CRM Software

Customer relationship management (CRM) software solutions are put in place to provide companies with a better way to deliver customer service that generates a positive experience and loyalty.

Such systems work well for the business to customer environment, as well as the multi-level marketing (MLM) environment in which the company must be able to cater to independent sales consultants.

For Arbonne, an MLM company focused on skincare, the company's competitive differentiation depends upon the integrity of their sales team and compliance with published policies and procedures.

A number of Arbonne's independent consultants found themselves frustrated because they felt their complaints had little - if any - effect on unfair competition. This feeling of unrest among the consultants was posing a problem for Arbonne.

As a result, the company set out to find a way to maintain consultant integrity among the nearly 1 million individuals in this position globally in an environment where it was difficult to track complaints and/or compliance inquires from customers or other consultants.

In addition, consultants needed to adhere to a comprehensive, 20-page policy and procedure manual. The company was used to doing things with spreadsheets, but this was becoming increasingly difficult to manage.

To meet these challenges, Arbonne needed to implement a CRM software solution. After reviewing several options in the industry, the company selected the CRM software solution from NetSuite (News - Alert). The NetSuite CRM solution replaced manual-spreadsheet tracking systems and provided dashboards to help compliance staff to track complaints through to resolution.

As a result of the implementation of the CRM software solution, Arbonne's compliance group is now handling three times as many inquiries with one-third the staff. At the same time, NetSuite has been able to help Arbonne to reduce its average inquiry backlog by 95 percent.

Consultants benefitted from this implementation as well as they appreciated the increased responsiveness by company compliance, demonstrating Arbonne's commitment to integrity. Arbonne also using tracking system to identify and optimize trends in field compliance issues to become more proactive.

"With NetSuite we've got automation, efficiencies, and tracking abilities we didn't have before.  This helps us compete through the quality and integrity of our consultants - the people who bring our products to customers' homes every day," said Arbonne officials.