ForFarmers: SAP Business Communications Management for Call Center Workload Distribution

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1 SAP Customer Success Story Wholesale and distribution ForFarmers ForFarmers: SAP Business Communications Management for Call Center Workload Distribution Thanks to SAP Business Communications Management (SAP BCM) with rapiddeployment solution (RDS), ForFarmers has been on the fast track towards taking its internal call center to the next level. This has been a boon to customer service as the workload is now better distributed. Moreover, ForFarmers now has quick access to reports for measuring the efficiency of the call center s processes.

2 2 SAP Customer Success Story Wholesale and distribution ForFarmers Company or Organization ForFarmers BV Headquarters or Location Lochem, The Netherlands Industry Wholesale and distribution Products and services Farming materials, from feed and seeds to natural and artificial fertilizer Employees approx. 884 (2011) Revenue or budget 5.2 billion (2011) Website Partner SAP Consulting BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION The company s Top Objectives: To serve customers quickly and effectively at all times through a flexible call center that efficiently routes calls to available personnel Proactive management and improved customer satisfaction The solution: SAP Business Communications Management (version 6) with rapiddeployment solution (RDS) SAP ECC6 The key benefits: Easy to connect to virtually any telephone exchange Automatically registers and integrates data with SAP ERP Easy to generate reports based on current figures Call center capacity needs are more predictable Flexible capacity and addition of extra call centers Deployment of personnel at other locations as well SAP Business Communications Management is flexible and versatile. The attractive price of the rapid deployment solution makes it perfect for our relatively small call center, and it is easy to scale up as we grow. Jan-Jelle van der Pol, Manager ICT, ForFarmers top benefits achieved Efficient distribution of call center workload New call center agent installed in five minutes Accurate registration of call center processes

3 3 SAP Customer Success Story Wholesale and distribution ForFarmers The company s top objectives Sustainable and Customer-Oriented Services for the Farming Industry ForFarmers is one of the biggest players in the farming industry in northwest Europe. It produces and delivers regular and biological feed and merchandise (field and pasture products) and works for the cattle, swine, poultry and agriculture sectors. Besides products, the company also provides customers an additional package of services ranging from extensive advice to business development support. Headquartered in Lochem, the company has ten production sites in the Netherlands and Germany from which ForFarmers supplies more than 10,000 farmers with its products and services. ForFarmers focuses on the sustainable and profitable supply of livestock feed and fertilizer in Europe and aims to become one of the best and largest customer-oriented businesses in its sector. A customer service call center to answer questions and assist customers with their orders furthers this objective. In order to replace its outdated telephone services platform, ForFarmers was in the market for a solution that could make it easier for them to estimate the call center s capacity needs and to gauge the workload of its personnel. SAP Business Communications Management enables ForFarmers to achieve these goals. Scaling up is quick and easy. The SAP solution works with the telephony servers at all our locations (PBX) and our personnel can log in from any location. Jan-Jelle van der Pol, IT Manager, ForFarmers

4 4 SAP Customer Success Story Wholesale and distribution ForFarmers Location Independent Communications The company s top objectives In order to handle the questions and orders of some 10,000 customers with maximum efficiency and flexibility, the call center at ForFarmers sought to update its SAP ERP-linked telephone services platform. In 2011, ForFarmers compared several alternatives, such as traditional call center solutions, to SAP Business Communications Management Always Easy to Reach for Some 10,000 Customers Jan-Jelle van der Pol, IT Manager, ForFarmers: It soon became apparent that a traditional call center solution would be too costly for us. With only nine call center reps, we simply are not big enough for the traditional providers. On the other hand, SAP BCM offered a solution that was just right for our business. It offers a flexible, scalable startup model, yet one that is multi-site at the same time. Since it can be connected to the telephone exchange at all our locations, it is easy for us to use without us having to spend hundreds of thousands on replacing our telephone exchanges. Plus, we can integrate it into our existing SAP ERP system without any extra investments or modifications. And it is easy to scale up as we grow. SAP BCM is a voice over IP solution, which means it is primed for our plans for the future.

5 5 SAP Customer Success Story Wholesale and distribution ForFarmers Within Budget and on Time Thanks to RDS The company s top objectives SAP Consulting helped ForFarmers with the installation using its SAP BCM rapid-deployment solution (RDS). European SAP specialists handled the business-specific settings. A SAP consultant from India provided support for standard tasks. Van der Pol: That gave us the best value for money. The advantage of European consultants is that they share our culture and are not afraid to ask hard questions. They fully understood our business-specific needs and converted them into the best system settings. The general settings can then be handled by a consultant from India. As a result, the project was completed within five weeks and within budget without a single technical glitch. I recommend this cost-efficient approach to everyone. KEY BENEFITS calls handled a day 5 Project completed in 5 weeks 9 Workload distributed among six to nine workstations

6 6 SAP Customer Success Story Wholesale and distribution ForFarmers Exact Registration of Length of Call The company s top objectives The new solution enables ForFarmers to register the processes in the call center much more accurately. Van der Pol: Thanks to SAP BCM, we can see not only how long a call takes but also how long it takes personnel to handle the orders placed by customers. Plus, the system keeps track of everything in the whole process. That gives the manager much more accurate information on the workload so he can plan capacity efficiently and effectively. As a result, we can manage the process proactively and boost customer satisfaction. We actually ended up with a lot of process benefits that we did not even expect. As an extra, SAP BCM offers excellent reporting tools. Previously, the manager had a really difficult time retrieving data from the system with the old DOS computer; now he can monitor everything automatically on the intelligently designed system dashboard. Call center personnel also receive much better task support. When a customer calls, their customer history is automatically displayed and call center personnel can now make outgoing calls from the system instantly just by clicking a number. Before, they had to enter the number themselves. Now we can also hold outgoing call rounds, such as to remind customers that their supplies are about to run out. The system recognizes customer history and automatically distributes the work in the call center.

7 7 ForFarmers The company s top objectives Lasting Relationships, Satisfied Customers Lasting relationships and sustainable processes are very important to ForFarmers. The new communications platform will enable it to achieve these goals and pursue its growth strategy. Van der Pol: SAP is helping us achieve costeffective, accurate and on-time delivery. That supports our strategy of minimizing our impact on the environment. After the successful pilot project in the Netherlands, we naturally want to roll out SAP BCM in Germany as soon as possible. Since the system is location-independent, it can be rolled out to every office. That will take our system administrator just five minutes. So far, the platform has been running without a single glitch. It s the ideal set-up. The rapid-deployment solution for SAP Business Communications Management also comes primed for add-ons such as chat, web forms, interactive voice response (IVR) menus and . This solution demonstrates SAP s eye for subtle detail. I can truly recommend it to businesses large and small, Van der Pol concludes.

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