A family-owned company based in Beaverton, Oregon, Leupold & Stevens, Inc. has manufactured precision optical products for nearly a century. The company is proud of its reputation as the shooting sports industry leader in both product integrity and customer service. Known for being innovative, Leupold knew that to keep its lead in customer service the company needed to automate its support systems. Leupold & Stevens found the answer with a high-impact Epicor solution centered around the Clientele Customer Support application.
Defining a Customer-Centric Solution Roadmap
Leupold & Stevens places a high value on customer service. With a reputation based on the “Leupold Golden Ring” — a pledge to stand behind the purchase for a lifetime of use — the company needs to have the right customer service to back up its warranty. Until recently, Leupold was able to meet its customer service needs with mostly manual processes. However, the company knew it had to find more efficient, centralized ways to service customers to maintain its leadership position.
The company initially targeted three core areas to automate — customer service, product service and the product purchase areas. But the company also had a vision to expand its customer support capabilities with more Web-based functionality, including Web-based self-service support, account management and sales. An existing user of the Avanté by Epicor solution, Leupold turned to Epicor Software Corporation again to help the company deliver on its vision with the Clientele, ClienteleNet, Avanté Customer ePortal and Avanté eCommerce Storefront applications.
“We touch the customer in three critical areas. In order to continue to deliver the best possible customer service, it became pretty evident to me that we needed to consolidate our customer information in one place,” declares Lee Betty, Leupold & Stevens supervisor and CRM project manager. “Whether it is a purchase relationship, a product service relationship or a customer service relationship where we are trying to keep or mend that personal relationship; we need all that information in one place, so we can always make the best decision possible every time we touch the customer. We turned to Epicor for help in finding possible solutions to this goal.”
Automating Customer Service Processes
Leupold & Stevens has a unique situation. Often the product sale is made through large chain stores, dealer store-fronts or distributors. Later, the purchaser goes directly to the company with product questions and for service. Thus, Leupold needed a solution that could begin the customer information process at any step in the customer relationship. With Clientele, Call Center staff are now able to share up-to-the-minute information regarding customer service, product registration and product repairs — regardless of how the customer was initially put into the system. To support its business model, the company implemented a number of key features in its Clientele solution. For example, whatever documentation comes in with the product for service is scanned in as an attachment and made a part of the customer’s file. In addition, all Web site e-mail is tracked and handled through Clientele.
“I can very safely say that we are faster and more efficient now,” states Betty. “Clientele and its open architecture environment has allowed us to customize the software in exactly the way we wanted, enabling us to take advantage of the unique efficiencies present here. The solution allows a high degree of customization capability to fit your own business model.”
“Before, when the product came in for service, we always had to input the customer information into the Product Service area. Now, if the customer has ever called or emailed us, their information is already there in one centralized place,” continues Betty. “In fact, now that the customer information is centralized and with the scanning in of documentation, I’d say that we have cut our time keying, or re-keying, almost in half.”
Managing a Diverse Customer Base
Leupold views its customers as its most important asset. Customers range from direct accounts, to end user customers and distributors. Epicor’s solution is helping Leupold service the unique needs of each segment. For example, direct accounts consist primarily of large chain stores and wholesalers. To help Call Center representatives rapidly service this priority class of customer, Clientele has an Alert screen to immediately notify the representative of this customer type.
Leupold is also in the process of rolling out the Avanté Customer ePortal application to these direct accounts. This application provides wholesalers and account managers with Web-based access to their account information anytime, anywhere. With their own unique logon, these users will be able to see order status, inventory, product descriptions, product returns, repair status and invoices paid. This direct access should help direct accounts make better decisions based on product mix, forecasting and sales cycles. In turn, this capability has the potential to complete the cycle back to Leupold, enabling the company to better manage its inventory levels and keep in tune with the marketplace.
Trend Setting “My Info” Web Site Section
This forward-looking company is adding another industry innovation with its implementation of Web-based customer self-service. Using ClienteleNet, Leupold has set up a userfriendly “My Info” section on its Web site. The section allows end user customers to look at the status of products sent for servicing, a personalized historical log of previous Leupold contacts, their own Personal Leupold Product Inventory guide, and, last but not least, an online Leupold Answer Guide for product related questions.
“Leupold views all of its customers as premier customers. And their time is valuable,” says Betty. “Customers want fast, direct access to information. So, we wanted to make as much information as possible available online so they can look at it when they want to.”
Knowledge is Power
Epicor’s customer solution has benefits for both Leupold and its customers. Leupold sees this new approach as key to helping the business stay ahead of the competition. It uses this new customer “knowledge” to help them be proactive rather than reactive in various customer situations.
For example, the software makes it easy to find common Call Center questions and either post the answer on the Web site or change their processes, whichever is appropriate to the situation. Also, the company can much more easily see what kind of products are requiring service and use that information to reduce or eliminate the problem.
Concludes Betty, “With our centralized information we know what our customers want and when they want it. The next logical move will be to rotate this “customer” model around and use the information in a proactive manner so that we start marketing activities directly toward these people.”
Ready for the Future
Leupold & Stevens is well on the way to executing its well-planned strategy for customer service. Customer service relationships are now centralized and Web-based and account managers have direct access to critical customer information.
“We will continue to make the investments we need to keep our customer leadership position,” summarizes Betty. “In fact, we will soon implement Epicor’s iConnect application. This XML-based technology will enable distributors to directly communicate from their system to Leupold’s and trigger shipments. As a result, both companies should benefit from more efficiently managed inventory, reduced costs and supply chain management. All benefits that should help in our ongoing quest to keep our management, key stakeholders and customers happy.”
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