3 Suisses Entreprises

"Right from the start, Selligent gave us the impression of being a very agile solution. And it kept its promises. Marketing operations are now a real pleasure"

Selligent, a gift for the 3 Suisses Entreprises sales force

3 Suisses Entreprises offers its clients tailored solutions with unlimited possibilities. They range from simple gift tokens to complete loyalty campaigns and include the creation of gift catalogues completely customized to the client’s brand image. To ensure its growth on an increasingly mature and competitive market, 3 Suisses Entreprises focused on stimulating the sales force, animate the distribution network and strengthen customer loyalty. Quite a challeng and one they overcame brilliantly with the aid of Selligent.

The same philosophy

Bertrand Vidal, head of Marketing, Management and Business Development, likens Selligent’s approach and that of 3 Suisses Entreprises – a generic product base and solutions that can be tailor-made to respond perfectly to customer needs. This agility is manifested at all levels of the Selligent solution – significant flexibility of usage, scalability and possibility to expand in function of future needs. This is the key factor that determined the choice of 3 Suisses. “Right from the start, Selligent gave us the impression of being a very agile solution. And it kept its promises,” he points out.

Defending market share

For many years, 3 Suisses Entreprises was the only player of its kind in its market niche and grew naturally by responding to its clients’ expectations. As the B2B department of 3 Suisses France, it was integrated in the IS of the mail order house. This system, designed for mail order sales and B2C, was based on individual client files, and not suited to issues of field sales and prospection. So it was not used much by the B2B sales force. With competition intensifying in the gift token market, it soon became clear that 3 Suisses Entreprises should acquire a separate tool to assure the loyalty of its existing client base and attract new customers.

Involvement of the International IS function

A steering committee and a project group were then formed, and specs summarising the needs expressed by the future users of the solution were drawn up. “Then,” explains Vidal, “3 Suisses International took over to launch the call for tenders, since it managed all information systems for the group worldwide. After considering the functional needs we identified and their own technical constraints, they eventually recommended three options.” One of them was Selligent, which got the project team’s vote. Clearly, while the final decision was put in the hands of the future users, it was the fruit of genuine teamwork within the 3 Suisses Group.

And the teamwork continued throughout the project, as Vidal testifies. “The IS people were very attentive and warned us against expressing unworkable requirements. On the other hand, Selligent really understood our needs and responded with considerable agility. Together, they worked pragmatically on implementing the right solution to prevent the project’s going off on a tangent. Everyone concerned – steering committee, IS and the software vendor – showed substantial engagement and a lot of enthusiasm.” The outcome was a project which ran smoothly, and with no major hitch.

Security and transparency

3 Suisses Entreprises was particularly concerned about data confidentiality vis-à-vis the outside world, notably with regard to access to the application via the Web and data security during transfer. Especially since the sales reps have 3G cards enabling them to log into the CRM system whenever they need to and wherever they are. IS management reassured everyone, since they considered that Selligent offered all the data security guarantees needed.

Internally, on the other hand, transparency was paramount. Today, Selligent is used by Marketing, the sales reps in the field and their support staff, procurement, line management and top management. They all have access to all the information. Sales proposals and even invoices, all managed in specific tools, are attached to the client file in Selligent and universally accessible. “Sharing information has many advantages,” the manager insists. “Selligent ensures that communication among the different people is smooth (particularly between the sales rep and his/her assistant, who work in tandem), so that teamwork is improved and operations are more efficient. The time saved searching for information is substantial, and everyone is autonomous. In addition, the system promotes healthy emulation among the sales reps, with each having access to their colleagues’ numbers. And they don’t hesitate to exchange points of view to solve problems and raise their efficiency even more.”

Marketing – a real pleasure!

If there’s one company that knows all about direct marketing, it’s 3 Suisses. Their B2B department didn’t wait for Selligent to do their marketing, but the implementation of a dedicated solution is a real step forward. The head of marketing states clearly, “Marketing operations are now a real pleasure for me! Before, we had a tool that didn’t really allow us to analyse the outcomes of our actions. Now, thanks to Selligent, we can monitor the marketing plans we put in place and know the turnover a particular action generates. That’s very important when deciding on future plans.”

While he recognises that they still have to clean up and enrich some of the data, Vidal is convinced that the sales force has understood the interest in having clean data to ensure that the marketing campaigns are properly targeted. Now, even contacts made at trade shows are linked to the corresponding campaigns in the application.

Better still, Selligent enables 3 Suisses Entreprises to structure its market approach. “By launching a mail shot in a specific market and analysing the responses, we can find out which are the most buoyant markets, that is, those where we need to focus our investments.”

Decision support

The advent of Selligent has enabled 3 Suisses Entreprises to professionalise its client relationships. “The information collected in the field helps us to better know and understand our clients. We have also set up an alert system so that we can quickly detect a potential problem with a customer and fix it immediately.” Vidal points out. But in general terms, analysing the CRM data helps decisionmaking at all levels – thanks to the very precise dashboards containing key indicators. Sales management has all the visibility needed for the business, the appointments made and the turnover by region, and can react quickly when it observes a downturn in a particular market or region. Vidal adds, “the system also allows us to decide on the appropriateness of a new strategy, for example, by instituting a pilot project in a region and analysing the results before considering nationwide roll-out. Selligent helps us take the right decisions rapidly and with full awareness of the implications.”

Natural evolution

One of management’s major concerns was how the users would react to the solution. But Selligent, in fact, slotted smoothly into the 3 Suisses Entreprises daily operations. Of course, the sales reps were generally very eager. A few were a little sceptical at first, because they found the system much more complex than its predecessor. But they were soon convinced by the benefits.

After training sessions and the production of a personalised training guide, the users set about testing their new tool, Selligent. A hot-line service – limited in size and duration - was set up to answer questions and solve problems. Vidal notes that, “the application is very flexible, so that everyone was able to use it as suits them best, according to their own way of working. At the end of the day, the result is the same for everybody. Today, no one could imagine working without Selligent, and the sales force can simply not manage without it. Selligent offers the comfort and responsiveness we were missing.”