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, EMPLOYEES: 1,300 nTelos Wireless revolutionizes SERVICE LOCATIONS: , , , , how it handles customers Pennsylvania, and

post-sale at retail stores — and SALES STRATEGY: 65 brick-and-mortar that’s only the beginning. 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. TWEET THIS! 2 CASE STUDY: CRM

At nTelos Wireless, new and old “We started by looking at nTelos’ blend seamlessly. It’s a tradition e-commerce site,” Casey says. that began in 1897, when the “We took a strategic look at how regional phone carrier was 50% their business was currently set launched as the Clifton Forge- of all CRM systems up and figured out how to tap Waynesboro Telephone Co. horizontally into all components. Twenty-two years ago, nTelos will be cloud-based We positioned CRM as a framework entered the mobile arena when by 2020. that could reach into every part of it launched its wireless division. the operation, offering one catalog Then, two years ago, it spun off its SOURCE: Gartner Research 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 how Dynamics operates,” he says. “It’s just another folder relationship management solution that fit its needs. After in Outlook; it feels just like you’re working with email.” weeks of meetings with relevant stake­­ holders across the organization, CDW rec- ommended Microsoft Dynamics CRM and brought in technology experts Ledgeview Partners to implement the system. “We’re not yet at the point Sweeping View where the CRM is the system Like a lot of midsize and large companies, of record for all of our nTelos had developed a series of technology silos over the years that prevented it from customer information, but easily and strategically sharing information that is our long-term goal.” across the organization, notes Ray Casey, a — Ralph Kirtland, vice president of IT for nTelos Wireless CDW CRM technical specialist who served as an adviser to nTelos Wireless during its CRM design and deployment.

TWEET THIS! 800.800.4239 | CDW.com 3

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.” Take Note: Critical Eventually, Kirtland believes the company will move 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 systemic change across many different parts of the Data-Driven Change 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 president of IT for nTelos Wireless.

• 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. the amount of time and effort required to deal with legacy • On Day 5: They received another call to see if they needed data, says Chuck Hoffmann, an applications consultant for any accessories or knew of potential customers they Ledgeview Partners. But many IT shops don’t realize that it were willing to refer. may not be necessary to import years of old data to run the business, he adds. • On Day 30: New nTelos Wireless subscribers received a call to make sure they understood their bill. 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 the willingness to change them, says Ray Casey, a CDW CRM technical specialist. “You need to be able to look at your through the cracks, Kirtland says. If a salesperson left the existing systems and say, ‘The emperor isn’t wearing any company, a store manager was quickly able to assign that clothes,’ ” he says. person’s responsibilities to another employee. What’s more, nTelos was able to ensure that all calls were made and 4. Got local expertise? It’s worthwhile to have a CRM expert to grade salespeople on their proficiency at making follow- inside your IT department, Kirtland advises. “My belief is that every business-critical system needs its own expert up calls, he points out. in-house,” he says. “Things break from time to time. You The results have been so dramatic and the system has need someone who can assess how bad the breakage is and worked so well that nTelos has been able to reduce the what it will take to fix it.” number of times it needs to contact customers post-sale. 5. Where’s the boss? Systemic changes such as CRM Now, its salespeople call on Day 3 and Day 45 after an initial adoption require participation of all key stakeholders — purchase. Customer referrals have risen while calls for tech as well as strong support from senior management. support have dropped, saving nTelos tens of thousands of dollars in support costs, Kirtland says. “We’ve been able to head off a number of calls that might have otherwise gone into our customer care organization,” he 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 “If you catch customers within the 14-day return period,

customer who wants to refer other people to you but can’t.” you have a chance to educate them about what’s really Šesták/Veer Vlastimil CASE STUDY: CRM 800.800.4239 | CDW.com 4

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 44% customer.” of all CRM implementations Rapid Deployment are used by sales Deploying the system was relatively speedy, says Chuck Hoffmann, an applications consultant for Ledgeview organizations. Partners who managed the project. Once the decision SOURCE: Gartner Research 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 “They now have the capability to branch out into other amount of time refining what the scripts looked like.” parts of the business besides retail,” he says. “We were One key to successful implementation was the amount 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. In fact, the retail store project barely scrapes the “Organizations may think their selling process is set, surface of what nTelos plans to do with Microsoft but once you open up the window of introducing CRM, you Dynamics, Kirtland says. get to talk about whether that’s really the best way to go “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, The ripples of change have already begun spreading and who should make the calls.” across the organization. Another key was the strong support from upper “Our CEO is very data-driven,” Kirtland says. “When I management, he adds. give him information we’ve gleaned from our CRM system, “You need to have your leadership team actively engaged 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.”

TWEET THIS!

This content is provided for informational purposes. It is believed to be accurate but could contain errors. CDW does not intend to make any warranties, express or implied, about the products, services, or information that is discussed. CDW®, CDW•G® and The Right Technology. Right Away® are registered trademarks of CDW LLC. PEOPLE WHO GET IT™ is a trademark of CDW LLC. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are the sole property of their respective owners. Together we strive for perfection. ISO 9001:2000 certified 121684 — 130903 ©2013 CDW LLC