The National YMCA Employee Benefits Plan (NYEBP), located at the YMCA national headquarters in Chicago, is responsible for managing the benefit plans of approximately 14,000 people across the United States.

NYEBP deals with a significant amount of sensitive customer data that must be handled according to the highest standards of CRM. In order to find an effective solution to challenges surrounding their CRM technology, the group contacted Intelestream, Inc., a Chicago based SugarCRM™ consulting group. 

Key problems with NYEBP’s previous technology:

NYEBP was spending a significant amount of valuable time maintaining their system, dealing with technology problems, and training new employees to use an overly complicated CRM. Some of the group’s major problems included the following:

• Searching for data was tedious and inefficient in the old system, which consisted of three separate databases;

• Irrelevant information cluttered data fields and forms;

• Task assignment functionality was severely limited;

• Mass emailing lists were manually generated, taking a tremendous amount of time and effort.

Solution

Intelestream worked with NYEBP to achieve an understanding of the organization’s needs. Consultants determined how best to address the problems listed above and deployed a customized SugarCRM™ application complete with training and administrative support. NYEBP’s new CRM instance is tailored to the unique needs of the organization.

Specific features of NYEBP’s new system include the following:

• Three databases have been merged into one;

• Key information from eligibility and financial systems are integrated, giving the group a clearer picture in one place;

• Integration with the centralized YMCA of the USA database now provides seamless updates of contacts and accounts;The organization now has the tools to manage an increased number of cases and daily tasks faster, more efficiently, and without the need to hire additional staff.

• The organization now has the tools to manage an increased number of cases and daily tasks faster, more efficiently, and without the need to hire additional staff.

Intelestream’s customizations allowed the NYEBP's SugarCRM™ instance to accomplish the following essential functions that are not included in the application’s default settings:

• Global searching that allows users to find text embedded in descriptions, fields, notes, etc;

• Customized dropdowns that display only information relevant to the specific task at hand;

• Activity and history flagging, including an ‘urgent’ field to help visually denote important activities

• A sophisticated tasks module that includes a user task re-assignment relationship, allowing user notification when a task is reassigned;

• Integrated mass emailing with reports, allowing users to generate automatic recipient lists based on reporting results;

• A show/hide button that displays information accessed most often by utilizing customized split visible fields on certain pages;

• Products are organized according to a split layout format, which displays only the fields relevant to the product type;

• Customized email templates according to information pertaining to specific products.

While working with NYEBP, Intelestream was asked to develop a Google Maps™ plug-in for the instance. The plug-in is revolutionary in that it offers a level of mapping integration with SugarCRM™ applications that has never been accomplished before. Some of its features include the following:

• Mapping module built into the CRM that allows users to conveniently view accounts on a map according to zip code, radius search, and reporting results;

• Users can generate reports that display maps containing different icons and color codes based on various account criteria including revenue, the type of products being used, and whether the account is an existing customer or a prospect. 

Conclusion:

In only two and a half months, NYEBP was able to go live with their fully customized CRM instance. The new system is seamlessly integrated with their existing business process and the organization is now able to run more efficiently than ever. The new customized SugarCRM™ instance deployed by Intelestream provides the organization with much needed flexibility and functionality that was previously lacking in the old system.