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Jubilations Cheesecakes a Leader in CRM Technology Application
Stores Magazine
October, 2003
 Fifteen years ago, Tammy Craddock began selling her handmade gourmet
cheesecakes from her farmhouse kitchen in rural Columbus, Mississippi. Jubilations
eventually built a commercial facility, and today, the company creates
cheesecakes in more than 50 flavors. These morsels are sold directly to restaurants and
supermarkets, and its catalog supports sales to associations, corporations,
and of course, individual consumers.
To get a better handle of sales within these five business channels,
Jubilations embarked on a CRM journey in 2001, when it added a basic tool from a
company called Lead Minder. This tool tried to manage data stored in multiple
locations, however, redundant, scattered data caused problems, says George
Purnell, vice president and co-owner of Cheesecake Jubilations.
One of Jubilations' biggest challenges was keeping track of sales calls.
With a half a million restaurants in the United States, it is impossible and
impractical for companies, both large and small, to sell directly to all of
them, Purnell explains. It is an issue the industry continues to struggle with.
Jubilations also struggled with how to measure its customer contacts. This was intensified by the third party distributors and brokers that sell Jubilations cakes on behalf of the company. Our contacts were completely unmeasured, and measurements were done on a sporadic basis, at best, he adds.
Jubilations knew it was time to find a tool that would enable the company to
track and maintain its current and prospective customer contacts, and the
results of these sales calls. Jubilations found this tool from a company called
SalesNet.
SalesNet is a CRM technology vendor that focuses on maintaining interaction
between a retailers call center, marketing, sales, contracts and billing
departments and their contacts with existing and new customers.
The transition was an easy one for Jubilations as SalesNet purchased the Lead
Minder product in late 2001. After expanding and improving the functionality
of the solution, Jubilations deployed the new solution in February 2002.
SalesNet provides Jubilations with an affordable Web-based solution that is
helping the company manage sales contacts and customer accounts, which results
in increased revenues and sales productivity.
SalesNet is comprised of a centralized database, a calendar emailing tool and
a processing module called Process Builder. The tool enables Jubilations to
set rules for the system to remind the sales team to call specific clients. All
data is retained in the database, enabling users to continue their efforts
where they left off. This also ensures that Jubilations has a closed-loop
process where no prospect or existing customer falls through the cracks.
To prepare, Jubilations cleaned and imported customer data from each
segregated database into the centralized unit, creating a designated location for all
data. Users simply log onto the system by inputting their user name and
password to gain access to data stored in the centralized repository. Now users can
gain access to contracts and pending meetings. And using the application's
Communication Manager functionality, the sales team can plan marketing campaigns
via telephone, direct mail and email on a weekly basis.
The software can also be accessed by Jubilations mobile sales force through
mobile Web-based devices like laptops and PDAs (personal digital assistants).
Now we have paperless files that track which customers were contacted by
which sales person, and what was discussed during the conversation, Purnell
explains. We can also track the day and time of each call, what the results were
and what the next step in the sales process will be.
Jubilations first step was to apply SalesNet to its business-to-business
division which sells cheesecakes to supermarkets and restaurants. We have tighter
relationships and higher volume within our B2B business channel, and we
believed this is where we would get the highest value first, Purnell says.
Since adding SalesNet, Jubilations has experienced significant results. For
example, Jubilations pinpointed a test market of restaurants in Louisiana,
Mississippi, Tennessee and Alabama. By comparing sales year to year, this market
had a 22% sales increase while the rest of the business in that segment was declining 10% in the same timeframe.
In addition, the tool has helped the company generate a significant amount of
new business. SalesNet estimates that Jubilations has doubled the number of
prospects in its pipeline since deploying SalesNet.
While Purnell did not disclose a specific ROI, it was such a high return
that we never questioned if we should not be doing this, he says. It is a very
powerful tool for small company like ours. Yet, we are so happy about it that
we signed a new two-year contract that we did not even have to think twice
about.
Looking ahead, Jubilations plans to make SalesNet an integrated piece of its
business strategy moving forward. We expect to grow 10-fold in the next 10
years and SalesNet will help us do this, Purnell explains. Since change
happens so fast in retail, we always need different ways to attack business.
SalesNet gives us the flexibility to change how we sell to customers and attract new
ones.
Jubilations is evaluating the best way to expand the CRM tool to its other
business channels. The next step is for Jubilations to apply SalesNet to its
fund-raising and business-to-consumer channels.
SalesNet will assist our agents in attracting new customers and
maintaining these relationships, Purnell concludes. On the B2C side, SalesNet
will also manage an email newsletter consumers can opt into.
Purnell expects to have both channels live with SalesNet by spring 2004.
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