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August 31, 2015

 CASE STUDY:  Document Capture Streamlines Toyota Material Handling U.S.A.’s Customer Service

Toyota Material Handling U.S.A. Inc.(TMHU) is the number one lift truck supplier in the United States. About 65 independent dealerships are the lifeblood of the company, and the ability to support this extensive network efficiently is crucial to TMHU’s continued success. With Bret Bruin, the newly appointed national dealer development manager, responsible for dealer network development, market representation and dealer financial reporting for the more than 70 authorized Toyota Industrial Equipment dealers and 220 dealership locations throughout North America, the customer relationship management business component is key to TMHU’s success.

"Toyota has the industry’s leading dealer network," said Jeff Rufener, president of TMHU. "Bret’s expertise in cultivating dealer relationships, and developing incentive and recognition programs, will further strengthen our commitment to serve our customers and continue to deliver the number one selling lift truck in North America."

When TMHU sales organization realized that it could create greater efficiencies by reducing lots of paper documents moving in different directions throughout the organization, Dale Colliver and his team at Toyota Industries North America took the lead and optimized the capabilities of their installed Kyocera multi-function devices (MFDs) by integrating them with NSi AutoStore, a document capture technology that also processes and routes paper and electronic documents into their CRM. TMHU are using the data capture solution to streamline internal document routing processes and have created an easy way to track and retrieve all the logistical information and documentation associated with the fork lifts before they reach their final destination. This also supported their transition from passive order taking to proactive demand management. “In particular, we needed more presales activity information and better management of our discount spend with dealers,” explains Alan Cseresznyak, CIO at Toyota Material Handling North America.

In addition, TMHU and its dealers implemented a more effective system to generate quotes and the ability to base management activities on accurate sales information at the dealer and national account levels, TMHU enhanced their marketing, sales, and channel management functionality of their customer relationship management application, which is supported by NSI AutoStore.

Today, TMHU dealers are better able to generate accurate quotations for their customers based on the latest product configuration and pricing. “In fact, it is now impossible to order a misconfigured fork-lift,” notes Cseresznyak. The resulting quotation accuracy leads to increased sales team productivity and customer satisfaction. In the past, for example, each completed quote had to be reviewed by a coordinator before conversion to an order, creating a tremendous constraint in the quote-to-order process. Moreover, the need to manually rekey order data caused high workloads for the sales team. Using AutoStore, TMHU is able to access through its SAP CRM, the back-end vehicle management data, and further streamline order process by integrating accurate truck configuration data into quotes

“With our CRM, we also know exactly what the selling price is for the end-customer and how our dealer discounting is being applied,” adds Cseresznyak. “This is especially important because virtually every truck at TMHU is discounted.” These days all transactions are automatically reviewed to compare approved discounts against actual discounts. As a result, the company has eliminated the 12% variance it once had in its discount spend. The net savings delivered a full ROI for the CRM project in less than one year.

Furthermore, improved sales pipeline visibility enables incentive performance measurements that support better fore-casting, increased market share, and improved margin. This visibility reduces the cost of sales and shortens factory delivery times. And integrated lead management, marketing, and analytics help drive win rates and increase market share.

TMHU is now looking at mobile technologies to further empower its sales force. As Cseresznyak points out, “It will greatly benefit our dealerships to be able to share the latest forklift configuration and option information with their customers on the spot.” This type of innovative thinking helps keep success rolling at TMHU.