Token Media - loyalty, rewards company set to grow with Maximizer CRM

"Maximizer's built-in workflow allows new employees to hit the deck running. In our business, you need detailed information for your most recent customers at your fingertips. With Maximizer Mobile CRM, our sales team remains up to date and knowledgeable and so do our back-office systems," says Steven Levey, CEO of Token Media.

Token Media is a premier provider of loyalty, advertising, and rewards programmes for medium and large companies in South Africa. The company deals with over 120 of the top brands in South Africa to drive employee loyalty, reward customers and provide incentives for people to purchase specific brands.

With over 800 suppliers and a fast growing customer base of well over 13 000 clients, Token needed to consolidate customer and partner information in a single unified business system. Without a reliable single source of supplier and client information, the company struggled to keep track of processes and contracts as it added new staff due to rapid growth.

"The loyalty and rewards business is all about good client service and even better partner relationships. We were growing quickly and needed to create systems that would allow new partner and business development representatives to hit the ground running," said Levey.

"I also wanted to be able to supply critical client information right to my sales representatives no matter where they were located," said Levey. "We are very customer oriented and almost 100% on the road at meetings. We wanted to be able to connect with the information at head office anytime, to make our partners feel comfortable that we know their business and that we can provide them with innovative programs in a day, not in weeks."

Levey looked at several packages he thought might help take his company to the next level in CRM.

After studying Microsoft CRM, Sugar, Goldmine and Salesforce.com among others, Token contracted with Maximizer partner JRB Solutions to help them make the transition. One reason the company selected Maximizer over others was due to ease of use.

"Anyone can easily grasp how to use Maximizer," said Levey. Within a couple of weeks the entire company, including several new recruits, were using Maximizer for customer and partner management.

JRB Solutions also rolled out Maximizer Mobile CRM to partner and sales managers who are constantly on the move. Token team members were equipped with the latest BlackBerry "Bold" smartphones, with Maximizer installed on each device.

JRB provided introductory training to get the team up and productive in the field quickly. "The BlackBerrys save a lot of time," said Levey. "Instead of having to record that a representative made a call by typing that information into the CRM, Maximizer Mobile does all that for us. In addition, mobile representatives can log new tasks on the road. This saves hours of unproductive time"

"From the outset, Steven's vision was to ensure his team could rapidly respond to partner and client customer needs," said Daniel Maimba of JRB Solutions. "Combining the latest wireless BlackBerry technology with Maximizer he has placed Token Media on the cutting edge of communications and provided his company with a real strategic advantage."

"The team at JRB showed us the basics. We are constantly learning new ways to use both Maximizer and Maximizer Mobile," said Levey. "By storing our potential business as opportunities and active accounts information within Maximizer CRM, I can see at a glance where we are at in terms of financial performance and in terms of individual performance.

Our board members are spread throughout the country and now I can keep them up-to-date with reports that I can send them through e-mail. This used to take me days to prepare, now it takes a few mouse clicks."

While most business is experiencing a downturn, Token Media is growing. For this fast moving company, adding new people means training them on the job. Token took advantage of the built in opportunity functionality in Maximizer to help. Once an opportunity is entered into the system, it automatically schedules tasks to close a deal.

"Keeping all the information about what to do next for a particular customer in your head was okay when we were small," said Levey. "But we were growing and I knew that a system that would walk people through the processes of selling, following up, renewing contracts, etc, would help us be more productive. When steps are scheduled months in advance, people can organize much better."

Levey and management can track where the process has gone off the rails and see whether people have been disciplined enough to follow through on assigned tasks. With new people coming on board all the time imparting consistent process and job knowledge is very important to getting them to be as productive as they can be as soon as possible.

JRB also developed a dashboard view of key indicators from Maximizer to show, for example, how one representative is performing against an average, or against his or her performance from last month. This allows Levey and senior management to make informed decisions regarding many aspects of the business including personnel performance, and where to increase or cut resources.

By law, companies in South Africa are required to keep their contracts for a period of five years. Token Media was looking at purchasing a contract management system to store and make their thousands of annual contracts accessible.

After implementing Maximizer, however it was clear they could store this information against contact information for easy retrieval. Similarly, the company was thinking of using Microsoft Project to track sales processes and ensure that tasks did not fall through the cracks. Once they saw the workflows in Maximizer, they realised a separate system would not be necessary. "Anytime you can use one system for more than one task, that saves time in productivity and money in licensing and maintenance costs," said Levey.

One of the reasons Token selected Maximizer was its native integration with BlackBerry smartphones. "The benefits that mobility provides are numerous, allowing us to have 100% uptime without having to buy laptops and then hunt around for an Internet connection," said Levey. "With a smart phone, partner and business development representatives have access to the information they need to make better decisions in the field and stay on top of tasks and schedule. You are essentially connected 24X7 to a massive corporate brain."

For Token Media, it is full steam ahead. Levey predicts that in the next three years, the company will have relationships with 10 000 partners, servicing over 1.5 million clients. The plan going forward is to expand into other African countries and work with bigger and bigger brands. The new Maximizer system also sets the stage for a planned client service team that will make outbound client calls and provide customer support - answering questions about rewards and loyalty entitlements. "We are putting the systems in place for today and into the future," said Levey.

"So far we are only scratching the surface of what Maximizer can do for us. It will be supporting our efforts for years to come."

For More information on Maximizer CRM please visit: www.jr-b.co.za/maximizercrm.aspx or contact us on the details below:

Tel: +27 11 319 7256 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting +27 11 319 7256 end_of_the_skype_highlighting
Fax: +27 11 319 7260
Email: info@jr-b.co.za