Based in South Yorkshire, Candlelight Products Ltd are designers, importers and wholesale suppliers of a wide range of household products and giftware. In the summer of 2003 Candlelight went ahead with MiniSell, equipping its sales force with HP iPAQ Pocket PCs for sales order capture both on the road and at exhibitions such as the Spring Fair NEC.
One of the main reasons that Candlelight was so attracted to MiniSell was that Aspin Management had extensive experience of working with giftware companies, which meant that they provided a product which was well suited to Candlelight’s needs.
Candlelight was also impressed with the ease with which ntegrated with its existing back-office system, Sage Line 500. Candlelight is able to import orders from the handhelds to Sage Line 500 using existing Sage modules. As a result, Candlelight’s back-office systems required only minimal customisation in order to integrate MiniSell.
There were a number of benefits of implementing MiniSell with regards to the Candlelight’s sales force. Candlelight no longer has to spend money on paper orders forms for its reps to order, the speed of ordering-taking has increased and the reps now have ready access to up-to-date and accurate information.
There has been a knock-on effect in Candlelight’s sales administration department as well. Because the reps can now download orders directly to Sage via their handhelds, sales admin staff no longer need to laboriously key-in the paper orders forms which used to be sent back to the office.
Most importantly,has increased value for the company’s customers. Order data now reaches Candlelight far faster, which enables them to get the orders out to customers in a far shorter period of time and now that the reps can take the orders more quickly, with fewer errors they are able to provide a higher level of service to customers.
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