The Challenge

For the past 23 years, Kennet Equipment Leasing has financed equipment worth in excess of £500 million, and now has 57 employees. Its strong balance sheet and funder backing helps the company convert more than 80% of enquiries, which are processed in a precise but fast-moving environment.

Kennet Equipment Leasing has always enjoyed a steep growth curve and worked within an incredibly complex supply chain. Shortly after the company was formed in 1991, its founders faced a mountain of paper ledgers, resulting from sales throughout its start-up phase. Customers had little in common and ranged from large manufacturers and their clients to hairdressers and their EPOS (Electronic Point of Sale) suppliers. The company’s founders needed an efficient way to manage these enormous volumes of records to avoid being swamped in a building full of paper files. Not knowing to what extent the company would grow, they needed to find a system which offered relatively unlimited scalability, which had the capability to efficiently manage a disparate and often entwined customer base, and which complied with extensive industry regulations. They came across SuperOffice, a CRM system that is suitable for companies ranging from start-ups to organisations with thousands of branches.

The Solution

“In the beginning we needed a simple CRM package because Kennet Equipment Leasing was still a fledgling company.

Redcastle has provided additional SuperOffice functionality as we’ve needed it – so it’s evolved with our company,” explained Jackie Kain, Marketing Manager at Kennet Equipment Leasing. SuperOffice holds all the archives, including information about each document, in an auditable form. When a customer calls, staff at Kennet Equipment Leasing can see all the history relating to that individual or organisation. Reports can be generated on any aspect of the system, giving senior management a snapshot of the company’s progress. The system complies with the Data Protection Act and all the other security, storage and accessibility requirements of such a heavily regulated industry. It links together and stores all forms of communications, including telephone conversation details. “If we send a fax, SuperOffice archives it, so if somebody queries its contents three years later, we can produce the document. Even if a customer sends us a handwritten note, we can store and reference it on the system. “Practically everything is kept within SuperOffice, which enables us to instantly access records – much quicker than searching for hard copy files. There are now more than 117,000 organisations on the system,” said Jackie.

The Results

“It probably saves the equivalent of one day a week in document retrieval and filing, although savings vary with different positions within the company.

We haven’t needed to change systems because Redcastle has been very responsive at tweaking and identifying SuperOffice tools that would be of use to us as they become available – particularly when it comes to marketing,” commented Jackie. SuperOffice provides user-specific functionality. For some employees, it automates record processing, while for others it has been adapted for complex role-specific tasks. When anyone within Kennet Equipment Leasing needs new functionality, or has an idea about an additional tool that would help enhance the business, they simply ask Redcastle for it. “Although it’s sophisticated, SuperOffice is incredibly easy to use. I was initially shown some basics and then taught myself the rest. The first thing everyone does when they come to work is log in – it’s the glue that holds the company together,” concluded Jackie.

• Saves one admin day per week
• Unlimited scalability
• Functionality added according to business needs
• Provides ‘snapshot’ progress reports
• Links and stores details of all forms of communication
• Adaptable for user-specific tasks
• Ease of use.