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One of the best ways a business can distinguish itself from competitors is by offering amazing customer service. After all, two-thirds of consumers say they are willing to spend more with a company they believe provides excellent service. The challenge often for small businesses is maintaining the stellar level of service their clients are accustomed to, while at the same time witnessing rapid growth.
Take Michael Andrews Bespoke, a premiere custom clothier in New York. CEO Michael Andrews says the business is different than traditional retailers because, “If you walk into Saks to buy a suit, you try it on, if you like it, you buy it. In our case, once you've bought it, we're married for the next couple of months. You're paying a premium to get something that's really special and so we have to go the extra mile to make sure that it's special.”
As the company grew, the way they managed their customer info needed to evolve as well. Using Salesforce, Michael Andrews Bespoke built an order management system where they input and track real-time customer data from first contact. This includes basic CRM information, like a client’s name and address, and much more, such as measurements, when their order is placed, the fabric they choose, and even when a service-oriented six month follow-up takes place.
As a result of implementing the new system, Michael Andrews Bespoke has:
Here are four reasons why this solution made such a significant difference:
Michael Andrews Bespoke works with their clients face-to-face three times at minimum and often for many years if they become a long term customer. When the company was small, they could easily manage customer info and orders on paper. Andrews says the old system started “falling apart” when the company began growing rapidly. “We had to have a better way of keeping up with our orders. We do a good job at our core business, which is making beautiful clothes. We needed some help on the technology side to make sure that we had the infrastructure in place to deliver world-class client service,” says Andrews.
Although Michael Andrews Bespoke has gone from a handful of employees to more than a dozen, they are still a small business that lacks in-house technical support. “I am the IT department,” says Andrews. He adds that their custom order management system is so easy to use, after some simple training, he now does “almost all of the development maintenance, adding fields and new functionality, pretty much on the fly as our sales team needs it. They just have to come over to me and ask.”
Prior to implementing Salesforce, Michael Andrews Bespoke typically saw an error in about a third of the orders placed with them. Now that the process is automated, “it’s virtually unheard of that we have mistakes in orders,” says Andrews. In addition, orders are delivered faster and accounts receivable has greatly decreased. The company typically collects a 50% deposit on orders, but were then often sending suits home without collecting the rest. “With Salesforce we now run reports on a very regular basis and that just doesn't happen anymore,” says Andrews.
Michael Andrews Bespoke now has thousands of customers to which they are not only offering a great product, but also great service. “Without something like Salesforce, we were going to wither on the vine because we couldn't support the level of customer service that we needed to be delivering,” says Andrews. “It provided the scalable platform that we needed to continue to grow our company. If we'd continued using pencil and paper the way we were, we just would have collapsed on ourselves.”
This 'Share Your Success' project is a blog series that spotlights a customer story. Feel free to Share Your Success story with us and be in the next blog post.
Discover additional ways to provide amazing customer service by downloading this e-book.
