Transactions: Customer Wins for September 14, 2004

Surado Solutions announced that Georgia Student Finance Commission (GSFC), an agency that administers student financial aid programs--such as low-interest federal Stafford and PLUS loans, provided by the state of Georgia--has selected Surado CRM as a result of GSFC's enterprisewide reengineering initiative. (In 2003 GSFC recognized the need for an enterprise CRM system to improve all aspects of its customer service delivery, including contact and issue management for its customer service, marketing, sales, and support function). Using Surado CRM CTI Integration, Surado CRM will also join together with GSFC's call center, triggering constituent records to automatically pop up as calls are received. Ascential Software announced that Lufthansa Technik Logistik (LTL), an aviation industry logistics specialist and a wholly owned subsidiary of MRO-provider Lufthansa Technik, has selected the Ascential Enterprise Integration Suite to link accounting systems with inventory management, storage, shipping, and transportation management. In choosing Ascential to spearhead its CRM initiative, LTL sought to identify, extract, transform, and load accounting-ready data into an SAP R/3 accounting system. Using the solution LTL has gained real-time insight into financial performance, improved accounting processes, and automated several critical administrative tasks. Now, LTL's accounting systems can identify the completion of a spare-part shipment to a repair site, and automatically issue a payment to the spare part supplier, while updating the company's own books. BCE Elix and the city of Montreal announced the launch of telephone applications that provide Montrealers with an enhanced, 87-ACCES automated telephone-service system. Bilingual voice applications implemented by BCE Elix will allow citizens to call the 87-ACCES line at any time and quickly access information that previously had been available only on the city's Web site. Three interactive voice applications are now available (in French and English): Info-Collectes, which can be accessed when a person speaks his postal code and which provides schedules for garbage and bulky-object collection; Info-Remorquage, which enables callers to locate towed cars during snow-removal operations by saying the license plate number; and Points of Service, through which citizens can obtain their borough's points-of-service address, phone number, and opening hours. Pyxis announced that Evergreen Investments, a division of Wachovia Bank, has implemented mWholesaler as its mobile sales solution. mWholesaler is a wireless financial application that is a part of Pyxis' mPlatform Solutions suite, and is used in conjunction with the BlackBerry wireless solution from Research In Motion. The solution will provide remote access to important sales, CRM, and enterprise data from the company's existing systems. Joy Global, an organization that manufactures, services, and distributes equipment for surface mining worldwide, has chosen TechTeam Global's Single Point of Contact support solution to consolidate its multinational technical help desks and deliver 24/7/365 support. TechTeam Global is an international provider of multilingual help-desk support services, and will provide support to approximately 3,000 of Joy Global's employees worldwide for IT systems and shrink-wrapped applications from its Davenport, Iowa, facility. Prior to this new contract, Joy Global's two divisions, Joy Mining Machinery and P&H Mining Equipment, had maintained separate technical support help desks using different methodologies, processes, and technologies throughout several regions worldwide. The initiative will be introduced first in U.S. locations, followed by a progressive rollout to facilities in the United Kingdom, Australia, and South Africa. Related articles: School Districts Use CRM to Balance the Needs of Their Constituents The Goldilocks Syndrome Successful CRM often takes more than one try to get just right.