Strategic Sales Systems Powers Up Operations for Aquila

(I-Newswire) July 22, 2009 - St. Louis, MO July 22, 2009 -- Tracing its roots back to 1917, Aquila is a Missouri-based electric and natural gas distribution company serving more than 900,000 customers across five Midwestern states. Aquila is heavily involved in the communities it serves, providing energy assistance, promoting economic development and funding neighborhood initiatives. To track the relationships it builds, Aquila relies on Sage SalesLogix supported by the expertise of Sage Software Select Business Partner, Strategic Sales Systems.

"We needed the power of a relational database," recalls Lisa Franklin, manager of economic development at Aquila. "We wanted to extend CRM capabilities to more departments in the company, and we knew we needed something more powerful. We could tell during our first meeting with Strategic Sales Systems that this was a company we wanted to do business with. Other companies came in and demonstrated their software, but Strategic Sales Systems came in, listened to our users, took an interest in our project and showed us what the future could look like."

Strategic Sales fully implemented the software, including the required customizations in less than three months. The return has been immediate, and significant. A vital report that took three days to compile before now takes a minute or two to generate. Users across five states all access the same data, real-time, across the company's secure Citrix server.

"To have the data in one secure database is a tremendous asset for us. Before, we all kept data in spreadsheets or other applications," said Franklin

With those individual data silos, collaboration and coordination was difficult, and the company ran the risk of losing data if an employee left. Five distinct departments now rely on Sage SalesLogix: Economic Development, Community Relations, Government Affairs, Corporate Affairs and Consumer Accounts. Strategic Sales designed the solution to track the data specific to each of these departments, allowing each department communicate effectively, nurture its relationships, and remain accountable to the community.

"We consider Sage SalesLogix a best practices tool. It eliminates wasted efforts, saves time, increases data security and gives us the time and tools to be more customer focused. It was well on its way to paying for itself within the first year," said Franklin.

Note: Aquila was acquired by Kansas City Power & Light on July 14, 2008 and KCP&L is now using SalesLogix

Contact:
Meg Fullenkamp
Strategic Sales Systems, Inc
1215 Fern Ridge Parkway Suite 120
St. Louis, Missouri 63141
1-877-777-9779
Strategicsales@captivamarketing.com
http://www.sssworld.com

Company Contact Information
Meg Fullenkamp