Utility services company selects hosted CRM solution to support rapid growth

workers face scrutinyBBA Energy (BBA), a fast-growing provider of utility management services, has improved customer relationships and response times after implementing a hosted CRM solution from Advanced ConsultCRM (Advanced).

Microsoft Dynamics CRM was rolled out in October 2014 to drive efficiencies following the company’s year-on-year growth of 20%. The system is streamlining the management of more than 200 projects and related support activities by reducing manual effort and providing a 360 degree view of BBA’s customers.

BBA assists organisations in the construction and education sectors to reduce costs by negotiating often complex energy supply contracts. The company previously used the task function in Microsoft Outlook to record notes for all customer projects which can run for up to three years. Staff were unable to access key information quickly and valuable notes would be lost if two people were trying to update a record at the same time.

The CRM’s case management functionality allows BBA’s energy consultants to view customer contact details, correspondence, contracts and billing information from one single solution. Staff can collaborate in real time to answer customer support queries, and create and share project documents across the entire team.

The system also automatically produces reports to highlight the number of open cases and daily tasks outstanding, eliminating the need to manually search through huge volumes of data.

Paul Mallett, Operations Director at BBA Energy, explains: “As we grew we needed to manage projects more efficiently. After reviewing three systems we selected Microsoft Dynamics CRM due to its integration capabilities, in addition to it being a market leading solution which is well supported and invested in.

“We chose Advanced as our preferred partner due to their flexibility and in-depth knowledge of Microsoft. Unlike other suppliers, they listened to our implementation requirements and tailored the system specifically, instead of trying to sell us a package we didn’t need.”

Advanced has recently delivered a series of bespoke training sessions to assist BBA to drive further adoption of Microsoft Dynamics CRM internally and increase productivity by creating workflows to automate many manual processes. By dynamically linking contacts to accounts, the solution has provided staff with an end-to-end process to seamlessly manage the relationships between its customers, contractors and energy suppliers.

CRM ensures the company’s energy consultants can easily determine the exact stage of a project and next steps required, in addition to monitoring critical timeframes such as a contract’s start and expiry date to offer an enhanced customer experience.

Mallett comments: “Microsoft Dynamics CRM has enabled us to manage a substantial increase in our workloads, with the same number of staff, whilst providing improved customer service. Staff are able to respond much faster to queries as they no longer have to wade through pages of information which wasn’t possible before.

“We were also impressed by the experience of the Advanced team and the quality of training provided as it was delivered exactly to our requirements. The team responded immediately to staff feedback and adapted the system, which is enabling us to further improve efficiency.”

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