When Jacquie Karr-Zlotnicki needed a way to coordinate 600 salespeople worldwide, she helped Haworth evaluate seven groupware options suitable to support field sales operations across every time zone, usually from laptops on the road. Customers, dealers, installers and even potential customers also needed access to the information. Until they found a solution, they were stuck with e-mail, telephone, voice mail and faxes. Haworth chose Instinctive's eRoom, leasing the application at first. Now, Haworth hosts eRoom internally, supporting more than 600 worldwide users on a single server.
Team leaders add or delete members from their own eRooms, making administration simple.
Every salesperson has a license, but not all feel comfortable. One hard rule for any collaborative software success is support from the top. People must log in and check their eRooms, or they won't get their information. Employees outside the sales department regularly join eRooms to service particular customer needs, such as engineers helping design installations. Once they use eRooms, they don't want to leave.