Trek Bicycle recently deployed Microsoft Dynamics CRM and hybrid solution of SharePoint 2013 on premises and SharePoint Online with Office 365 to improve productivity.
In a blog post, Microsoft said the purpose of deploying Microsoft Dynamics CRM was to bring all of its customer information into one place, standardize workflows, and make it quicker and easier for its employees to find vital information.
In addition, Trek Bicycle deployed a hybrid solution of SharePoint 2013 on premises and SharePoint Online with Office 365 to enhance the team’s collaboration and enterprise social activity.
Earlier, Trek has depended on its network of outside sales representatives to build relationships with Trek retailers across the country.
Trek faced several challenges earlier. Sales reps used handmade spreadsheets, email, and pen and paper to track customer relationships, making customer information difficult to log, manage and share.
During employee churn, the crisis deepens as Trek could not get past information. If a rep left the company, the information needed to maintain the relationship was often lost, and new sales reps had to spend a lot of time rebuilding those relationships. Without a central repository and strong enterprise social tools, other teams at Trek could not easily access important dealer information or collaborate efficiently.
Peterson and Steve Novoselac, Trek’s business intelligence and .NET development manager, worked to roll out a simplified Dynamics CRM solution in 2013 to Trek’s inside sales teams, which provide support to the outside sales reps. The team also developed a hybrid solution using SharePoint 2013 and SharePoint Online, in addition to Yammer, to enable easier sharing across teams.
Now each Trek team that interacts with the retailers has access to exactly the same information, and new sales reps have detail about the dealers in their territory. Dynamics CRM is nearly 30 times faster than before. It used to take Trek’s technical representatives two weeks to respond to a customer email; now it takes no more than eight to 12 hours.
Trek also uses the full Office 365 suite, which keeps the company up-to-date with the productivity tools. Office 365 integrates seamlessly with Dynamics and SharePoint, providing employees with easy-to-use tools they can access from anywhere. Because Office 365 is a cloud-based solution, Peterson and Novaselac have more time to focus on other IT priorities for the company.
Trek also began to use Yammer. Yammer feeds have been embedded in Microsoft Dynamics CRM. The team that supports Ascend, Trek’s point of sale solution, has replaced email with Yammer as it allows them to communicate without ever having to leave Dynamics CRM.
