The Argus Group of companies is wholly New Zealand owned and operated with 20 year's experience of providing full servicing and testing of all aspects of fire protection for a large number of organisations throughout New Zealand. The Group prides itself on providing a professional yet friendly service where the clients’ individual needs and requirements are met.

"We had more confidence in the Greentree product compared to the competition because of it’s credible support network. We knew Greentree would not disappear; with some products you just never know."

Providing excellent service, while managing issues and ensuring solutions are provided in an effective and timely manner,, or maintaining customer assets or systems, is a critical process that requires careful resource planning and effective IT systems.

For five years Managing Director, Jacqui Bensemann, conducted a detailed review of mid to high tier products to find a new business system that could maintain and enhance their commitment to customer service. “The main reason for a system review was to get full integration. We had our financial accounting in CBA and another separate system for our contact database. We wanted to reduce all the double inputting.” Jacqui continues, “After using CBA for 8 years we found it to be increasingly inflexible. We could not do the things we wanted to. We needed a more sophisticated system to better tender for Governmental contracts and to deliver an integrated Financial, CRM and eCommerce solution.” This functionality in Greentree clinched it for them. Jacqui explains, “The eCRM side convinced us of Greentree as we have a very complex database and set of requirements. For example, we have over 13 different types of ‘features’ to service on a daily service level agreement right up to a four yearly basis. Basically we needed the flexibility in a system to cope with the complexity of our organisation.”

The choice over the competition was reinforced by Greentree’s development heritage. “The CBA background gave us more confidence in the Greentree product compared to the competition and it had a credible support network. We knew Greentree would not disappear; with some products you just never know.”

Very, very, integrated

Greentree has allowed the management team to get a better picture of how the business is performing, Jacqui explains, “The Greentree system has shown us inefficiencies in our procedures which, when developed, will be of great benefit to our organisation in the long run. There has been some resistance internally to the business change which you would expect from such a quantum leap in internal processes.” Jacqui continues, “Greentree has been a catalyst for many internal changes that we needed to make. We’ve changed from financial accounts reporting to having full management accounts. It has meant a new way of thinking but one which provides the management with increased visibility of relevant business information.” Argus is employing a new team member to be a Greentree ‘super-user’ to understand the system fully and the organisation’s procedure goals in order to make things run smoother and gain real benefits from Greentree.

Greentree’s CRM provides a seamless integration to the financial modules without the need to re-key data or risk information being out of “sync” in different areas. “We now have all our information in one place. Our technicians are more informed about their workload and customer requirements. For example, we can sometimes have three technicians in one building. Now we are able to have best knowledge of these situations.

“Using the CRM suite we can record all work done on client buildings and include all planned maintenance. Greentree is streamlining our service provision so we can provide a better service to our clients, as well as saving time and money. Now we can co-ordinate our services by seeing what technicians are doing and allocate the right qualified technician to the right job.”

Before it was just too hard to communicate this effectively,” describes Jacqui. Argus now has a range of powerful service-related modules to better manage their team of field technicians. These tools range from intelligently addressing calls to the support/help desk, to managing field-service requests and the maintenance of assets in multiple locations. “We are using the CRM suite to record all work done on client buildings and it allows us to record all planned maintenance. Greentree is streamlining our service provision so we can provide a better service to our clients, as well as saving time and money. We are now able to co-ordinate our services by seeing what technicians are doing and allocate the right qualified technician to the right job.” Greentree’s Asset Management suite helps to track asset locations, service requests, exchanges, loans and custodial/ownership details. It enables Argus to class each building or ‘feature’ as an asset. “Previously we did not have this information available to us in one place. It provides so much more efficiency,” says Jacqui.

The CRM service and support modules are fully integrated with Greentree’s Workflow Designer. Workflow desktops, and graphical planning boards, provide real-time visibility of the scheduled service calls for the managers to allocate to service technicians. Jacqui explains, “We are setting up the Workflow desks for our team so they will be able to see outstanding jobs, work in progress and respond quickly to customers.”

CRM also enables Argus to keep track of the full sales cycle. Jacqui explains, “We use this facility to run campaigns and understand more about our clients. It provides a more formal follow-up and review process of our opportunities. We can get better information in and out about our organisation and its relationships.”

Very, very, responsive

The Service Team consists of a Manager, Supervisor and Service Co-ordinator plus a number of multi-skilled technicians who are permanently on the road and are dedicated to providing customers with prompt action and answers. Greentree’s eCRM empowers Argus’s customers, and staff, with a web-based connection to the CRM service and support modules, providing real-time access to log support requests, as well as monitor the current status of call and issues and other information. Jacqui says, “It will enable our clients to view and place service orders on-line and provide another vital service to our customers.”

Commenting on how the Argus team worked with the Greentree Business Partner support team to develop best practice across the organisation, Jacqui says, “Like all implementations of this size there has been a great deal of in-house adjustment. It did show us how we underestimated the number of internal procedure changes our business needed in order to run more smoothly and how our support team underestimated the complexity of our organisation; bearing this in mind it went remarkably smoothly.” Jacqui continues, “We have been live with Greentree for over six months now and whilst things are going well we know it will take us another six months to reap the full benefits. We are currently only using about 2% of Greentree’s potential. It is early down the track, but we believe Greentree has huge potential. Those staff that have had exposure to other business systems and seen what Greentree can do are very excited by it.”

About The Argus Group

The Argus Group is wholly New Zealand owned and operated with 20 year’s experience in the fire protection industry.

The Argus Group provides full servicing and testing of all aspects of fire protection of a large number of organisations throughout New Zealand. ‘Bensan Servicing Limited’ is the manufacturing division of the group, manufacturing electronic fire alarm panels, detectors, sounders and ancillary equipment.

For more information visit www.argusfire.co.nz