Supreme Datastream

Award Winner:
Datastream Systems, Greenville, S.C

Award Category:
Customer Relationship Management
Company Products/Services:

Award Winner:
Datastream Systems, Greenville, S.C
Award Category:
Customer Relationship Management
Company Products/Services:

Datastream Systems develops computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS) and enterprise asset management systems (EAMS) for businesses that want to improve maintenance efficiency. The company provides all software, installation, training and consulting to assist customers with controlling spare parts inventories, scheduling tasks that reduce equipment downtime and expediting the purchasing process.

Implementation Time:
The majority of users were online in 8 weeks; the remainder were up in 16 weeks.

Implementation Team:
Will McCuen, director of corporate systems

Users:
Roughly 500 users from several departments, including sales, technical support, field service and shipping. This includes remote users across the United states, as well as sales-users in Germany, Holland, Singapore, Australia and France who connect to the system through a WAN configuration.

Business Challenges:
Datastream faced significant increases in customers and prospect records. It was an overwhelming task to effectively manage the information about each and at the same time continue to provide an exceptional level of customer care. Furthermore, the company could not extract accurate decision-supporting data from its existing database systems.

Automation Solution:
Datastream turned to a package software solution: Onyx Front Office from Onyx Software Corporation. Onyx Front Office gave Datastream a truly controlled repository for all of its data-customer, prospect or distributor-and allowed the organization to manage its growing bulk of customer and prospect information. The solution also provided the ability to have one interface with an intuitive access to each significant area of its business-support, sales, shipping, accounting, and so on-and allowed for the sharing of that data across the entire organization. The interface allowed for vast improvements in contact management and customer care. Plus, sales information and other data are now effectively shared through Datastream and its international operations.

Business Benefits:
Onyx Front Office has enabled Datastream to realize significant improvements in three key areas. First, the implementation has resulted in productivity enhancements by delivering improved uptime per user. It has also automated faxing capabilities as well as literature fulfillment. Secondly, the company has seen revenue increase because the Onyx system triggers reminders based on certain criteria within customer-record data to help Datastream effectively manage renewal dates for yearly support contracts. Finally, the system has also comprehensively improved the organization's reporting and data analysis.

Customer Benefits:
Onyx solution gives all of Datastream's customer service divisions access to accounting information and notes. Having that information in one central customer management solution allows Datastream to give customers a positive contact experience with the organization. All of Datastream's software support incidents are logged onto Onyx, and escalation of the incidents are automated and managed through the system. All incident-resolution data comes from Onyx too, which improves the company's ability to deal with customer issues. Onyx is also used to track support payments and renewals. Support representatives can quickly and easily check to see if a customer is on support and then provide the appropriate level of service.

The Bottom Line:
Datastream was aware of a flaw in the way it managed customer relationships and it aggressively sought the solution that best fit its needs. Since implementing Onyx Front Office in September of 1995, Datastream has been able to significantly improve its level of customer relationship management. The solution has given Datastream a way to better track and manage customer data and has provided the company's internal structure with ways to share the data from department to department. And the results of the customer service improvement capabilities aren't felt in increased customer satisfaction alone. Productivity levels have also increased through the use of the program, and additional revenue has been realized.