Micros SA supports an industry that never sleeps, with Sage CRM

Micros South Africa, a specialist provider of point of sale and reservation systems to the hospitality industry, is depending on the Sage CRM business solution from Sage ERP Africa to manage customer service for nearly 3 500 clients. The solution was implemented by Sage ERP business partner, Lorge.

The company counts many of South Africa's leading restaurant and hotel chains among its customers, many of them with operations throughout sub-Saharan Africa. For them, Micros solutions are mission-critical business systems and the level of service and support the company can provide to them is of paramount importance.

Micros decided in 2006 to implement a new CRM solution because the system it was using was no longer meeting its needs. It needed a highly scalable and flexible CRM system to help deal effectively with 1 200 weekly customer calls, and especially needed a solution that would be easy to customise to its specific requirements.

Lorge worked with Micros to customise Sage CRM and integrate the solution with Micros' Sage 300 ERP accounting system and Sage Services system to help manage and track customer support calls. The package now helps the Micros support team to manage customer issues effectively and within agreed timeframes.

Says Michael James Kenney, Service Manager at Micros South Africa: "We needed a solution we could customise to provide the information we need to help our customers quickly and effectively when there's a support call.

"Now, our consultants can easily pick up with a glance at the screen whether a customer has a support contract with us our not. They can also see which hardware the client is using and whether it is under warranty, and browse the client's support history. This 360-degree view of the customer helps us to quickly resolve any incident so that we can meet our service level agreements."

Using the Sage CRM solution, Micros is able to track support calls as well as e-mail and SMS support requests from when they are logged to when they have been resolved. It is also benefiting from the wealth of rich information it can access through Sage CRM's reporting tools. These reports - which are automatically generated - give management the information it needs to understand call centre performance, allocate resources, and identify opportunities to cross- or up-sell to clients.

Sage CRM also helps Micros manage its workflow efficiently so that it can prioritise the older and more important calls as well as track service level agreements (SLAs). "Sage CRM has taken a lot of the manual work out of our process," says Kenney. "Thanks to the reporting tools, we can also provide our customers with a wealth of SLA-related information when they request it."

"The hospitality industry never sleeps, so meeting SLAs is critical to Micros' success," says Michael Camacho, CRM Senior Consultant at Lorge. "Sage CRM enables Micros to deliver a consistent level of service and help its customers minimise downtime when they run into a technical issue."

Says Jeremy Waterman, Managing Director at Sage ERP Africa: "Micros South Africa's success has been built on its dedication to customer service excellence. Sage CRM has helped it to meet its goals by enhancing its customer experience, improving business efficiencies and providing information that helps it make better business decisions."