Established in Wembley, north London, in 2008, Pluscrates is the UK’s fastest growing crate rental company. Pluscrates offers commercial crate rental and also some domestic crate hire. With the opening of four more depots in Manchester, Birmingham, Livingston and Bristol, Pluscrates has national reach.
The Challenge
John Mitchell, Managing Director at Pluscrates, recalls the search to find a rental management solution to support the new company. John was determined to avoid the common pitfalls: “I really didn’t want to go down the bespoke route and identified that we would be best served by a solution based on Microsoft technology, with functionality that could be tailored to our needs.”
He notes, “Our requirements can be a little out of the ordinary as we are a bulk hire company, so it made sense to look for a company specialising in the rental sector who understood our needs and objectives.”
The Solution
John’s carefully drawn up criteria instantly precluded some providers and lead to a small shortlist. Having met with all three and seen their systems in action, he chose MCS-rm from MCS.
John comments, “MCS-rm fulfilled our essential requirements and those on our wish-list too. For example, MCS could supply a customer web portal there and then, while competitors’ offerings were still in development. We recognised that having this facility would be a decisive factor for many prospective customers in selecting us.”
John stresses the importance of support, “The chosen solution would be the platform on which to build our business. I’d seen the problems that arise when there is inadequate support, so this was another priority.”
MCS-rm is used by four administrators in the Wembley office. However, it touches almost every aspect of the Pluscrates business, and manages the thousands of crates in the company’s hire inventory and the overall hire process, from raising a hire contract through to invoicing and reporting.
The Benefits
Pluscrates operates to 24-hour lead times but never a day goes by without an emergency order. Summer is a particularly busy period, and the system handles additional demands by utilising the inter-depot transfers option. This provides access to the company’s entire inventory of crates, regardless of location. John explains, “Our biggest challenges are managing rapid growth, meeting customer demand and providing superior customer service. MCS-rm helps us on all fronts.”
One way in which MCS-rm helps to provide flexible service is in handling the collection process. On many occasions Pluscrates collects a proportion of crates, leaving the rest still on site.
John says, “Through their job breakdown report, customers have a sensible, line-by-line listing in date order of information such as the quantity and type of crate delivered to which addresses.”
The information stored on MCS-rm also feeds into the invoicing module. Each invoice shows a detailed breakdown of the dates and content of deliveries and collection.
John says, “I’ve worked in companies where they’ve needed a team just to handle the flood of invoice queries, but that doesn’t happen here. MCS-rm is great. The accuracy of our information means we minimise customer queries. This in turn helps with our cash flow.”
Bulk transmission of these invoices means that customers have the convenience of receiving all their invoices attached to one email, rather than having to sift through multiple communications.
John continues, “Giving customers easy access to information saves us a huge amount of time. They don’t have to keep calling us. They can simply drill down to the signed proofs of delivery, collection notes,
and so on relating to each one of the lines to access a full audit trail. Storing information electronically cuts down on expensive filing-cabinet space too, and makes it much quicker for all parties to find relevant information.”
There is a further advantage for Pluscrates customers. The information they access via the Internet can be extracted in a variety of chosen formats and it easy to edit and incorporate it into their own client invoices or reports. A huge amount of time is saved by not having to rekey data.
John emphasises, “As we are a service business, it’s not so much the products we supply that differentiate us as the intangibles. We can make the whole end-to-end process run like clockwork: order processing, confirmations, deliveries and collections, invoicing, answering their queries, providing supporting documentation... and MCS-rm is absolutely critical to all of this.”
The Future
MCS-rm continues to evolve in line with the changing needs of the Pluscrates business. The company is planning to trial the customer relationship management module. Sales communications can develop over a lengthy period and it is important to track all communications sent out.
John is also looking to integrate the new innovative online catalogue ordering functionality. Once this is in place, he will encourage key customers to enter more of their orders online. This will lead to even more choice for customers, while making better use of Pluscrates’ internal resources.
To find out how MCS-rm could help your business, call us on +27 (0)11 083 7530 or use our enquiry form.
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