A typical commercial customer could be a water utility, a paint or food manufacturer or chemical processor, while applications range from cosmetics to electronics to vending. Fileder Filter Systems also has a smaller domestic arm.

Interview with Jason Rainbird, Customer Relationship Manager at filtration supplier Fileder Filter Systems Ltd.

In turbulent economic times, Fileder Filter Systems seems to be doing extraordinarily well. How do you account for this success?

We’ve made the customer the focus of everything we do. We back the supply of quality equipment with specialist technical advice and service, with dedicated support teams for the different UK and Ireland regions. This provides excellent communications continuity and focused customer knowledge. We’re very attentive to our customers and are committed to being easy to deal with.

Datel used to support only your customer relationship management software. What prompted you to award them the support contract for the accounting side, too?

Another Sage Business Partner had previously provided support on Sage MMS. However, we kept coming across problems they couldn’t solve, such as the more technical challenges we encountered in migrating to Sage 200 as the latest Sage platform. They tried a number of times to make the transition for us but failed because of some corrupted data.

Datel had implemented and were supporting our Sage SalesLogix application. We were so pleased with their service and technical competence that we took the decision to move our accounting software over to them.

You can imagine how impressed – and relieved – we were when the Datel specialist fixed the data corruption problem first time. It had been dragging on for weeks but he quickly had us up and running. His technical knowledge and the resources of the rest of the Datel team combined to provide a first-class service.

We now have 25 users of Sage 200 and 40 users of Sage SalesLogix. We have also added several third-party products, such as a quotation package and business activity monitoring software.

As the new Sage 200 system has settled down within our business over the past few months, we’ve always been able to call on Datel for advice on deploying its features effectively.

We’re very familiar now with the Sage SalesLogix side, so we tend to need less day-to-day user support, but it’s always good to know Datel are there to help us to carry out more technically challenging developments.

How has the business changed as a result of the move to Sage 200 and closer integration between your systems?

We do things much more quickly now. We’ve been able to streamline our processes to make business efficiencies which are essential to our profitable growth. The little things add up to a big difference. For example, we’ve shaved a few minutes off the time it takes to enter an order. Multiply this and it means more time spent talking to our customers and less on the paperwork.

In terms of integration, data now moves between our accounting and CRM systems all the time. Field sales people working off-line can pull up company information when they’re out and about, such as products, prices and delivery times, and customer information such as their purchasing history, credit rating, outstanding orders, and so on.

This coordination also assists us in managing £3 million worth of stock. We have quite long lead times on some of our products, which are sourced overseas, and have to be very switched on in anticipating and fulfilling customer demand. We draw on information held in both systems to do this.

How do your IT systems support your customer-centric approach?

To give one noteworthy example, should there be a customer complaint, senior managers are quickly aware of it. They can then keep a close watch on the issue and ensure it is satisfactorily resolved. This open, no-blame culture is facilitated by our IT systems and contributes to customer satisfaction.

But it’s not just about a fast response when things go wrong. We’re proactive about service, too. The system prompts us to arrange a meeting with major customers every three months and to speak with every customer every six months. We don’t have to remember or make notes: it automatically identifies who needs calling.

Fileder Filter Systems clearly has high standards when it comes to customer service. How do you rate Datel in this area?

The response is always very, very good and the Datel team are so patient. I’d really recommend them to anyone looking for a supportive, technically competent Sage Business Partner – which is why I readily agreed to give this interview.

And what lies ahead as you grow the business further?

In a competitive climate, we need to ensure the IT systems on which we rely give us every support to run our processes more efficiently. Datel help us to keep up with the technology as the business develops and grows. They are about to migrate us to the latest version of Sage SalesLogix over the next couple of days, as part of our continuing evolution.

Becoming more ‘web-enabled’ is going to be the next major milestone for the business. We’re looking at the potential advantages of offering both ecommerce and a web-based portal of resources to our customers. We’re also intending to web-enable Sage SalesLogix, which will improve remote access for our salespeople.

We’ll be calling on Datel for support in helping us to implement these developments.