We needed to know that our customer data is complete, reliable, easily accessible from anywhere at any time. We needed an objective picture of the work of our employees. It turned out to be very important: to have good processes and the CRM system to follow the processes, not vice versa. It turned out that we didn’t have well-built processes... Next Consult performed an analysis and showed us what we did wrong. They consulted us on how to optimize our processes.
Ginyo Genev, Chief Oil Manager at Omnicar BG
After 15 years of continuous expansion in the Bulgarian market, with a well-known name in the industry and with one of the most prestigious awards in the branch globally, today Omnicar BG has full visibility of its customers’ needs thanks to Salesforce CRM. This allows the distribution company to think forward and focus on developing its marketing.
Oils and greases for car service centers and manufacturers
400 tons of oil – this is the constant supply in the central warehouse of Omnicar BG. Omnicar BG has over 10 years of experience in distributing engine and industrial lubricants. Among its clients are different companies – from small car service centers with one or two mechanics “getting their hands dirty”, to large manufacturing enterprises with huge production facilities, serviced by hundreds of robots and machinery. Omnicar BG has four offices in Sofia, Plovdiv, Varna and Bourgas with area of more than 2 200 sq. meters. Company’s annual turnover is 14m leva. Product palette covers a nomenclature of 350 products. This includes oils and greases both in bulk and in packages. The company has its own waste management program and is the only importer of lubricants that efficiently collect and sends for recycling more than 40 % of its delivered products. Recently Omnicar BG won a gold medal in the ExxonMobil program „Circle of Excellence“ in the category “Distributor Excellence 2016”.
Limited visivility over sales
“We’ve had an ERP system for a number of years, but it reflected only the financial part of our business. We needed to understand the needs of our customers, their activities, their necessities” says Ginyo Genev, Chief Oil Manager at Omnicar BG. At the time, the company’s business was growing, but for the management this is similar to driving a car with limited visibility. Every day our team of more than 30 sales people travels around the country and gathers a huge amount of data – they talk with clients on the phone, meet new customers, sign contracts with existing ones – constantly learning something new about the consumers. But all this remains unseen for the management. “We were learning things post factum. How did the sales person perform? At what price the customer has made a purchase and for how much? We got to know this at a later stage, a month after a deal was made, when the reports came out we understood about won and lost deals. This was a big problem for us”, said Genev. “The information about each customer was only in the mind of the sales person. Each of them had their notebook and only they knew what was happening with the customer. If we lost a buyer we did not know why” In the fall of 2014 the management team of Omnicar BG learned about Salesforce. It was presented to them by Next Consult at a meeting after a Business System Conference.
Good processes and only then - software
“We needed to know that our customer data is complete, reliable, easily accessible from anywhere at any time. We needed an objective picture of the work of our employees. It turned out to be very important: to have good processes and the CRM system to follow the processes, not vice versa”, said Genev. It turned out that we didn’t have well-built processes – there was a process but it was not complete. Yes, the sales were going well but the process was not complete. Next Consult performed an analysis and showed us what we did wrong. They consulted us on how to optimize our processes. We also inquired our colleagues from other countries – from Romania and especially from Serbia. They told us how they used the system. Now, we have a complete process for everything. Every process “works at the right frequency”, said Genev.
An invaluable asset: thousands of profiles
In the beginning of 2017 Omnicar BG already has 7000 customer profiles – full of information. Salesforce is integrated with the company’s ERP system and managers have full visibility over customers’ needs. “We now manage prices in advance”, said Genev. There is clarity on how the day goes by for every sales person in the company. Each of them is required to realize a minimum number of daily visits at a customer – with specific tasks assigned. Each meeting aims at a clear goal and ends with a specific result. If a colleague has a problem, he can share it in the system. In “Chatter” the problem is resolved instantly. “If something goes wrong, if we’ve forgotten something, it is solved in real time – we don’t even talk on the phone about such things”, said Genev. For new employees of the company such communication is essential, emphasized from Next Consult. In the system they are able to “listen” to what is being discussed and handle certain situations, which make it easier for them to step in the job.
The human factor
“Let me share with you the secret of success. Software integrations and technologies are complex things, what’s more important is to involve the people”, said Asparouh Bonev, CEO of Omnicar BG. “It doesn’t matter how much money you invest in a software or in hiring consultants – if you do not convince your sales team that this “nice” software is there to help them with their job.” Managers chose the approach of gradual implementation. “It took us a year to fully start using the software. We had to train the people. We did this step-by-step: we trained them for a month, then worked for a month, then we trained for another month and we let them work with the system for another month”, explains Ginyo Genev. Like other innovations, the implementation of the CRM system has met the discontent of many employees. Many see it as an obligation that wastes their time - they have to fill in data instead to going to sell “on the market”. A resistant factor is the traditional sense of “ownership of the client”. This is because the sales person uses a lot of energy to gain the client’s trust. To overcome negativity, Omnicar BG introduced bonuses and rewards for sales reps, who used Salesforce to promote entering data in the system.
A stepping stone to new ambitions
Since the implementation of Salesforce, by the end of 2016, Omnicar BG is now able to think about enhancing his marketing activities. “In the past we ignored this aspect of our work. Supposedly there were activities and promotions, but we did not manage them properly”, said Genev. The ambition of the company is to further develop marketing. Our desire is every user to create a “personal story”, where an important factor is studying customer satisfaction. To create this so-called “customer journey“, the managers of the distribution company relies again on the expertise of Next Consult. Such a future will be crucial for Omnicar BG, company’s leaders point out.
