Managing Global Customer Accounts
Travelex is a global provider of foreign exchange and international payment solutions. The company operates in over 100 countries serving over 29 million customers. In 2001 Travelex acquired Thomas Cook Global & Financial Services and today employs approximately 6,000 people.
Brian Eagle-Brown is business manager for Travelex globally, reporting directly into the group's COO, Nicholas Page. Eagle-Brown's remit includes business development, process improvement, and acquisitions.
Travelex has grown rapidly from its original bureau de change operations and has maintained its reputation for customer service. However, a recent senior management conference concluded that a major barrier existed to continued rapid growth combined with great customer service—the absence of a global, real-time, consolidated customer database.
Travelex is regionally managed but globally coordinated. Different regions had adopted disparate Customer Relationship Management (顧客關係管理) solutions including Siebel, Salesforce, GoldMine, and Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. "As a result, we did not have a consolidated global view of corporate customers," comments Eagle-Brown. "Different regions could be dealing with the same customer, but the diversity of systems made it difficult to identify this interaction."
Collating data and developing global reports and forecasts took significant management and administration as well as sales time. "In addition, the data was less than accurate," says Eagle-Brown. The complexity of some of the existing systems meant that many salespeople were not using them properly. "Any CRM system is only as good as the data inputted. If it is too difficult to use, you have a problem."
Seamlessly Implemented Across Almost 100 Countries
Eagle-Brown was appointed global project leader to find a solution. The selection criteria included user adoption, ability to implement globally, short lead time, and total cost of ownership. "Rather than reinvent the wheel, it made sense to examine if we could expand what we already had," he says.
He initially conducted research amongst Travelex users of its existing CRM programmes. The most enthusiastic feedback came out of North America, which had implemented Salesforce. "Salespeople found Salesforce easy to use," said Eagle-Brown. "They could input data offline. Administration time on reporting was minimal, as they only had to input data once. Salespeople like to be selling or be with the customer—they don't like sitting at their desks filling in reports."
At the same time, Eagle-Brown implemented a major cost-benefit analysis programme, looking at total cost of ownership from implementation and licensing to IT maintenance and support. "Again Salesforce came out top because of its business model," comments Eagle-Brown. Salesforce provides the power of enterprise-class CRM software as an on-demand Web service for a monthly subscription per user.
Because Salesforce was Web based, it made it much easier and quicker to implement across the Travelex network. "The thought of implementing a traditional client/server solution across five continents was daunting in terms of internal resource, cost, consultancy, and lead time," says Eagle-Brown.
Following tenders from the major vendors, Travelex selected Salesforce Enterprise Edition for an initial 305 users. Enterprise Edition includes Offline Edition, which enables users to update contacts on a plane, in a coffee shop, or anywhere there is no Internet access. Data is then synchronised at the click of a button once the Internet is available again.
No Hidden Costs
"The beauty of a solution like Salesforce is that you know exactly what you're going to pay for," comments Eagle-Brown. "There are no hidden costs in terms of ongoing maintenance, hardware, software, or hosting. Indeed there are significant cost savings in terms of ongoing maintenance, support, and upgrades—all of which are free to customers."
Salesforce was implemented in three months across Travelex divisions on five continents. One of the benefits of a Web-based solution is that it is customised centrally, which provides a consistent picture across the globe. "We achieved in a short time frame and very cost effectively one of our key objectives, which was a consolidated, real-time, customer database," says Eagle-Brown. This has major advantages not only in terms of customer service but also in revenue potential. Time to market in rolling out new products has been significantly reduced.
"We now know who our major global customers are, whereas before it was difficult to identify this across regions and across different CRM systems," continues Eagle-Brown. "We now also have a much more coordinated approach to our key global customers."
Time spent on consolidated reporting and forecasting has been axed. "Senior managers can see what's going on anywhere in the world and get a consolidated global view of our business in minutes," says Eagle-Brown. "In the past it would take weeks to access similar information and you could not rely on its accuracy."
Travelex is making use of the cases facility in Salesforce, which boosts customer service and response times. "Sharing of information between sales and service means that salespeople can be part of the solution, and this makes them look smarter and more responsive to their customers," says Eagle-Brown.
Travelex is also starting to implement the marketing campaign tools in the system. "The beauty of Salesforce is that it can be as comprehensive or as stripped down as you need," says Eagle-Brown. "You can have an A to B saloon car, but you don't need armies of outside consultants or engineers to turn it into a Ferrari."
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