Élan Book Upgrade Customer Success Story

Transcription

1 Élan Book Upgrade Customer Success Story Thanks to a recent upgrade to Élan Book, religious publisher Forward Movement has increased accuracy and achieved greater efficiency across the organization. Élan Book elegantly integrates Forward Movement s business operations through a centralized database, which works seamlessly with the MSGL ecommerce website solution as well as a full suite of financial products to create a single environment where the publisher can easily and efficiently manage every aspect of their business. I appreciate having a web front end that s tightly integrated to the backend so that things like pricing and promotion codes and product titles are changed in one place, and they re quickly available everywhere, which was not the case for us before. Scott Gunn Executive Director Forward Movement

2 Company Profile Forward-Thinking Non-Profit Religious Publisher Forward Movement, a ministry of the Episcopal Church, is best known for the popular daily devotional Forward Day by Day, which provides daily meditations based on Bible scripture readings appointed by the lectionary and Daily Office. Forward Day by Day is published in English, Spanish, large print, audio cassette and Braille editions, and the daily meditation is available online. Since 1935, Forward Movement has produced pamphlets, booklets and books on topics including prayer, liturgy, pastoral concerns, evangelism, stewardship, church history and introductions to Anglicanism and the Episcopal Church. Forward Movement has stayed on the forefront of publishing trends offering ebooks, smartphone apps and other digital resources. Eight full-time and several part-time staff in Forward Movement s offices in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio, edit and design the publications, market them, fill orders and respond to the diverse concerns of those who call and write with comments and questions. The Situation Poor User Experience and Inaccurate Systems Forward Movement executive director Scott Gunn saw an immediate technology need when he joined the non-profit publisher 12 months ago. The Episcopal priest has a background in technology and recognized the inefficiencies in the company s redundant information systems. We made the switch largely because we were using this Rube Goldberg website front end to CISPUB, and wasn t working well for us, said Gunn. Accuracy was a large concern for Gunn. Under the old system, inventory and pricing information had to be entered into both CISPUB and the website. That just invites mistakes, said Gunn. In addition to increasing efficiency and accuracy for his small team, Gunn wanted to provide the publisher s growing base of ecommerce customers with a better user experience. The search function was probably the biggest liability in our former website, said Gunn.

3 The Right Solution Meeting Complex Requirements We wanted tighter integration between our back office system and customer-facing website, along with additional features such as user subscription self-service, electronic product delivery and more robust reporting, says Gunn. The Élan Book Solution offered Forward Movement the ability to consolidate its customer data into one centralized CRM, seamlessly integrating their database with a user-friendly ecommerce website and a full suite of publishing management tools. While Gunn says Forward Movement considered other solutions, this technology veteran ultimately choose Élan Book primarily for continuity from CISPUB. Élan offers all sorts of analytics and flexibility to sell digital products. It has all the basic stuff that a company our size would want, said Gunn. Implementation Streamlining Process and Improving Customer Experience By selecting the Élan Book solution, Forward Movement was able to implement their new CRM, financial suite and ecommerce website in one integrated process. Élan Book offered Forward Movement much more than just a software installation. The MSGL team worked closely with Forward Movement on a solid pre-implementation plan to set the team up for success. In addition to planning the backend migration, Gunn collaborated with the ecommerce team to develop the look and feel of the new ecommerce website. I was able to describe to the Élan team what we were looking for in terms of design, and then we took a hands off approach and just trusted the ecommerce team to do a good job, said Gunn. They presented us drafts, and we made some little tweaks, but basically, they did a great job of understanding what we were looking for, and we choose not to micromanage every little font and detail of the page. The testing and integration for the most part has gone smoothly, said Gunn. Anytime there s a software project, there s going to be a few things that don t work right, but on the balance, it went more quickly and better than I expected from previous experience with other companies, said Gunn.

4 Benefits The Élan Book upgrade has eliminated the need for double-entry and increased process efficiencies and accuracy for the team at Forward Movement. The new process is much more streamlined, said Gunn. Our old system, every single order had to be hand-edited. In the new system, orders requires minimal manual intervention. We also expect to save time by not having to separately maintain an internal database and an external website. We also hope to automate some of our customer relationship work, such as subscription renewals and invoice payments. The launch of the new ecommerce website has solicited positive responses from Forward Movement s customers. I hear a lot about how clean the website looks - how up-to-date, impressive looking. We ve had virtually no complaints from customers about the new website, which is mind boggling, said Gunn. Looking Forward Increased Customer Reach With the implementation in place, Forward Movement is planning more sophisticated marketing strategies. I m looking forward to the ability to target marketing offers to particular classes of customers or to offer specials on specific products, said Gunn. I think that we can drive significantly higher sales, because we can do a better job of marketing our products and also measuring what s working and what s not. Phone sales still represent the majority of sales for Forward Movement, but with the launch of the consumer-friendly ecommerce site, Gunn sees the balance shifting. I think the new website will accelerate that shift, because it is going to be easier for our customers to use the site and to place orders. Eventually we ll tilt towards mostly web orders, but we haven t reached that point yet. The next step for Forward Movement is the implementation of a Mobile Bookstore. Between the ecommerce site and the non-profit s devotion site, 42 percent of all inbound traffic originates from a mobile device. The easy-to-use Mobile Bookstore should help Forward Movement capture more sales from their significant mobile traffic base.

5 Guidelines for Results Customer Advice With a background in IT, Gunn offers a unique perspective to other companies as they begin to plan the migration of their systems to the Élan book platform. As with all software projects, plan for a period of disruption to normal business processes sometimes this can be a way to improve how an organization functions. More time spent on planning and data quality will yield a more straightforward implementation, advises Gunn. Gunn also credits his somewhat hands off style as a recipe for quick turnaround on the front-end design of the ecommerce website and mobile bookstore. In the planning stages, Gunn and his MSGL project manager talked through colors and fonts and explored inspiration sites, and then Gunn let the creative team do what they do best. For me, being hands off makes things easier there are details that I m just not going to mess with. MSGL did a great job listening to what we wanted and pretty much got it right the first time with just a few little tweaks here and there, concludes Gunn. About Media Services Group Since 1985 The Media Services Group (MSGL) has provided world-class software and services to the publishing industry. The privately owned company has office locations throughout North America, Europe and South America. Founded in 1985 to service the magazine advertising market, MSGL s product portfolio has expanded to meet the needs of all publishers with software solutions including advertising management, circulation fulfillment, book publishing, exhibition and event management, directories and membership management. In the past 20-plus years, MSGL s product portfolio has evolved to meet the ever-changing needs of publishers as they ve embraced the web, ecommerce and cloud-computing. Strategic acquisitions as well as a commitment to hiring top development talent and offering top-tier customer service, firmly position MSGL as a leader in the publishing software and services field. Learn More Contact us by sales@msgl.com or by phone: to learn more about the Élan Book Solution.