Laundry Equipment Provider Enjoys ‘Cleaner’ Proposals

The Challenge

Serving the laundry-equipment needs of universities and colleges with a commitment toward customer service defines the mission of Virginia-based Caldwell & Gregory, now in its 30th year in business serving clients in 25 states and Washington, D.C.

To serve the higher education market, the marketing and sales team were challenged to respond to requests issued by universities in the busy bid season beginning each spring.

Relying on desktop publishing software that only a few marketing team members could use, Caldwell & Gregory’s sales team manually reviewed drafts, leaving little time to customize or catch copywriting errors in the rush to meet submission deadlines. The team also found keeping track of customer references time consuming, given the frequent turnover of administrative staff.

The Solution

Expedience delivered a time-saving automated proposal solution based on Microsoft® Word, freeing up time for both marketing and sales contributors to enhance the quality of the final submission.

“Expedience put the proposal into the hands of the sales team, which we love because they know what they want and know what they want their package to look like,” says Patrice Braxton, project coordinator in Marketing & Sales. “It’s made a world of difference to the previous way we did things.”

One of the most significant benefits has been Excel integration of reference lists. Consolidating the list into a single master Excel file allowed Expedience to integrate it into the template. Now the team can quickly sort references by RFP requirements and instantly insert them into the response. “It’s really been a lifesaver – it’s there, it’s formatted, and it’s always updated,” says Braxton.

During the conversion from the desktop software to Word, graphics team members were concerned they would lose formatting options, but those fears were shortlived. “We really love what we’ve been able to do with our package in Word, and we continue to learn new things the more we work with it,” says Braxton.

The ability to house all the content together using the Expedience content library and then auto-filling school names and other placeholders has enhanced accuracy and efficiency.

Freeing-up marketing resources has enabled the marketing team to work on other projects, including updating their website with newly branded content already created during the Expedience implementation.

Responsive Customer Support & Training

Expedience’s implementation included user and author training sessions, which were recorded so Caldwell & Gregory’s team could refresh their training as needed. Braxton says she especially appreciated Diane Loudenback, VP of Client Services. “She was always willing to pick up the phone anytime we needed anything and willing to work with our schedule. Diane’s been a delight to work with.”

Expanding Excel Integration

Looking forward, Braxton says the team is now looking to expand on Expedience’s Excel integration capabilities to bring in highly formatted and customized tables and graphs.  “We are creating a master Excel sheet with all the charts, and they’ll be integrated to pop right into the proposal. It’s going to be wonderful.”

About Expedience Software

Expedience Software creates fast, accurate, and beautiful proposals directly from Microsoft Word! Automate RFP & RFI responses (even Excel RFPs!), FAQs, DDQs, SOWs, Questionnaires, PowerPoint presentations, and more! With more than 20 years of proposal automation experience, Expedience is the premier solution for sales and proposal professionals in financial and asset management, healthcare, legal, manufacturing, and technology organizations.