Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal
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32 COMMERCIAL CARRIER JOURNAL | MAY 2014 technology O f all the daily activities in the transportation business, perhaps nothing is as fluid as sales and marketing. Plans must change constantly to keep trailers full and fleets profitable. Managing a dynamic sales process becomes even more complex for compa- nies with multiple divisions. "You have to go with the flow," says Theresa Campbell, vice president of sales for Meadow Lark Companies, based in Billings, Mont. "We come up with new things every day." Meadow Lark operates a third-party logistics and brokerage division with agent offices, a trucking division with 150 leased contractors, and a specialized transporta- tion and logistics division that moves oil rigs and other equipment for the energy sector. It also sells a line of clothing and work apparel for over-the-road truck drivers. Until last year, Meadow Lark was using a software system to track its sales and mar- keting activities by customer. The software did little else and no longer was capable of meeting the growing company's needs. "As a manager overseeing things, it was a daunt- ing task to go into each customer profile to see what was going on," Campbell says. Last year, Meadow Lark switched to a new transportation management software platform. During this process, it started using a new customer relationship manage- ment system. CRM systems are used by companies of all types in all industries. While off-the-shelf products like Salesforce.com and Microsoft Dynamics come with many useful tools, Meadow Lark executives wanted a CRM system designed for the transportation industry and, specifically, its TMS platform. Integral CRM Soon after Meadow Lark implemented McLeod Software's LoadMaster and Pow- erBroker TMS systems, the company added McLeod's CRM Module to its management platform to streamline sales, customer service and other critical processes. When Meadow Lark salespeople call cus- tomers today, "they all use the same termi- nology and take the same steps," Campbell says. "If the customer has an objection, we have the tools to act quickly." The company also uses the CRM tool across all divisions to plan and execute sales and marketing campaigns for different types of customers. The software is helping Meadow Lark stay organized and complete sales more successfully, Campbell says. Gleaning insights One advantage of CRM software devel- oped specifically for TMS systems is having immediate access to customer information from a single shared database; no inte- gration is necessary. "Instead of having to move data back and forth, we try to provide access to the kind of data you are using day in and day out," says James Teub- ner, director of development for TMW Systems. TMW CRM Right is a module for the TMW Suite platform that transportation and logistics companies can use to view customer profiles and see shipment history to identify sales opportunities quickly – even while the customer is on the phone. "You can pull these tools together about historical shipments and talk with the customer about current rate or tariff sched- ules," Teubner says. "You can give spot buys or short-term rates because you have excess equipment in a market and the ability to provide resources at a cheaper rate." Customer service representatives and salespeople also can record activities for each customer along with follow-up items. Customers assigned to them are visible on a map with color-coding that identifies missed or pending activities. The same customer data in McLeod's LoadMaster and PowerBroker systems – loads, claims, quotes, payment, credit history, etc. – is available and searchable instantly within its CRM Module, which is used mainly by transportation companies to set up a marketing plan, record results and see dates for when salespeople expect to close deals. The CRM Module also has reports that show managers who is doing what, their effectiveness and which market- ing efforts are successful. All of this and more data helps com- panies continuously fine-tune their sales and marketing plans, says Mark Cubine, McLeod's vice president of marketing. A new ballgame Many shippers and their logistics providers are using software systems that automate communications with carriers from start to finish. Transplace, a 3PL used by more than 60 shippers, uses an electronic bid procure- ment process followed by an electronic workflow that sends loads to carriers and automates all communications. Its carrier merit program tracks carrier performance in areas such as timeliness of status messages, on-time service and load acceptance rate. Carriers that score well can get additional benefits such as accelerated payment terms and more bid opportu- nities, says Matthew Menner, senior vice president of strategic account management. Being able to adapt quickly to individual customer requirements, streamline the sales process and manage ongoing customer re- lationships are some of the many challeng- es that CRM systems are designed to solve. in focus: CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT CRM systems can help fleets seal the deal BY AARON HUFF Driving transportation sales