San Jose Mercury News Chooses Relationals
On-Demand CRM Set to Improve Advertising Sales & Track Performance
San Jose, Calif., December, 2005 – In the heart of Silicon Valley, the San Jose Mercury News has been reporting on the growth and changes in this burgeoning technology market since its inception. So when it came to managing its advertising sales, the newspaper wanted to choose the best CRM to help their advertising sales groups reach new levels of productivity and customer service.
“For years, we’ve been using basic reporting tools – like Excel and paper reports – to manage our sales and marketing functions,” says Jim Stoch, Director of Recruitment and Career Fairs for the San Jose Mercury News. “We needed a better management tool – and we found that solution in Relationals’ on-demand CRM solution.”
Relationals, a leader in providing hosted customer relationship management (CRM) solutions to the media and publishing industries, is helping the San Jose Mercury News accelerate its sales process, improve sales collaboration, and increase advertising and recruitment fair revenue, among other activities.
“This is the first time in years that we’ve been able to have such a complete picture of our sales operations,” said Mr. Stoch. “Nothing this sophisticated has been offered to us before. We can monitor sales performance. We can check on who is logged onto the system and track sales calls and activities. It even alerts our sales reps if they need to make a follow up call. Not only is it easy to use, but we have eliminated our need for Excel spreadsheets completely. It’s a good time management tool.”
“In short, Relationals helps sales teams serve their customers – which results in increased sales and revenues in the long run,” said Pankaj Malviya, chief executive officer for Relationals. “Sales teams now have a secure, centralized customer information system that allows them to track previous sales history, follow up in a timely manner, and track future opportunities. Relationals provides the information management and sales tracking needed to develop better campaigns and reach out more effectively to prospects and customers.”
Rita Castro, Supervisor of Recruitment Advertising for the San Jose Mercury News, noted that, in the past, the sales team spent extra time preparing reports and tracking activities. With that process automated, time has now been freed up to focus on revenue-generating activities.
“When our reps enter their activities into the Relationals system, they can make notes on calls that are attempted or completed. They can note if a sale is pending and where it is in the pipeline,” she said. “It provides us with a better understanding of where we’re spending our time and focusing our efforts – and whether or not those activities paid off. In short, did we generate any revenue?”
She adds that the Relationals on-demand CRM solution has turned out to make reporting to management a breeze.
“Now, we can easily associate revenue with number of new business calls just by printing out a report. It saves time and aggravation – and ensures that we have a stronger revenue picture for management. We should have had this a long time ago.”
Ms. Castro noted that extensive training wasn’t needed when it came to implementing the solution at the San Jose Mercury News.
“Relationals thought of everything, so our team was productive from the first day. In short, even new members can jump right in and start using the system right away,” she said. “The Relationals team helped us with some customization and their follow through was exceptional.”