The Shoebox Goes Digital

In today's high-speed, automated world, a shoebox stuffed with sales leads on postcards is quaint. But it had worked for Qqest Software Systems' Larry Karas, a three-time sales representative of the year at the direct marketing company, who was loath to embrace his employer's move into the 21st century.

Qqest, a direct marketer of time and attendance products, payroll services, and asset maintenance and management software, had some computerized solutions in place, said Burke Plummer, president of the Salt Lake City-based company. But the multivendor system was inadequate, he said.

"We wanted to automate the sales process. We knew we wanted an integrated system to the back end and our support structure," said Plummer. "We had three different systems that didn't talk to each other. The sales processes were manual for tracking leads."

There were myriad challenges, both in regard to the technology and to getting user buy-in from Karas and his colleagues in the sales department, said Steve Estes, president of Unison, an 11-year-old CRM (customer relationship management) and SFA (sales force automation) integrator that won the contract to design, implement and support Qqest's integrated solution.

Satisfied with their existing paper-based system and concerned about any potential sales slowdown a new computer solution could create, employees were less than enthusiastic about Qqest's plan to automate.

"I went into Burke's office and said, 'I've got to have cards,'" Karas said. "I held a card in his face and said, 'Cards have personality!'"

Ultimately, Karas didn't have to give up his cards or his shoebox.

After studying how the sales staff worked, Unison designed a system with a virtual shoebox and cards that minimized keyboard use while making the screens familiar and comfortable to the users.

Does product still matter?

Unison's approach illustrates how with a little creativity and attention to customer needs, it's possible to make even the most reluctant users embrace new technology.

The first steps

Despite protestations from sales reps, using shoeboxes as databases was no longer in the cards for Qqest employees.

The company's management spent several months reading industry magazines, vendor literature and any other documentation it could find, Plummer said.

Eventually, Qqest (pronounced "Q-quest") narrowed its search for an automated system to five candidates. Each vendor demonstrated its product's capabilities to Qqest. The winner: Sage Software's SalesLogix CRM software, which Qqest wanted to integrate with its existing Sage MAS 90 accounting solution, Plummer said.

"It fit our budget, and we thought it would fit our needs," Plummer said, adding that Sage recommended Unison for the project. "We were very impressed with Steve [Estes] and Unison. He had some great ideas. We selected him as our partner very quickly."

Before making concrete recommendations about the implementation, Unison watched sales representatives at work, looked into Qqest's existing systems and discussed the company's technology wish-list with executives and users, Estes said.

"We did an initial needs assessment. They had a lot of noncomputer people in the sales force," Estes said. "They had a lot of disparate systems and eight or nine different repositories of data, all with different structures. There were all kinds of different challenges."

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