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Hi Folks,
I am looking for advice on a way of recording customer enquiries in order to be more proactive within our sales team.
I run a small specialist vehicle dismantlers, we buy in accident damaged vehicles and we retail the parts online.
Because of the nature of our business continuity of stock lines is very hard to maintain, (we can only stock what has been crashed and written off!) we can be out of stock of certain items or popular items for a few weeks at a time before we manage to get another vehicle of that type in and the popular bits are out of stock until we get that next one dismantled and onto the shelf.
In this time when we are out of stock we are still getting requests for various parts that we don't have, at the time we can only tell the customer we are out of stock and we don’t really know when we will have another.
I want a way of recording these enquiries that we cant fulfil so that when we do get another car of that type in we can contact the customer directly and hopefully sell it without the trouble of listing on ebay etc.
It sounds like a very simple system to me basically fields to record customer name and contact, vehicle details and part required along with price quoted and a field to show when they were followed up and if they are a dead lead now or not.
The fields need to be searchable so I can search for customers who enquired about car X, or part X and that is about it.
Does anyone have experience with such an enquiry system or can anyone suggest something I could use – ideally it would be on our network so all users (3 ) can access and add to it.
Thanks
Col
How about something like a shared spreadsheet on Google docs?
Yes, most CRM systems are built around recording phone calls. You do have to be upfront about recording calls so make sure you have a switchboard able to cope with a message about the recording, then option 1...2....3 etc.
Its a privacy law thing..
How much are you willing to spend?
Quick google found http://www.matchapart.com/supplier.php - but it's £150 a month...
If that's too pricey, you could easily knock up a spreadsheet or (sucks teeth) an Access database which can record customer requests.
You'd need to follow the GDPR though, which might be a bit onerous...
You already have an online system with the parts that are available so I would he looking at hiring someone to add on a module to do what you want so that when stock goes above zero an email is sent to anyone that has requested bthe part within say 6 months. You have to expire their details after the 6 months, don't do anything else with their details and be up front about what you are doing. It's not a particularly difficult thing to add on depending on how your website currently runs
Thanks for the replies so far,
@jimdubleyou - that is who we use for our inventory system at present, and i'd like a system that is independent of that if at all possible. Yep aware of GDPR and its potential pitfalls but when telling a customer we don't have an item we will of course seek their permission to contact them should we get one, they can opt in or out if they want. Access, not really my thing and wouldn't know where to start really.
@bikebouy - we aren't up to recording calls yet and would only use a tiny bit of a full CRM package I think.
@ involver - thought of that but updating the same doc at the same time is an issue, and would be a frequent occurrence.
Too slow :(. If you want it independent then I would do it in access or hire someone to so it. It's relatively straightforward for someone who knows what they are doing. I wouldn't do it in Excel because you want a robust process to expire details when they are no longer needed
@leffeboy - good idea thanks, but we want a stand alone system so that we can record enquiries for items that we don't ever and have never stocked too, so we can look at what we are actually being asked for, so we can investigate vehicles that there is a demand for but we have never done.
A CRM System would let you input all the customer details in a structured way (and group requests from the same customer)You then enter the make/model/year etc and part type they are after if you match that within a time period you get prompted to get back to them, the other side is to add the stock or vehicles into the same system so if a 2010 Astra arrives you can see what people have been looking for. Loads available via google GSuite
Are you sure you are fixing the right problem?
Because of the nature of our business continuity of stock lines is very hard to maintain, (we can only stock what has been crashed and written off!) we can be out of stock of certain items or popular items for a few weeks at a time before we manage to get another vehicle of that type in and the popular bits are out of stock until we get that next one dismantled and onto the shelf.
Might you not be better concentrating your efforts on increasing supply of stock?
I'm not saying that what you are proposing isn't sensible, but the description you've given, points to other issues which might be higher priority?
Edit - Depending on volumes, simply adding an email us section on your website, which folk can use to record their requests on. Transfer this onto a record card and stick it on a big board that you can categorise. You then pull the cards off the board when a relevant vehicle comes in and send an email/call the enquirers. Depends very much on volume, but I'd be keeping it low tech to start.
The trouble with not integrating it into your inventory system is that you get people typing all sorts, and it ends up a mess.
If you can do a point click when you're on the phone, you'll end up with better data quality.
Edit: I've done this sort of thing for SMEs before, and it can end up a right PITA to rework everything later.
That said, I like the low-tech punch cards on the wall option...
Ahh.. I took “recording” as voice recording..
Still a cheap CRM would work, try a base SAP.
Or.. as mentioned, an Access dB with email record links built in, you can build a cheap dB which can issue email confirmations and order details etc.. not too difficult to do (I did one years ago) but thing s have moved on significantly these days that anything MS platform related would be suitable... Ya just need to find a decent DBA.