Ken Rhodes, Owner & Director of The Ken Rhodes Group, talks about digitalising operations when he took over the family company in 2016.
When Ken took over The Ken Rhodes Group from his mother and father (also called Ken), paper files and an old Microsoft Access database were being used. The business was ‘muddling through’ with these tools but there were inconsistencies and limitations.
Ken’s first job was to make everything digital and a shared drive (RAID-central style database) was introduced but it still had limitations as information couldn’t be accessed anywhere other than in the office.
Looking at existing CRM solutions on the market, Ken found them complicated, even as a young business owner who had grown-up around technology. That was until he found Business Pilot.
Ken Rhodes, The Ken Rhodes Group
Business Pilot was different. Ken signed-up and the team haven’t looked back!
The core of the system is really what has made the difference for The Ken Rhodes Group – and that’s the team having all the information they need at their fingertips, from account information to engineer’s details and project start dates.
It’s been a game changer from a customer service point of view because whoever picks up the phone can answer their question, no matter who has been dealing with the project.
And with the BPsite App, fitting teams have all the customer information they need for the job, without Ken having to trek to the office to resend information via email.
Business Pilot enables the team to be proactive with incoming leads and customer follow-ups as well as Ken being able to draw down sales data to drive more targeted marketing campaigns.
“Business Pilot has been a real game changer because no matter what your role in the business – sales rep, survey engineer, fitter – we all have access to the same data, which helps us to run efficiently, and it means the customer is getting the best service possible.”
“For the sales department, it’s tasks and the pipeline. You can sort by the pipeline. So, straight away on a Monday, you can see that the leads have been passed to the sales rep, see the ones that have not been booked yet, ones that have been quoted, without having to scroll through all that data.
“For the operations, particularly installations, I would say the email feature. The amounts of times we had where an email is sent to a customer, then that person goes on holiday or is off ill and then no one’s got access to that email, it means you’re going in blind. But with Business Pilot, you can see every email that’s sent.”
Business Pilot has helped The Ken Rhodes Group to embed processes across the entire company, to deliver a consistent customer experience, keep track of all orders and deliveries and make sales and operations more efficient.
“The main thing that I like about it, it’s very systematic, it’s like this, then that, then that, then that…everything follows a process, it gives that consistency. And what I like about it is whether you order one window, or you order in a £60,000 conservatory, everybody gets the same level of consistency. So, we can treat every customer the same, which is what we try to instil into our team.
“To take it away now, it would be with a lot of in trepidation because I think, well, how are we going to do all this without it? It’s become that integral to how we use it in the business, which I think is paramount to or testament to how good it actually is.”
© Business Pilot (CRM) Ltd
