Success Stories

Creative Networking Concepts Garners 30% Sales Jump; Boosts Customer Satisfaction with ChannelOnline™

Founded in 1990, Creative Networking Concepts (CNC) delivers technology solutions to customers in the public and private sectors in New Jersey, New York, Delaware, and Pennsylvania. With customers ranging from local school districts to the National Basketball Association to Hitachi, CNC has developed a broad customer base thanks to its technical expertise and exceptional customer service. CNC's strong growth is evidenced in a 30 percent sales increase for 2004, and the company was recently recognized as one of New Jersey's fastest growing technology companies by CRN.

Slow Quotes Lead to Complaints

Though pleased with the value and technical expertise the company provided, CNC's customers were becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the time it took to receive quotes for products and services. In order to generate quotes, CNC sales staff had to manually cut and paste infor-mation from various distributors' price catalogues into a spreadsheet, a time-consuming process especially for complex requests. But the inefficiencies did not stop there. Sales staffers were forced to manually enter information into three separate — and incompatible — systems to convert approved quotes into billable orders.

According to Michael Hepp, CNC's vice president of sales, "Our quoting processes were piecemeal and inefficient. Customers were complaining it took too long to get quotes. In some instances, their frustration was driving them to consider other vendors. Internally, our sales staff was slowed by having to dissect multiple catalogues to get the best price and make sure products were in stock with our distributors. We knew there had to be a better way to generate quotes and manage our sales cycle."

ChannelOnline Trumps VARStreet

In 2003, CNC decided to seek out a sales cycle automation solution, and the company assembled a team to evaluate a number of offerings on the market. After thorough research, the evaluation team narrowed the field down to two solutions: VARStreet XC and ChannelOnlineT. After simulating several "real-world" sales processes (quoting, sourcing, procuring, ordering, reporting... etc) using both systems, the evaluation team was unanimous in its choice of the CNET Channel solution.

"ChannelOnline is much better than any of the other tools we've seen," explains Hepp. "Not only is it easier to use and more intuitive, but also we can put together comprehensive quotes in no time, and modify those same quotes as needed with just a couple of mouse clicks."

The evaluation team was also impressed with the search functionality in ChannelOnline. "The quality of the data is much better in ChannelOnline, and that made it much easier to find items," says Hepp. "Simply put, our team agreed that ChannelOnline offered the most powerful and easy to use searching capabilities in the industry."

Generating Real-Time Quotes in Record Time

Using ChannelOnline, CNC's in-house and field sales agents are linked to product information sourced directly from the company's channel partners, including Ingram Micro and Tech Data. They simply select the products customers want from inventory and generate comprehensive quotes. Quotes are then emailed directly to customers as Adobe® PDF files, which is especially helpful for public sector customers who need quotes delivered in a readily printable format.

"Immediately after deploying ChannelOnline, we were able to respond to customer requests in real-time," says Hepp. "We are usually able to complete simple quotes and email them to customers while speaking to them on the phone. If the customer's needs change, we can modify quotes and send a new PDF in seconds. It's a great product."

ChannelOnline provides CNC with real-time access to multiple distributor pricing, availability and in-stock location - something Hepp describes as an ideal work environment. "It's essential because the speed of business is now much faster than it was a couple of years ago. It's no longer acceptable to tell a customer it's going to take a week to get it. In most cases, they need it tomorrow. Pinpointing whether or not it's at the local warehouse gives us a reasonable certainty that we can come through for our customers. Sometimes it's the difference between us getting the sale or not. More importantly when we go to schedule engineers, if we need product as part of an installation, knowing where to find it if it's 4:00pm or 5:00pm without having to make six phone calls to the big guys is critical. Identifying whether or not we can have it in our office or at the customer's location the next morning so an engineer can meet it and either fix something or finish up an installation is key. That's extremely critical."

Data Entry Time Cut By One-Third

Since implementing ChannelOnline, CNC has been able to streamline its quote to source and procure process - linking ChannelOnline directly to its custom accounting system. Now, when customers approve a quote and a purchase order is entered into ChannelOnline, those orders are seamlessly transferred to the accounting system, eliminating the need to enter data into multiple systems manually and the introduction of errors.

ChannelOnline Helps Fuel 30% Growth in Sales

Although Hepp believes that it's virtually impossible to quantify what portion of CNC's 30 percent sales growth in 2004 is attributable to ChannelOnline, he thinks the company's improved quoting processes played a significant role. "We know we have received more business as result of being more responsive to customers," says Hepp. "Channel-Online has also made us more proactive about following-up with quotes, and enabled us to produce more quotes. We definitely would not have achieved a 30 percent increase in sales with our old quoting methods."

The improved productivity of the sales team has directly impacted the company's image among customers, as well as employees. Notes Hepp, "From the standpoint of motivation and recruiting, ChannelOnline is a definite asset. Current and potential sales staff can see that we're invested in their productivity and their success."

Given that CNC initially explored a sales cycle automation solution to improve customer satisfaction, it not surprising that Hepp is most pleased with the increased responsiveness ChannelOnline has enabled. "After using ChannelOnline for only one month, we converted customers who had been considering other vendors back into loyal fans," he notes. "Customers are now reviewing quotes that once took several days as soon as they hang up the phone. Most of our competitors don't offer the same level of service. We've really leveraged ChannelOnline into a competitive advantage."

About Creative Networking Concepts, Inc.

Headquartered in Sussex, New Jersey, Creative Networking Concepts offers system integration and networking services, technical support, and hardware and software to customers across the greater New Jersey area. Focusing on small businesses and the public sector, the company has been developing strong and lasting relationships with customers for fifteen years. For more information on Creative Networking Concepts, contact them (973) 875-9966 or visit their Web site at http://www.cncnj.com