The sales team were using a variety of tools to manage their customers, schedule contracts, book meetings, create quotes, process orders and generate sales reports.

Lister Wilder needed a unified solution to improve the efficiency of the team, help them make contact with the right people at the right time, give them all the tools they need and provide valuable management information.

The first stage of the work was to understand the scope of the work and create a detailed brief. Firstly we identified the essential system modules and began to break down the functionality and user journeys required within each module.

We initially decided on the backend framework and then proceeded to create each module in a phased way. The process for creating each module began with a meeting review the initial brief and establish a more detailed working document to guide the development work.

After extensive development and testing, the system was launched to the sales team in early 2016. The system was also given a name, ‘Ignition’.

The main system modules are:

Dashboard – overview of all areas and breakdown of actions and to-dos

Enquiries – capturing, allocation and tracking of all enquiries

Customers – everything sales need to know, including replacement dates, demonstrations, history, action triggers

Appraisals – capturing of all machinery information to allow valuations by trade or in-house

Quotes – full quoting system linked to stock

Reports – sales and management reports

To dos – those important day-to-day activities

User management – to allow unlimited users at various levels of access

Stocklist – imported from the stock control system to allow use in the CRM

Ignition has emerged as a very comprehensive CRM solution for machine dealerships, with extensive functionality and an accompanying iPad app for appraising and recording details of second-hand machinery.

Ignition was readily accepted by the sales team, who recognised the enormous value of the system very quickly. Ignition is now helping the sales team to be significantly more efficient, communicate effectively with customers and achieve higher levels of sales. Ignition is also delivering valuable management data, helping to identify the activity and effectiveness of the sales team and enable ongoing improvements.