CDW Helps nTelos Wireless Improve Sales Management with CRM

CASE STUDY: CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT
PUTTING
CUSTOMERS
ON SPEED DIAL
“Our CEO is very
data-driven:
When I give him
information
we’ve gleaned
from our CRM
system, he takes
notes and takes
action,” says
Ralph Kirtland,
vice president
of IT for nTelos
Wireless.
At a Glance
COMPANY: nTelos Wireless
HEADQUARTERS: Waynesboro, Va.
With Microsoft Dynamics CRM,
nTelos Wireless revolutionizes
how it handles customers
post-sale at retail stores — and
that’s only the beginning.
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EMPLOYEES: 1,300
SERVICE LOCATIONS: Kentucky,
Maryland, North Carolina, Ohio,
Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia
SALES STRATEGY: 65 brick-and-mortar
stores, plus inside sales
BUSINESS: nTelos Wireless provides
high-speed, nationwide voice and
data coverage for over 430,000 retail
subscribers across a seven-state area.
The company’s licensed territories have
a total population of approximately
8.1 million residents, of which its wireless
network covers approximately 6 million
residents. The company is also the
exclusive wholesale provider of wireless
digital personal communications service
to Sprint Nextel in the western Virginia
and West Virginia service area for all
Sprint CDMA wireless customers.
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CASE STUDY: CRM
At nTelos Wireless, new and old
blend seamlessly. It’s a tradition
that began in 1897, when the
regional phone carrier was
launched as the Clifton ForgeWaynesboro Telephone Co.
Twenty-two years ago, nTelos
entered the mobile arena when
it launched its wireless division.
Then, two years ago, it spun off its
“We started by looking at nTelos’
50%
e-commerce site,” Casey says.
“We took a strategic look at how
of all CRM systems
will be cloud-based
by 2020.
SOURCE: Gartner Research
their business was currently set
up and figured out how to tap
horizontally into all components.
We positioned CRM as a framework
that could reach into every part of
the operation, offering one catalog
of products across the web, point
wire-line division into a separate
of sale and inside sales, as well as
enterprise called Lumos Networks,
inbound service.”
leaving it as a pure-play wireless
Initially, nTelos experimented with
company.
cloud-based CRM services from another company. It was a
At the time of the split, nTelos realized it needed a better
good way to both test how CRM could help nTelos’ business
way to follow up on new sales, generate leads and improve
and demonstrate the potential benefits to key stakeholders
customer satisfaction at its 65 brick-and-mortar stores
and management sponsors, Casey says.
spread across Appalachia and the Mid-Atlantic.
Once the company could demonstrate a solid business
“What we needed was a call-back program that allowed
case for CRM, it decided to leverage its existing investment in
us to reach out to customers to make sure they were happy
Microsoft products and adopt Dynamics CRM, Kirtland says.
with the phone and the service they had selected,” says
“We are already largely a Microsoft shop. We use
Ralph Kirtland, vice president of IT for nTelos Wireless.
.NET for our in-house point-of-sale system, SQL Server
“We’d had this type of program in the past, but it was all
for our data warehouse, and a Microsoft stack for our
driven by emails and Post-It notes.”
e-commerce platform,” he says. “Anything that isn’t a
With the high staff turnover rates typical of retail, a lot of
telecom billing app or middleware solution is Microsoft. So
those calls were never made. Even when they were, nTelos’
the fact that Dynamics was made by Microsoft and highly
400-plus sales staff had no easy way to record the outcomes
rated by Gartner made our decision a slam dunk.”
of the calls, capture new leads or share that information with
Another key selling point was its smooth integration with
other parts of the organization. And management had no
Microsoft Office, Kirtland adds. “Other CRM vendors claim
way to measure its top performers on the store floor.
to work seamlessly with Office, but they can’t compare to
So nTelos turned to CDW for help finding a customer
relationship management solution that fit its needs. After
how Dynamics operates,” he says. “It’s just another folder
in Outlook; it feels just like you’re working with email.”
weeks of meetings with relevant stake­­
holders across the organization, CDW recommended Microsoft Dynamics CRM and
brought in technology experts Ledgeview
Partners to implement the system.
Sweeping View
Like a lot of midsize and large companies,
nTelos had developed a series of technology
silos over the years that prevented it from
easily and strategically sharing information
across the organization, notes Ray Casey, a
CDW CRM technical specialist who served as
an adviser to nTelos Wireless during its CRM
design and deployment.
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“We’re not yet at the point
where the CRM is the system
of record for all of our
customer information, but
that is our long-term goal.”
— Ralph Kirtland, vice president of IT for nTelos Wireless
800.800.4239 | CDW.com
When it came to implementation, nTelos Wireless opted
for an on-premises solution rather than a cloud-based tool.
The primary reason? Data security, Kirtland says.
“When we started this process, the operating
assumption was that we would go to the cloud,” he says.
“But as we put the question in front of a bigger audience,
it became clear that we weren’t comfortable putting the
crown jewels — our customer data — in the cloud yet.”
Eventually, Kirtland believes the company will move
Take Note: Critical
CRM Planning Decisions
such data to the cloud. “Every day, as the cloud gets more
Adopting a customer relationship
mature, that decision point moves a little bit.”
management solution often involves
Data-Driven Change
systemic change across many different parts of the
organization. Here are five questions whose answers will
With the new CRM in place, nTelos salespeople now are
help you shape your CRM strategy:
guided through a series of scripts identifying whom to call and
1. Cloud or not? Organizations need to decide up front if
when, the questions to ask and how to record the results.
they feel comfortable putting their most valuable assets —
Initially, the system prompted them to make three calls:
their customer data — in the cloud, says Ralph Kirtland, vice
• On Day 1: New customers received a call asking if they were
2. What’s your legacy? Most organizations underestimate
satisfied with their purchase and the sales experience.
• On Day 5: They received another call to see if they needed
any accessories or knew of potential customers they
were willing to refer.
• On Day 30: New nTelos Wireless subscribers received a
call to make sure they understood their bill.
president of IT for nTelos Wireless.
the amount of time and effort required to deal with legacy
data, says Chuck Hoffmann, an applications consultant for
Ledgeview Partners. But many IT shops don’t realize that it
may not be necessary to import years of old data to run the
business, he adds.
3. Can you be honest? Moving to CRM requires both an
honest reassessment of existing business processes and
From the get-go, new customers were no longer falling
through the cracks, Kirtland says. If a salesperson left the
company, a store manager was quickly able to assign that
person’s responsibilities to another employee. What’s
more, nTelos was able to ensure that all calls were made and
to grade salespeople on their proficiency at making followup calls, he points out.
The results have been so dramatic and the system has
worked so well that nTelos has been able to reduce the
number of times it needs to contact customers post-sale.
Now, its salespeople call on Day 3 and Day 45 after an initial
purchase. Customer referrals have risen while calls for tech
support have dropped, saving nTelos tens of thousands of
the willingness to change them, says Ray Casey, a CDW CRM
technical specialist. “You need to be able to look at your
existing systems and say, ‘The emperor isn’t wearing any
clothes,’ ” he says.
4. Got local expertise? It’s worthwhile to have a CRM expert
inside your IT department, Kirtland advises. “My belief is
that every business-critical system needs its own expert
in-house,” he says. “Things break from time to time. You
need someone who can assess how bad the breakage is and
what it will take to fix it.”
5. Where’s the boss? Systemic changes such as CRM
adoption require participation of all key stakeholders —
as well as strong support from senior management.
dollars in support costs, Kirtland says.
“We’ve been able to head off a number of calls that might
Even better, the number of product returns attributed
says. “If a customer has a question about how the phone works,
to “buyer’s remorse” has dropped by 20 percent within the
the sales rep can usually handle it. And we get more referrals
first 90 days, saving the company more than $200,000
now because we have a better completion rate when calling
over two years.
customers. Without that phone call, you may have a happy
customer who wants to refer other people to you but can’t.”
“If you catch customers within the 14-day return period,
you have a chance to educate them about what’s really
Vlastimil Šesták/Veer
have otherwise gone into our customer care organization,” he
3
CASE STUDY: CRM
causing any problems,” Kirtland says. “They’re less likely
to storm into the store after two weeks and demand their
money back. A better-educated customer is a happier
800.800.4239 | CDW.com
44%
Hoffmann, an applications consultant for Ledgeview
of all CRM implementations
are used by sales
organizations.
Partners who managed the project. Once the decision
SOURCE: Gartner Research
customer.”
Rapid Deployment
Deploying the system was relatively speedy, says Chuck
was made to migrate to Microsoft Dynamics in-house, the
initial implementation took about a month.
Despite the fact that nTelos Wireless was essentially
doing their jobs. There has to be a good business reason for
starting from scratch, cleaning and importing the company’s
doing that, and you have to be able to communicate that
legacy data — typically, one of the biggest headaches with
business reason to all of your personnel.”
most CRM implementations — was a nonissue, he says.
“The hardest part was making sure users interacted
Ready to Scale
with the new system in as straightforward a way as
Since the initial build, Hoffmann says, Ledgeview has
possible,” Hoffmann says. “You tend to have more
worked with nTelos to add more flexibility, so the company
turnover in retail stores and a relatively new user base,
can design and refine its own scripts without the need for
compared to other businesses. The Dynamics dialog
third-party help.
boxes had to be easy for newbies to use, so we spent a fair
amount of time refining what the scripts looked like.”
One key to successful implementation was the amount
“They now have the capability to branch out into other
parts of the business besides retail,” he says. “We were
able to take it to the next level in terms of flexibility and
of careful thought and discussion nTelos put into the
the ability to tailor the system to meet other business
process, as well as its willingness to re-examine how
needs.”
it operates.
“Organizations may think their selling process is set,
but once you open up the window of introducing CRM, you
get to talk about whether that’s really the best way to go
In fact, the retail store project barely scrapes the
surface of what nTelos plans to do with Microsoft
Dynamics, Kirtland says.
“We’re not yet at the point where the CRM is the
about it, or if there’s a better way,” Hoffmann says. “The
system of record for all of our customer information, but
team at nTelos really had to think through what it wanted
that is our long-term goal,” he says. “We hope to achieve
to have happen during the sales process, what kinds of
that by the end of 2014.”
questions it should be asking customers when they call,
and who should make the calls.”
Another key was the strong support from upper
management, he adds.
“You need to have your leadership team actively engaged
The ripples of change have already begun spreading
across the organization.
“Our CEO is very data-driven,” Kirtland says. “When I
give him information we’ve gleaned from our CRM system,
he takes notes and takes action. It gives him a view into
in making the project a success,” Hoffmann says. “You’re
the business, what we’re doing at the retail level and the
disrupting employees’ lives, changing how they’re used to
success we’re having.”
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