From data silos to holistic, analytical sales management and data-driven customer service: Power equipment manufacturer STIHL relies on Dynamics 365 in sales, marketing and service

The challenge: Fragmented processes instead of a unified system

Existing structures and the modern, growing product portfolio not only posed a challenge for service. Increased digitalisation and the progressing globalisation of the market created new challenges for sales: 

"Our customers want consistent and authentic experiences across all touchpoints – whether online, print, or on-site at the dealer, and regardless of whether the market is served by STIHL or one of our importers,“ says Christoph Vogt, Director Internal Marketing Systems at STIHL. "As a world-renowned brand, we still had no uniform customer relationship management. Marketing and sales were managed by our sales subsidiaries, and customer data was usually held by our specialist dealers. We saw great potential in systematically harnessing the knowledge of individual employees and our partners for the entire organisation." STIHL wanted a central solution that would bring transparency to business processes, allowing strategic decisions to be based on uniform and global data—a global, standardized CRM system—OneCRM. 

Vogt adds: "Only with dealer and customer data can we ensure a consistent and seamless customer experience. Using this data, insights can be gained on how we can optimize communication, processes and products to ensure the greatest possible success in the market. The goal of OneCRM is to connect with all sales subsidiaries and importers worldwide. Gradually, we want to connect more dealer and customer touchpoints to our system." STIHL needed a central platform for business processes throughout the whole company for sales and marketing, as well as for service and support.

The solution: A central system for specialist dealers, customers and subsidiary management

STIHL introduced OneCRM, which is based on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales. All customer data converge in the solution in compliance with data protection laws, and is collected, evaluated and made usable, giving STIHL a 360-degree view of customers and specialist dealers. "OneCRM is about to become our single ‘source of truth’,“ says Christoph Vogt. "We finally get the transparency we need to design standardized processes based on analytical insights—both within and between our sales subsidiaries worldwide. And importantly, between the subsidiaries and the head office." Dynamics 365 brings customers, dealers, sales subsidiaries and the STIHL headquarters closer together.

The company is now able to drive the development of its dealer network based on sound data and to coach dealers in a goal-orientated manner. Sales staff are supported in planning and preparation based on potential-data and dealer profiles. The mobile applications provide on-site access to e.g. customer satisfaction data and customer structures, which guide business proposals during discussions. The native integration of Power BI further supports this. Resulting activities involving trade marketing, the training department or other back-office units can be triggered and tracked directly in OneCRM. Previously, weekly reports had to be prepared manually and e-mails circulated between sales and back office. System driven, the entire process now runs transparently, and above all, it can save a significant amount of time. The generated data converge in global reporting and allows the central units in Waiblingen to make decisions based on real-time data—a glance in OneCRM shows e.g. facilities, floor space and opening hours worldwide, which customers visit which dealers, or how many modernisation projects are currently underway. Naturally, this is all done in compliance with the high standards of the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

End-customer management is also already benefitting from the central collection of data: "The connection of digital customer solutions enables insights into the demographics, product preferences, and relevant interests of our customers, based on the profiles created and insights into user behaviour. Marketing uses this data to address them individually via our various channels," says Christoph Vogt. "With the launch of the new STIHL eCommerce solution, this is paying off through an improved conversion rate." Thanks to OneCRM, STIHL can steer the customer's online journey directly towards its partners for subsequent services—suitable dealers can be derived directly from the customer profile. 

"Microsoft Dynamics 365 proved itself very quickly in sales. That benefited us in the area of service and support," says Stefan Schlom. "We were able to use the existing data and Dynamics infrastructure to avoid rolling out multiple systems. To make Global Support Management a reality, we added a customer service module to the solution." 

STIHL has now provided global support with a unified tool for handling support requests that does much more than a normal ticketing system. For the first time, with Dynamics 365 Customer Service, the company is able to maintain consistent knowledge management articles which can be used via various channels: Service staff add to and expand the database, end customers can get answers to their questions via a self-service portal on the website and dealers have access as well. 

At the same time, the tool collects customer feedback from the market and feeds it back to the head office. Here, the feedback is evaluated and in turn flows into the development of STIHL's digital services. "This makes us faster in all aspects, whether it's improving our products, our software solutions or our service," says Schlom. "If support requests for the digital platform 'STIHL Connected' pile up for example, recognisable by the increased volume of tickets, we can identify the cause within a few hours and take appropriate action. Users of digital products want a solution immediately—and we can now offer that with Dynamics 365." 

Stefan Schlom continues: "Of course, we not only want to continuously improve our products, but also our customer service itself. To this end, we send out automated customer satisfaction surveys in compliance with data protection regulations using Customer Voice in order to initiate improvement measures in the most targeted manner possible."