‘Recras is complete and as simple as possible’

Basic things

When Daniel joined the company, Recras had been implemented shortly before. ‘I think before that, quotations were made in Word, which of course was quite error-prone. That was just very inefficient. In those early days, we only used the basic things from Recras.’

Progress

‘The great thing about this programme is that you can do an incredible amount with it. It’s simple for staff and customers alike,’ he enthuses. ‘After we started using those basic things, we started using Recras fully step by step. We made nice offers, even though we had to build them ourselves first. The contact moments could also all be deployed there automatically. When the option to sign a quotation online became available in the middle of our high season, it took a night’s work, but then we could use it straight away. From then on, customers didn’t have to print out the quotation first, sign it and send it back to us, everything was done at the push of a button. A huge step forward.

Inventive

‘These days, we do just about everything with it,’ Daniel continues. ‘From when the customer is interested and we make offers to the communication around it, all the programme events and activities. All our people working on the floor use it: from the people in catering to the event managers. Everyone looks in the system to see what the client needs on that day. We use it very inventively. Everything is built around it.’

Spontaneous session

‘You kind of have to learn how to handle Recras to get the most out of it,’ Daniel knows. ‘We are members of a large trade association and it was there that we discussed how others were using Recras. What and how much do you do with it? After all, hardly anyone uses 100% of the possibilities. In response, we spontaneously organised a session to show what we were all doing with it. The reactions were positive. Even weeks afterwards, we were approached with questions about how we had handled certain things.’

Down to earth

‘Only afterwards did Martijn from Recras hear about our spontaneous action. He would actually have liked to be there too, but I didn’t think about that at the time. The Recras team consists of incredibly nice down-to-earth people. What I really like is that they want to make everything as simple as possible for their staff. For instance, at their location, the lights and heating go on automatically an hour before a customer arrives.’

Other priorities

‘UP Events obviously has very different priorities. For us, for instance, it is important that a customer can pass on dietary requirements or change numbers. We have also built a link with our POS system ourselves. Recras can customise a lot for us, but when it comes to large projects that fundamentally add something for us, they have to free up a lot of time for that. For us, sometimes different things are important than for others, so then we let them build that themselves. Because that too can be done with Recras.’

Complete picture

Daniel: ‘I have seen several suppliers of other management software at trade fairs, and I have also been approached on occasion. But so far I haven’t seen any other party offering the complete picture. There are always essential components missing for us. So no, I see no reason to switch. The underlying idea of Recras, making everything as simple as possible – or actually: as ‘efficient’ as possible, but I think that’s a rotten word – is also our philosophy that software should comply with. It is complete and as simple as possible. That’s all you need.”