Mothernode helps Master Wall enhance team collaboration, information access, and sales process.

The Company

Since 1987, Master Wall, Inc. has manufactured quality Stucco, Coatings, and Exterior Insulation and Finish Systems (EIFS) for residential and commercial projects. With locations throughout the United States, Master Wall strives to provide the highest quality conception-to-completion solution, including customer service, production, training, and warranties.

The Challenge

Since its start in December of 1987, Master Wall’s focus has been to provide the industry with the best quality products, outstanding service, and competitive prices. Maintaining strong communication throughout the organization has been a large part of this focus, and they recognized that their prior CRM presented challenges in achieving that objective, in particular with their sales team. “There were too many manual methods which resulted in errors in entry by individuals, which led to time being wasted fixing issues or tracking down the right information for leads or customers,” noted Stewart Smithwick, Marketing Manager, Master Wall.

He added that “There were many missed opportunities because our sales reps would get frustrated with the previous CRM and its many flaws, and this resulted in poor communication not only outside of our business but also within our offices. Many would communicate with customers or leads and never keep notes. The CRM would not integrate with Outlook and so many sales reps would have to enter information twice about a lead instead of doing it all in one place, which wasted significant time. Many of our sales reps would lose contact information, create duplicates, or maintain missing or incorrect information, all because the system was so complicated to use and keep organized within the organization.”

Master Wall’s sales process was impacted by these communication issues, in addition to issues with prospect and customer follow-ups. Stewart added that “One of our biggest issues was no follow-ups by our staff because of a lack of integration with Outlook and synching our emails, which led to many other issues within our sales team. They hardly ever followed up with a contact within a reasonable timeframe because it would be too difficult to navigate the old CRM, and many of them did not trust the information that was in the CRM to be used to contact a customer or potential customer. The contact info that was in the previous CRM was usually incorrect, old, missing key information, unverified, and sometimes easily duplicated without a system warning, leading to more confusion within the sales team when determining which contact to email or call.”

CRM report functions were almost non-existent, with no filtering options and an overly complicated and time-consuming process. “Users could hardly manage to get to that section of the CRM, it took too much time and was often ignored by the sales team. Ultimately sales team members would have to rely on quarterly reports from our accounting department’s system, which made it difficult to see where they needed to improve within a timely manner,” noted Stewart.

Stewart also explained that there were numerous complications from their previous CRM that impacted overall operations and workflow. He pointed to redundant entries as an example, as the prior CRM did a poor job of detecting and notifying users when entering duplicate data, which in turn led to the creation of duplicate records and lots of time used to research and determine if data was duplicated or not. Additionally, tracking customer activity and communication was a challenge. Even with correct data in the prior CRM, they were often unable to keep track of customer activity and related communications.

The lack of synchronization functions between Outlook and their previous CRM also created operations and workflow challenges. Stewart added that “Our prior CRM did not synchronize with Outlook, and as a result our communications with customers or contacts would be unorganized, and our sales team would have to communicate directly with each other to get previous information about specific contacts or customers.”

Master Wall determined that their previous CRM was also impacting revenue potential. The sales team’s frustration with the prior CRM led to missing key opportunities or not properly tracking leads, and in some cases leads became ‘lost in the shuffle’ and possibly not initially reviewed. Management understood the sales team’s frustrations with their CRM, and worked diligently to meet with them and help them organize and stay on top of lead activity.

Project data had to be entered manually, which opened the door to incorrect data. For example, the prior CRM displayed project dollar values that didn’t reflect actual values, which potentially impacted sales commissions. Stewart explained that “The numbers were not matching between the actual project and the prior CRM, and this was another reason why the sales team often ignored the CRM. If the CRM information would have been more accurate, I believe that our team would have been a little more open to the previous CRM, but it was an issue we could never get resolved with the CRM.”

The Mothernode Solution

In 2020, Master Wall, Inc. implemented Mothernode CRM’s Sales & Marketing edition. Mothernode worked with the Master Wall team to obtain and load their customer and contact data into their new Mothernode CRM cloud-based account. Mothernode also assisted with setup and training of the Mothernode Outlook Plugin for their team, as synchronization between Mothernode and Outlook was a major need that was lacking in their prior CRM. Mothernode quickly enabled users to sync Outlook email, contacts and calendar events with corresponding Mothernode records, making an immediate positive impact on team communication and follow-up.

In addition to the Outlook Plugin’s email synchronization features that help to organize prospect and customer communications within Mothernode, Master Wall has emphasized the plugin’s calendar synchronization capabilities as well. Meeting appointments, follow-ups, bid due-dates and other calendar events scheduled in Mothernode are synchronized to Outlook, and events scheduled in the Outlook calendar are synced to Mothernode as well.

Also, Mothernode provided Master Wall with setup and training on their ConstructConnect Insight integration, so Master Wall could promptly develop Insight searches and have the resulting project information flow into Mothernode, seamlessly and on a daily basis. Project data is immediately accessible in Mothernode CRM for review and conversion to Mothernode Lead/Opportunity records, and ready for Sales Rep assignment so that the sales process and related follow-up can begin without delay.

Benefits and Results of Using Mothernode

Master Wall was committed to having their team learn and begin using Mothernode CRM right away, and that strategy was a winning one from the start. Stewart noted that “Our communication was greatly improved. The sales team was more anxious to learn how the system worked and noticed how great of a tool this could be in their arsenal if they used it regularly. We love the ease of use of the system and how easily it organizes all of your information for you. This has saved us time and money.”

Perhaps the most dramatic improvement was with their sales team’s ease-of-access to critical information, and as a result Master Wall reports a 100% increase in information accessibility. “Our customer service capabilities have been greatly improved because all of the previous contacts can be easily found and organized within the system, and our customers receive faster replies to their issues because we are able to quickly find the information we need within Mothernode,” explained Stewart.

They have also noted a 75% increase in internal collaboration and productivity, largely due to easily synchronizing Outlook emails and events to Mothernode CRM to ensure that their CRM data is always complete, easy to find, and in one place. Stewart added that “The feature of syncing with Outlook has been one of our biggest improvements. This allows our sales team to easily communicate with a customer and go back and find information on that customer within Mothernode, saving them time on a daily basis.”

Their overall sales process has also seen a 75% enhancement after implementing Mothernode CRM, largely due to the ConstructConnect Insight integration that automatically imports project lead data from Insight into Mothernode, not to mention Mothernode’s effective and user-friendly management of prospects and contacts. Stewart noted that “Now, with Mothernode we can take the information straight from Insight and not have to worry about manually putting in the information and possibly mistyping a name, email address, or phone number of a contact or lead that is coming from Insight. These types of issues would happen constantly with our previous CRM. Our communication and activity within leads have improved dramatically compared to our previous CRM. This has led to great productivity within our whole sales team.”

Benefits and Results (Recap)

• 75% improvement in productivity
• 75% improvement in internal collaboration
• 100% increase in information accessibility
• 75% improvement in the sales process