Vainu helps sales and account management teams land at the right place at the right time

3stepIT did not want to settle for anything less than a trusted partner that could provide them with a modern way of doing sales prospecting and enabling them to keep as effortlessly as possible abreast of any changes happening within their client base. Vainu is helping the sales and account management teams to land at the right place at the right time.

The company

3stepIT is one of Finland's prominent ICT companies, specializing in sustainable IT lifecycle management services. Circular economy principles are at the core of 3stepIT: 97% of the returned equipment is resold for secondary use through their partners.

Vainu has done co-operation with 3stepIT since 2015. Antti Konkari, 3stepIT Key Account Manager, introduced Vainu to their sales and customer management teams. The teams faced a challenge resulting from the company's fast growth: It was time-consuming and laborious to stay on track of all the business-relevant changes within the companies in the continually growing customer portfolios. Furthermore, 3stepIT was looking for a solution that could provide its new business sales teams with up-to-date company information.

As an active sales organization with a systematic sales process and a highly skilled sales team, 3stepIT did not want to settle for anything less than a state-of-the-art sales prospecting tool. A tool that could provide the teams with a modern way of doing sales prospecting and enable them to keep as effortlessly as possible abreast of any changes happening within their existing clients. Committed to protecting personal information and keeping customer data safe and protected, Vainu matched these criteria and was chosen as a trusted 3stepIT partner.

Business-critical information through Vainu's notifications

So what changed when Vainu stepped into the picture? "Nowadays, our sales teams have access to a broader range of company information. Not only to more data points but to data, that is always up-to-date, which is, of course, essential for every salesperson," Konkari explains and continues. "Having the possibility to quickly check all the necessary background information about the prospects before any outreach has made salespeople's job more efficient." The sales team is primarily using Vainu for recognizing companies that are growing, and they get notified through Vainu when predefined parameters reach a certain level. The sales and account management teams are also using Vainu to find Finnish companies that have plans to expand their business abroad.

The public sector is one of 3stepIT clients. Thus another critical use case for Vainu is following public tenders and the upcoming projects and decision-making through the municipalities' and cities' meeting minutes. Now both new business and customer management teams get notified of, e.g., any new public tenders they should know of. Before Vainu, it took way too much time and resources to plow through immense amounts of meeting minutes. With the help of Vainu, salespeople can systematically follow selected keywords or combinations of keywords that appear in the meeting minutes or public tenders. "We must be aware of every upcoming, relevant public tender there is. Vainu saves a lot of our salespeople's and account managers' time, and we don't miss any business-critical information."

Discovering new sales opportunities and decreasing churn with more systematic customer tracking

In addition to systematically following public tenders and meeting minutes, account managers needed to stay on track of other business-relevant changes within the companies in their continually growing customer portfolios. "No matter how highly skilled professional you are, it's impossible to keep track of all the essential changes in your customer portfolio, if you have more than 100 clients, for example. Through Vainu, we can follow specific changes that often open up new business opportunities for us, such as news about expanding the business," explains Konkari. For a 3stepIT account manager or a salesperson, getting notified, for example, new appointments and key person hires to certain roles is worth gold.

Furthermore, being informed of, e.g., bankruptcies, is crucial in helping the teams to mitigate possible churn. "When we're managing a significant customer portfolio either in terms of the number of customers or the value, Vainu enables us to react proactively to critical changes happening among our client base. Vainu's notifications also help us find new opportunities to do business," Konkari elaborates.