Case Studies

A Cloud-Based CRM System for Dr. Klein

Dr. Klein speeds up business using Microsoft Power Platform and latest Azure cloud technology

Introduction

For over 65 years, Dr. Klein has been one of the preferred financial partners on the German market. Dr. Klein offers specialized consulting and tailored solutions in the fields of construction financing, real estate loans, individual insurance, mortgage calculations and investments.

Challenge

Dr. Klein has seen rapid development in the last 2 to 3 years, and its business has grown rapidly. With increasing growth, it was becoming more and more difficult for the consultants to cope with the numerous inquiries and calculations. Many processes were performed manually, and were therefore very time-consuming. The CRM system that Dr. Klein used to keep track of its customers and projects had reached the end of its useful life. A new future-proof solution with greater scalability was needed.

“We had no problems implementing the new solution, no outages of services and no negative effect on customers. We are 200% satisfied with the result and the work of Skaylink.”

Solution

Dr. Klein asked Skaylink to jointly develop a new platform. It was agreed that a new system would be put into operation in just 6 months and the old one would be shut down. Therefore, they needed to act quickly! Microsoft Power Apps was selected as the tool.

Power Apps is a low-code platform that everyone can use, regardless of their level of expertise, thanks to the integration of Microsoft Dynamics and Dataverse. Programming knowledge is not necessary. Rapid development can be achieved with the addition of expertise. cVation relied on automation as part of the business logic using Function Apps and Service Bus in Microsoft Azure.

The platform consists of a CRM portion and a support portal for all Dr. Klein advisors. The design followed the minimum viable product approach, so the first test version of the platform could go live after just two months. Following appropriate tests and adjustments the next month, the entire solution was introduced and brought into operation.

In all, it took just three months to completely say farewell to the old system and migrate all the data to the new platform. The new platform is fully scalable. This makes it possible to constantly develop it further and to improve features. Moreover, the close collaboration with Dr. Klein and the feedback from its customers and employees contributed to creating major added value.

The new technologies have allowed Dr. Klein to implement more agile business processes and introduce new features more quickly. For Dr. Klein and its development team, it has now become easy to experiment and find optimal solutions for customers thanks to the Power App platform.

Process

Clearly, the biggest uncertainty about this project was the extremely tight time frame of just 6 months. A project of this magnitude required multiple points of contact with Dr. Klein involving technology, training, skill building, customer contacts and data processing. As a result, the project also harbored many risks: Were the employees open to the changes? Or did the improved workflows make them feel like their daily routines were overanalyzed and completely turned upside down? However, all of these concerns proved to be unfounded, and it was very pleasant and exciting to follow how both the people and the platform developed at a rapid pace.

Collaboration

Dr. Klein was very pleased with the collaboration with Skaylink. The two companies complemented each other perfectly. And even though the teams were spread out in Denmark and in various locations within Germany, there was a truly strong spirit of unity and a unique sense of humor and culture from day one. Everyone enjoyed returning to work every day – and not even the pressure of the tight deadline could change that.

Solutions implemented

Aonyx is developed in Microsoft Power Platform using:

  • Dataverse
  • Model-Driven Apps
  • Power Portals

Everything is built in conjunction with the Microsoft Azure Cloud using e.g.:

  • Function Apps
  • Service Bus
  • Application Insights
  • Expanded CI/CD process with automated testing and DevOps support

Outcome

For Dr. Klein, it was of utmost importance to ensure that customer needs for new features would be met and that the quality of service would remain unchanged, even if the processes were no longer manual. Luckily, the platform is very popular with customers and the feedback on the shorter response times has been positive all around. In addition to the positive customer reactions, Dr. Klein also noticed numerous benefits in-house.

This improved the working culture, for example. Employees feel that they can accomplish more and provide significantly more value to customers with the help of the platform’s new features and options. As a result of training and continuing education, employees experienced personal and professional growth – both individually and as a team. Job satisfaction at Dr. Klein is higher than ever, and people are proud to work for Dr. Klein now in a different way than before.

As always, the focus is on the needs of customers and the development of services and features that not only enhance the quality of the products, but also improve the customer experience when they choose Dr. Klein.

A lot of time and energy went into the detailed editing and continuous development of features that make it easier for customers to interact with the system and work with Dr. Klein.

 

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