Durabuilt Windows improves customer satisfaction and competitive advantage with Salesforce.

Customers want an instant response to their queries. Employees want fast access to information. Business leaders want accurate data to support decision-making. To meet all these needs, organizations across the globe have been digitizing their businesses.

Durabuilt Windows & Doors (Durabuilt) is leading the way in its industry. Since starting its digitalization journey in 2012, the company has gone from strength to strength. By harnessing the power of an integrated digital business platform, Durabuilt has been able to maintain its leading edge in the industry.

Durabuilt manufactures and sells bespoke doors and windows for customers across Western Canada. Its consumer channels consist of builders, commercial, homeowners, and a growing dealer distribution network. Durabuilt’s products are manufactured out of its 200,000 sq ft state-of-the art manufacturing facility, and meet the highest ratings for energy efficiency.

As a relationship-first business, Durabuilt needs to ensure every conversation with a customer is consistent, seamless, and efficient. This requires both sales and service teams to understand customers, their history, and their orders. But with these teams reliant on paper-based files, they often struggled to source the information they needed. Poor visibility of sales activity also left business leaders frustrated and unable to accurately forecast sales.

This all changed in 2012, when Durabuilt rolled out Salesforce. Now, nearly every part of the business has automated and simplified processes. All Durabuilt employees have access to the data they need, enabling them to be more productive, boost sales, and provide customers with the instant responses they demand. Digitization has also enabled a customer focus that has proved key to the company’s successful growth.

To make sales, reps need to understand the needs of their customers. Before digitization, reps at Durabuilt were reliant on paper files, handwritten notes, and a slow and cumbersome ERP system to access customer data, which lengthened response times and hindered sales’ ability to be effective.

The company transformed its approach to sales by making it easier to capture, edit, and view customer and order information centrally. “Now, reps can view a customer’s entire history before making a sales call, which enables them to have more intelligent conversations and maximizes the chance of a successful sale,” explained Henny Sunner, Marketing Team Lead at Durabuilt.

All businesses need to be able to plan. During COVID, this was more important than ever before. “The pandemic really affected our supply chain, and many of our competitors struggled to get hold of the materials they needed in time,” said Sunner. “But with instant visibility of quotes and order volumes, we could easily see what’s in the pipeline. This ability to estimate our requirements accurately and in advance gave us a significant advantage.”

Durabuilt also tracks sales KPIs centrally, including meeting volumes, close ratios, and budgets, which helps drive accountability. These metrics are displayed in dashboards and provide the foundation for the company’s monthly sales meetings. In the future, the company hopes to use AI, advanced analytics, and historical data to further improve sales forecasting.

“We’ve democratized data so managers can pull up the reports they need without having to ask an analyst,” confirmed Barry Hicks, Manager of Business Process Transformation at Durabuilt. “This helps us make business decisions faster, which is a game-changer.”

Great service requires great customer information, which is difficult to maintain with paper-based files. With service agents having to seek out the relevant file before they could assist customers, responses were slow, agents were frustrated, and customers were at times left unhappy.

The company turned this around by providing its service reps with access to a centralized customer service platform and optimization tools for field service teams, which share customer data with sales to provide a 360-degree view. With the ability to instantly respond to customer enquiries and efficiently schedule and track service crews, Henny Sunner, Marketing Team Lead at Durabuilt, estimates the service team has achieved a 70% increase in productivity. Plus, employees are much happier. “The quality of customer service says a lot about a business, and our ability to deliver good service has significantly contributed to our growth,” said Sunner. “With a 360-degree view of our customers, we understand their needs and can react faster to any problems.”

To ensure colleagues across sales, service, and finance can deal with customers in a consistent manner, Durabuilt has integrated its digital CRM platform with its ERP and accounting systems to create a streamlined and efficient technology ecosystem.

It’s also created dozens of automated workflows, including change requests, change notifications, and purchase requisitions. “By automating tasks we’ve massively increased efficiency, and we’re no longer waiting on paperwork that’s stuck on someone’s desk while they’re on holiday,” confirmed Hicks. “We also use an integrated chat function to keep communication around specific topics clear and concise, reducing confusion and turnaround times.”

By rolling out a centralized digital platform, Durabuilt has done more than just update its IT systems. It’s changed the way it does business and reinforced its core values around innovation, drive, ownership, caring, and the individual. “It’s a self-perpetuating cycle – once you start entering data into the platform you quickly realize the benefits you can achieve with the data that comes out – whether it’s helping you increase your sales or deliver great service with less effort,” commented Sunner.

And Durabuilt’s customers have been quick to notice these improvements. “Customers have commented on how easy it is to do business with us – and that’s all thanks to our digitization,” said Hicks. “Increased efficiency, improved employee satisfaction, and better access to data all add up to happier customers and greater competitive advantage.”