Logistics business Pack & Send has a long history of tech investment for the benefit of franchisees and customers. And the latest innovation is an exciting resource that franchise partners can leverage to build their business.

Nicholas Woodward is Pack & Send’s Australia and New Zealand country manager. He says the new customer relationship management (CRM) system is a natural next step for the business.

“It is one of the enablers we implemented to help franchisees as part of our strategy ‘Sell, Deliver, Grow’. This focuses on increasing our footprint, customer base and franchise partner profitability in a challenging economic environment,” Nicholas says.

The new technology supports franchise partners in growing and nurturing their B2B customers and tapping into new B2B markets.

CRM will help bring in new customers

“SalesSpeak, our customised CRM, will help franchise partners build stronger relationships with existing customers and optimise marketing and lead generation to bring new customers to the brand.”

Nicholas says the comprehensive program identifies new customers and handles the progress from prospect to onboarding and retention.

“We’ve built a process to fit seamlessly into those steps,” he says. “It enables franchise partners to gain a better handle on existing customer performance, volume and activity.”

Pack & Send partnered with a local Australian tech company to build a CRM system that fully integrates with existing systems including Point of Sale (PoS). It will also align with the upcoming additional features in the PoS and consignment program.

It took six months to develop the platform before franchise trials.

Nicholas says, “We like to pilot with early adopters, listen to feedback and make changes so a system is fit for purpose.”

He adds that these early adopters have already seen the benefits of access to real-time customer data.

Pack & Send’s new tech to boost franchisee profitability

SalesSpeak will roll out progressively over the next 12 months across the 150+ Australian and New Zealand centres.

Pack & Send will remotely onboard and train franchise partners to use the cloud-based platform. Working groups and dial-in webinars will explore best practice; field managers will conduct additional face-to-face training as part of their regular visits.

All new franchise partners will enjoy the advantages of SalesSpeak as the platform is now a standard inclusion. Five new franchisees are already lined up to open centres this year.

And they can expect to benefit from even more innovations as the company continues to enhance this software.

Pack & Send is embracing artificial intelligence (AI) to deliver even more efficiencies.

“We are building AI functionality to enable more predictive analysis of customer spending and behaviour. The CRM provides suggestions for potential commercial actions to improve performance and allows us to identify lapsed customers in real-time or save at-risk customers by analysing those who have reduced their spend. The system will do the thinking, prompting the franchisee partner to respond to what’s happening,” Nicholas explains.

“For instance, if the workflow shows a customer hasn’t used our service in 90 days the franchise partner can send an automated email to the customer to check in and book an appointment to discuss their business needs,” says Nicholas.

Adopting AI to benefit franchisees

“It will give the franchise partner a good view of real-time business, compared to the thorough analysis their field manager might have provided.”

This enables field managers to spend more time on planning business-boosting activities with franchise partners. And as the AI feature easily identifies key growth customers it will enhance a franchisee’s planning process.

SalesSpeak already includes a simple lapsed customer template which will help customer management. Another feature of the CRM will further streamline the franchise partner’s marketing activities; pre-loaded marketing templates directed at 12 defined target markets such as art and antiques make it easy for franchisees to deliver focused messaging.

“The features roadmap focuses heavily on AI and we will add functionality based on franchise partner feedback on what could enhance the platform even further.

“This CRM is a game changer for Pack & Send. It improves day-to-day efficiencies and enables much deeper customer relationships to secure sustained growth for franchise partners. Our goal is for them to be more successful and build more profitable business through long-term customer relationships,” says Nicholas.