San Francisco September 6, 2002 When inventor and entrepreneur Dean Kamen unveiled his Segway scooters, he heralded the self-balancing, electric-powered "Human Transporters" as a revolution in people-moving technology.
Now Segway LLC, the company formed to build and market the HTs, is tapping an online customer relationship management (CRM) solution to help revolutionize the way it moves customer data among its various divisions.
Kamen's company has signed up for solution provider salesforce.com's Enterprise Edition CRM application to manage its customer data. Salesforce.com said its CRM solution will provide Segway with the tools and insight the company needs to maximize revenues, reduce expenses and increase customer satisfaction.
Prior to being introduced to salesforce.com, Segway was looking for a formalized system for managing sales and customer information. Sales data were scattered across multiple Excel spreadsheets, making it difficult to access and share pertinent information. The company wanted more control of the sales process and needed a CRM system that could integrate its sales, customer support and financial data.
According to the solution provider, Segway chose salesforce.com's online CRM solution for its rapid, cost-effective deployment and ability to integrate with the company's existing Oracle applications. Segway is counting on the solution to provide a real-time, holistic view of its customers and prospects, allowing the sales and management team to compile and share up-to-the-minute customer information and service customers more effectively.
In addition, the offline capabilities included in salesforce.com's Enterprise Edition allow sales representatives the same command of their information when they are away from the office.
"In less than a week, salesforce.com implemented a centralized customer relationship management tool that increased our efficiency with information in the office and on the road, and gave us the benefits of quick and easy back-office integration," said Patrick Zilvitis, chief information officer at Segway.
The Segway win marked salesforce.com's 5,000th customer for its online CRM solution, according to the provider.
