Q: Do you use software to help make strategic business decisions?
Yes, Evosus business management software has completely revolutionized and streamlined our business practices. Prior to Evosus we had multiple databases that required double or triplicate entry. Now it's all in one place.
I am in charge of marketing for our company, and in the past, it would have been a huge undertaking to sift through our ACT database and the Excel sheets used by our service department to try to market to customers who had not been to our store in the past year. Now I can use the Evosus program to show me, in a matter of minutes, all customers that purchased a particular spa from us but have not purchased the replacement filter for that spa from us.
All the information is in one place — so the lead houses the sales information, as well as the service information and dumps directly into the general ledger. I know what has been spent, on what products and when the sale occurred for any particular person in our database — in minutes! We can now make informed decisions about what promotions are most effective, and spend more time on our promotions, which keeps us competitive against big box retailers. We regularly offer specific, tailored specials to current and non-current customers that bring people into our store and motivate them pick up the phone for a service call. Our business continues to grow and is more profitable now that it was six years ago — which is really saying something in this economy.
Not only do we have extra time to aggressively market to our database of customers, we have also found additional cash from warranty claims with manufacturers — money I'm sure we missed in the past. All warranty service work is easily tracked within Evosus. Before we used to manually keep a book for claims with manufacturers, and I am sure we lost warranty revenue both on parts and labor. Now we easily track all claims to see what is open and hasn't been paid. I run this report weekly and it has helped us find thousands of dollars of profit every year.
