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Act! — in for the long haul with trucking firm

In the trucking industry, where businesses are built on relationships and deals are still sealed with a handshake, Act!’s ability to record and manage every detail can be critically important to a long-established company like Sherman Brothers.

Corey Moran

Sales Manager

sherman bros trucking logo

Trucks are the lifeblood of the American economy. They carry over 70% of the 10.5 billion tons of freight transported in the country every year and for nearly half a century, Sherman Brothers Trucking has been part of this vital industry.

Operating out of Oregon and Arkansas, the company’s fleet of 200 flatbed vehicles hauls equipment and materials to and from steel mills, fabricators and construction sites across the US and into western Canada. They also have tankers transporting chemicals and for good measure, a brokerage division setting up deals for other hauliers.

The fact that the company continues to go from strength to strength is because Act! helps them do what they do best. “We’re in the relationship business,” says company sales manager Corey Moran, “so Act! is very much part of our everyday life.

Act! has become such an integral part of what we do, that I’d recommend any business take a look at it . . . absolutely.

Staying on top of long lead times

Sherman Brothers was already using Act! when Corey joined the company some six years ago, and though he’d never used the system before, he quickly picked it up.

“We all love it,” says, Corey. “Act! is our central database, where everything and anything relevant to the business is kept. That means we have notes and contact information for everyone we talk to.

So, when someone calls us six months down the road to say we’ve got the business, we can immediately see what we quoted all that time ago.”

One thing that doesn’t make it into Act!’s database are the handshakes. “We tend not to bother with written contracts and a lot of our customers like that mentality. In trucking that’s not so unusual, but it is coming less frequent with more business being done online.”

Helps monitor contact levels

There are 17 Act! users in the company. The sales team use it organise their call lists for particular areas, and it’s used by the management as a planning tool. “Act! lets me know what’s going on in the business,” says Corey.

“Because Act! gives me the sales information I need, every week I can track the level of contact between the sales team and the customer. If there are any issues, problems or queries with the team, it makes it easy for me to dig into the detail and ask the right questions.”

For Corey, being able to set alerts is also another great feature of Act!. “Personally, I really like that because it triggers me to follow up with contacts and conversations at the right time.”

Corey and his team are experienced Act! users and quickly getting used to the new system, exploring the extra options it can give them.

We’re in the relationship business so Act! is very much part of our everyday life.

Act!’s value to the business

Now they are getting used to the new system and are exploring the extra options it can give them. One of these may be email marketing, though as Corey points out, their industry’s liking for more personal relationships mean this may be something for the future, when the trucking sector becomes more comfortable with online interaction.

While Corey has no specific metrics on Act!’s effectiveness, he has no doubt of its value to the business.

“Before the upgrade, we’d been using a version of Act! that went back to 2004,” says Corey, “and I have to admit that because of its age, it was beginning to creak under the strain. Because of that, it was becoming harder to follow and understand what was going on in the business. I couldn’t keep up with everyone’s conversations, which left me in the dark. And that really brought home to me how important Act! is to our business. It’s become such an integral part of what we do, that I’d recommend any smaller business take a look at it . . . absolutely.”

Key Takeaways

  • There are 17 Act! users at Sherman Brothers Trucking, mostly in the sales and upper management teams.
  • Act’s database stores the contact history for 2000+ customers across the United States and into western Canada.
  • With every contact accurately recorded in Act!, the company has a detailed history they can call upon to view previous quotes.
  • Sherman Brothers Trucking recently updated from Act 6.0 to the latest 20.1 Cloud version, with the conversion taking just two days.
Key Takeaways

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