Village Homes, Colorado

Background

Village Homes, located in Littleton, Colorado, is a competitive and fast-growing home building business servicing three major markets: Denver Metro, Ft.Collins, and Mountain resort communities. In 2004 the business will celebrate its 20th anniversary. The business supports 230 employees, 27 of whom are salespeople. Village Homes deals with dozens of prospective home buyers each day; the need to stay in clear and concise communication with these prospects, as well as established clients, is paramount for business success and growth. Previous to the integration of a “Novell-Partner” product the company had no means of tracking customer relations and communications. The follow-up on clients was left strictly to the sales force, leaving management no means to track and oversee customer service or customer acquisition. Having no central database, the potential for lost leads was enormous.

New leads are crucial for Village Homes’ success. Existing clients also represent an area of potential business gain, or loss, depending on customer service and follow-up. For example, the ability to follow-up on warranty expiration time frames can represent big numbers when dealing with a homebuilder’s profits. Again, with no central database the ability to monitor these crucial time frames was left to the sales force with no means of managerial oversight.

A secure and reliable I.T. infrastructure is critical to Village Homes, as are collaboration tools for messaging and calendaring—their business relies on Novell technology for all of these needs. VH is a committed user of Novell NetWare, GroupWise, and eDirectory. As a complement to the networking and collaboration technology from Novell, Village Homes wanted to integrate a Sales Force Automation (SFA) process to its existing infrastructure. VH needed to find either a Novell partner that provided compatible SFA software solutions…or they needed to develop their own Novell integrated solutions.

Situation before GroupLink Solution:

“A major portion of our marketing goes to realtors; in fact, they represent 65% of our total business. We were in need of a tool that would allow us to keep track of all of our clients and our realtors,” explained Ed Lowell, Vice President of Sales Operations for Village Homes. “Our sales force is fantastic, but there was no way to oversee and ensure that all of our existing, and prospective, clients were getting the attention that they required.”

Village Homes was in need of a tool that would allow them to save time, and other resources, through leveraging their existing Novell infrastructure. In any business, and particularly in sales, the need to establish and maintain quality customer services and effective in-house, as well as client communication, is crucial…Village Homes needed desperately to improve in these key areas.

Situation after GroupLink Solution:

“GroupLink, through the integration of their ContactWise software, has opened an entire new world for us. Through the integration of this software we are now able to keep notes on all salesperson’s calendar each and every follow-up, and allow all 27 members of our sales force to access information on each and every client we are currently, or have previously done, business with,” remarked Mr. Lowell. “The leverage provided through this tool, allowing us to keep the pulse of our realtors, is fantastic. ContactWise keeps records of all realtor relations, meaning when we pull a realtor up from our database we get a list of all the customers they have brought to Village Homes, the status of each transaction, and the system providing a link between the two. As far as I am concerned…I’ve got a Cadillac!”

In working with GroupLink, Mr. Lowell and Village Homes were able to customize an already impressive software solution around their exact needs as a business. Such customization, provided by a very adaptable and savvy installation team, meant person- to-person training—in a language people can understand (not IT jargon). “Bruce Holt [one of GroupLink’s installers] was fantastic; we were specific about what we wanted and he patiently built the system, and then made sure we understood how it worked,” said Mr. Lowell.

Village Homes now operates within an environment of clean and competent information sharing. Time management has improved for the business on every front. Working within a system of “easy-access” allows a sales-team more time to do that for which they were hired—sell. From a management viewpoint the integration of ContactWise provides a new tool to substantiate how well clients are serviced.

Conclusion:

“The change in the level of information available to us is astounding. We are forecasting a 17% increase in overall business as our goal for next year,” stated Mr. Lowell. “ContactWise allows us to use a SQL database; so, through the use of crystal reports we can keep track of ALL of the information, thus making our traffic reports all the more useful. Village Homes will continue a business relationship with GroupLink and continue using its products. We are very pleased and are expecting great things in the future.”

GroupLink is the world’s leading provider of Customer Engagement solutions built upon Linux and Novell technologies. GroupLink solutions provide powerful, rapid-payback results for any organization, and include web based Customer Support and Satisfaction / Help Desk, Sales Force Automation / eReferral Tracking, and Customer / Constituent / Relationship Management.