cost comparison of several CRM solutions, Crimson Trace searched for an IT services firm with the resources and experience to meet the company’s specific business requirements.
Crimson Trace turned to Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Armanino for help in implementing Microsoft Dynamics CRM. The Armanino team helped Crimson Trace deploy the solution across its sales, marketing, customer service, and manufacturing functions.
Armanino has more than 14 years of experience aligning CRM solutions with the unique needs of companies across a range of industries. The company applied this expertise in working closely with Crimson Trace to synchronize business goals with the technical requirements of the solution. By gaining a deep understanding of usage scenarios for each role within the company and thoroughly defining all integration points, the Armanino team was able to reduce potential delays that might have been caused by insufficient planning and miscommunication.
The Armanino team offered hands-on training designed around the day-to-day tasks of specific roles within Crimson Trace, providing opportunities for employees to learn by using actual data. “Because Microsoft Dynamics CRM looks and works like the tools employees use every day, including Microsoft Office Excel and Microsoft Office Outlook, we were able to streamline training and explore topics like building custom reports at a deeper level,” says Robert Wenstrand, Project Manager at Armanino.
Armanino helped Crimson Trace link ExactTarget, the software tool it uses to deliver e-mail marketing communications, to the database in Microsoft Dynamics CRM. “Now, our customer data stored in Microsoft Dynamics CRM automatically syncs with the ExactTarget e-mail template, eliminating the time-consuming manual tasks we previously relied on to build campaigns,” says Harlan.
Armanino delivered the solution Crimson Trace needed to dramatically increase the efficiency of its key processes. Now, Crimson Trace delivers more effective sales, marketing communications, and customer service through a fully integrated and easy-to-use CRM solution. “With the knowledge and experience the team brought to the project and their focus from day one on getting our people up to speed quickly, Armanino helped make the transition to Microsoft Dynamics CRM completely seamless,” says Hoke.
Within a week after the approval of the prototype design, Armanino helped Crimson Trace install and deploy the solution to 40 sales, marketing, customer service, and product repair staff. The company was able to draw from its experience in implementing solutions for manufacturing and distribution companies, including development of add-on modules tailored for these industries, to reduce the design time and shorten the overall implementation cycle. Says Harlan, “The expertise of the team from Armanino played a key role in accelerating the rollout of the solution and providing the training we needed to ensure rapid adoption of the technology.”
Crimson Trace has taken advantage of the powerful data management tools in Microsoft Dynamics CRM and integration with ExactTarget to significantly cut the amount of time needed to create e-mail marketing campaigns. “It used to take up to six hours for all of the technical tasks related to building a campaign. Now, because we don’t have to export lists and manually sort data, it takes just 10 minutes,” says Harlan.
Based on the training that Armanino provided during the implementation process and the inherent flexibility and intuitive design of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Crimson Trace has reduced its need for external IT support. “Now, because our people are so comfortable using Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and because it’s so straightforward to make changes to the solution, we’ve reduced our need for outside IT help, which helps us save time and money,” says Harlan. “Through the training and expertise they provided, Armanino has helped us maximize the return on our investment in Microsoft Dynamics CRM.”
Download Case StudyFebruary 07, 2013
