In the case of Ruben Thanaruban, what happened in (Las) Vegas is something to boast about.
Sage Software Inc., a business management and software services provider, invited Ruben, OREA’s assistant director of information technology, to be a presenter at their annual summit for partners and customers. This year’s summit was held in Las Vegas from July 28 to July 31.
Sage is the CRM (customer relationship management) and Accpac ERP (enterprise resource planning) provider for OREA and OREA Real Estate College. The annual summits are intended for partners and customers to share information and learn new ideas.
At this year’s summit, attended by more than 5,000 Sage partners and customers, Ruben was selected to be on the customer panel of the session “How to develop brand ambassadors for your company.” Ruben presented on how OREA’s IT Department customized the CRM to serve the needs of the College and the association’s marketing and communications, member services, and leadership development departments.
Ruben and his IT team customized the CRM to allow the College and the association to provide more efficient and better services to students and members. The CRM system is now fully integrated with the following systems:
• call centre (Computer Talk)
• finance (Accpac ERP)
• e-learning (Moodle)
• community forum (Telligent)
• automated warehouse/shipping
• website (including My Portfolio), run by the Sitecore content management system
These innovations have allowed prospective students to apply for admission to the College online. Students can enrol in courses, schedule exams, and re-schedule exams online. Through their password-protected My Portfolio accounts, students can access tax receipts, exam results, course/textbook updates, and other College communication.
The customization was deemed essential because OREA and the College:
• serve 40 real estate boards, 60,000 members, and 93,000 students
• receive approximately 1,200 calls every day
• process approximately 200,000 communications every week
• process approximately 13,000 enrolments in courses and other events every month
The end result has been continued high customer satisfaction, as evidenced by the results of the quarterly Customer Satisfaction Study. For example, in the most recent survey conducted by a third-party organization, 95 per cent of the 325 callers interviewed between March 31 and June 27, 2014, were satisfied with the Customer Service Centre. These numbers are consistent with previous quarterly satisfaction studies.
Kudos to Ruben and the IT Department!
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