The
Client
A pioneer in pest control services in
India, with a turnover of
over Rs 80 crore and a wide ranging presence
across India, from Metros and Mini-metros to
districts and talukas.
The organization delivers its services through
various branch offices across the country.
Catering to both residential and
institutional sectors, the company has been in
business for more than 50 years, and
currently employs more than 2000 people
across 85 establishments all over India.
Business Drivers
Competition
The Pest Control industry in
India is witnessing unprecedented growth
and competition. Bigger corporate houses
have entered the fray, eating into the
market shares of the traditional SME
players. Our client has identified technology as
the key factor to beat the competition.
Need for On-Demand Services
Customers across India are now used to
multiple channels of communication and
instant servicing. The internet, call centers
and mobile technology have enabled 'On –
Demand' availability of information.
Without a robust software and IT infrastructure, our
client will face a handicap in serving
customers through these channels.
Loss of Customers
Without an
automated system in place, our client was in
danger of losing customers. For example,
delays in issuing renewal letters could
mean the customer moving to a
competitor. Also, leads and opportunities
were not being properly tracked.
Recording and systemization of these
processes was an immediate necessity.
Increasing Customer Base
With the
company increasing its geographical reach
and the demand for Pest Control services
increasing dramatically, the existing
systems at the company were inadequate and not
scalable enough to cater to the growing
operational demands. Systems were
needed to smoothly handle this dynamic
growth phase. Manual procedures which
could handle only a limited number of
customers needed to be phased out.
Arion's Solution
Arion developed a comprehensive solution
to address their needs, with a browser based solution
that
would cover the following:
- Customer Management
- Enquiries
- Quotes
- Contracts
- Service Delivery
- Customer Support
- Invoicing
The solution required both online and
offline components. The offline
component would be present at Branch
Offices and would synchronize with the
Central Office server. The solution had to
work over Broadband Internet
connections.
This mission critical application required
that the platform be:
- Fast and responsive
- Scalable
- Secure
- Remotely manageable
- Low cost
Arion evaluated various technology options before finally architecting the solution mainly on OpenSource components which include
- Operating System: Linux
- Web Server: Apache
- Application Server: JBOSS
- Programming Platform: J2EE
- Database: mySQL
This was the most cost effective
infrastructure option that gave the requisite scalability, remote management facilities and security control.
All the Branch Offices would have Linux Servers containing the application and the database,
which would synchronize with the central Linux Server.
Benefits
- Increased customer satisfaction
With shorter response times and on–demand availability of information, customer
service and hence customer satisfaction improved dramatically. The CRM
application helped Call Centre executives retrieve customer records, schedule
visits and services and also process renewals more efficiently, ultimately leading
to happier customers.
- Management control over Sales, Service and Delivery
Due to complete Lead Management automation, the
sales people were enabled with a tool to ensure
that follow-ups with prospects were not missed
out. Also the reasons for loss of prospect as a
customer were recorded in the system, enabling the
sales management to take corrective measures. This has had a
positive impact on sales, by reducing the number of drop-outs from the sales
pipeline.
- Better forecasting and budgeting due to visibility of
Management had a complete view over the
operations, right from sales to service delivery.
This helped them manage their resources to get
maximum utilization. The Management team was able
to do better Forecasting and Budgeting due to
visibility of :
- Prospects
- Service Pipeline
- Customer Billing and Outstanding
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