Tag: small business trends

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A Higher Level of Customer Relationship Management: Building Closer Customer Relationships

A Higher Level of Customer Relationship Management: Building Closer Customer Relationships

Most businesses recognize the importance of creating a quality experience for customers doing business with them.  The thing that many business owners overlook is how their internal workflows and information management systems serve to either support or impede the delivery of a well-rounded positive customer experience.  Growing businesses must adjust their processes and improve their tools in order to have the necessary information available to workers at various levels of the organization, providing a centralized means for collaboration, data sharing and analysis.   With the right information systems and process support, even small businesses are able to function at exceptionally high levels and provide the consistently high-quality service and customer experience that establishes long-term value in each and every customer relationship.

Businesses which excel at providing very high levels of customer service tend to have a few common characteristics – features of the business that identify it as an organization geared towards growth and success in driving the customer engagement and business value.  Among these characteristics is the recognition of the need to use technology better – leveraging automation to a greater degree to create consistency in work performance, and improving information collection and integration to provide more context and depth to the data. Added efficiency which affords employees time to focus on customer oriented tasks and elevating the customer experience even more is the payback.

total-business

Many CRM solutions describe the benefits of a “360 degree” view of the customer, yet these solutions often orient themselves to supporting only sales and Contact Management and do not address product and/ or service delivery (fulfillment of what was sold/ordered)  or project management, contracts and agreements tracking or other aspects of doing business with the customer.

Granted, customer interaction occurs most frequently with sales and service teams, but there are potentially vast number of processes and tasks performed within the business which operate with the same information as sales and services, and which would benefit by integration within the same information and workflow framework.

By selecting a solution that addresses the wider variety of business and information management requirements rather than focusing solely on sales and support, business owners and managers find that they are better able to address internal workflows with streamlined process automation.

The result is significant improvement in the quality and completeness of the information available to users throughout the organization, ultimately improving the quality and nature of customer engagement and interaction. Perhaps even more impactful is the ability for the business to better understand  the context of and motivations for customer interactions, and (most importantly!) having the capability to take immediate action based on that knowledge.

With the right customer relationship and business management solution in place, and with a focus on systematic approaches to enabling process and workflow automation, businesses can become more flexible and responsive to changing customer needs and expectations.  Creating the complete view of the customer relationship and capturing the data which helps users understand the dynamics of the entire relationship serves to build closer customer relationships that will strengthen and grow over time.

When a business needs to implement a Customer Relationship Management solution to address sales and support needs, it makes sense to also review information management requirements for:

  • Delivery of products and/or services  – i.e. fulfillment of what was promised by sales
  • Scheduling of Work/Service Orders and integrated billing based on completed work
  • Time and personnel activity management as well as time reporting and billing
  • Project or job resource and time management and reporting
  • Documents, contracts, before & after pictures, and agreements of all types
  • Products and services, proposals and quotes, price books and channels

Additionally, since the processes are so closely related in terms of the information collected or used, it makes sense that the CRM solution would also work with:

  • Marketing campaigns and activities, lead generation systems and e-newsletter solutions
  • Accounting solutions which also utilize customer, product, job, time, cost and other data
  • Expense spending management, approvals and reporting

To be truly useful, the solution must also support remote and mobile workers since field service personnel and other workers are often not in the office when they need to get something done.  Whether the access is via hosted solutions providing full remote desktop functionality, or via web-based application extensions allowing device independent access (or both!), the solution should be designed to allow users to access the system and perform their work from wherever it is required.

Even more, a comprehensive approach to managing business activities and information, particularly with a focus on providing all departments with all the information and capability they need to get their jobs done properly, requires that everyone in the company be on board.  There really isn’t a great way to centralize and manage critical business data when the approach is to give a few people some information and functionality, leaving it up to human beings and individual initiative to connect the dots (and the data).  The result is almost always a series of gaping holes in various processes where information and requests get lost.

Among the best solutions I have found which delivers the foundation for all of this functionality is Results CRM.  Thousands of users have successfully migrated from ACT!, Goldmine, Telemagic, Salesforce.com and other SFA and CRM solutions to the Results CRM platform, and have benefitted from better workflow automation, more logical company and contacts associations, and a broader range of functionality supporting everything from sophisticated quote and proposal development to comprehensive project, time and expense management.

At the end of the day, it’s the reporting that wins.  If the data isn’t in the database, you can’t report on it.  If you can’t report on it, you can’t measure it. If you can’t measure it, you can’t make good business decisions and grow the business.

Make sense?

J

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Client Experience and Perceived Value: It’s Looking Cloudy for Accountants Working with Small Business

Client Experience and Perceived Value: It’s Looking Cloudy for Accountants Working with Small Business

Every day it seems there is another professional accounting or bookkeeping firm asking questions about how to get new clients for their new “online accounting” business.  Most of these professionals are likely missing the point that their current clients are probably already looking at online accounting solutions and services. Just like in the days when QuickBooks was beginning to take the lead in the market; today’s increasingly popular online accounting solutions are gaining popularity with the direct users, and are bringing those solutions to the professional community (not the other way around).  Professionals who wish to build their businesses on what the market demands would do well to recognize that the push to the cloud coming from their clients is a reflection of past activities, and firms riding the wave are much more likely to see success than those fighting it.

In reflection, remember that QuickBooks, unlike the other business accounting and financial products at the time, was a retail product marketed to and sold via retail and direct-to-customer outlets rather than via a channel or reseller approach.  At that time, State of the Art Software (which became Peachtree and then Sage 50) was the solution preferred by most accounting professionals, yet more and more small business owners would come to the professionals with the QuickBooks product already in hand, so accountants threw up their hands and adopted (if not embraced) the software.  Over the years, QuickBooks became the “go to” software for small business accounting, and many professional firms didn’t just gear up to work with it, but went as far as developing standards and practices based on the product.

With the introduction of high-speed broadband access, business Internet connectivity and affordable remote/mobile service, businesses are now finding that their options for shopping for, purchasing and implementing various solutions to business problems is possible at any time and from anywhere.  Even more, social computing and the blurring of the lines between personal and business use has made it all but assured that new business owners will seek online solutions where they can access business information and perform business-related activities regardless of location or mode of access.  This is what they have come to expect as consumers of information and services, and the expectation extends no less into their small businesses.

Professional firms must recognize that these evolving paradigms represent opportunity, taking advantage of cloud-based, real-time collaboration models to provide more timely value to their clients.  Where the more traditional on-premises and paper-based models have flourished, the online working models representing lean process and sustainability become the focus.

The movement to the cloud for small business accounting started with the consumer, who ultimately became the small business, and who may eventually become the big business. The professionals who recognize the value of and wisely adopt cloud technologies and online application services in their businesses – specifically in terms of how they work with clients and deliver value – are the firms which recognize that the client experience and perception of value delivered are the most important elements of all.

jmbunnyfeetMake Sense?

J

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Happy Holidays from CooperMann

Ninjabread cookies in the kitchen, an appearance by the Christmas Elk, and Minty Fresh (fresh cat, not canned) looking for Frangos all clearly indicate that the holiday season is here.  2013 has been an eventful year – some would say it was “fraught with peril” while others see opportunity in change. It’s all a matter of perspective – pursuing goals and taking action rather than resting on ones’ laurels and trying to wait it out.  This cloud stuff isn’t going away.

With technology and social computing adoption increasing at almost alarming rates, I can’t wait to see how 2014 goes!  This certainly isn’t a time for the tech-timid, as it appears as though the nerds and geeks do rule the world (aren’t we all a little nerdly, really?).

I hope you and yours have a wonderful season.

jmbunnyfeetCheers

J

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Read the Best of CooperMann.com from 2013

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Is it Cloud or is it Desktop?

Is it Cloud or is it Desktop?

There are a few realities that users of purely SaaS-based solutions are finding, and among them is that most web-based applications don’t readily integrate with the desktop – and the desktop is still where a lot of the real work gets done.  Yes, users are increasingly mobile and are using smartphones and tablets to create and access information via mobile applications and services, yet the PC desktop – whether it’s an actual desktop computer, laptop or full-featured tablet – remains as the workhorse for business.  Even the most popular SaaS applications continue to rely upon the desktop and locally installed applications to get some of the work done (note that many Salesforce.com users still find Excel to be their most effective reporting tool).  In an effort to deliver mobility for those applications traditionally tied to the desktop, software developers have adopted two main approaches: redevelop the application for the web (which usually means bringing functionality down to a lowest-common-denominator approach), or applying a traditional terminal server or virtualized application approach and calling it “cloud”.

desktop-apps

Neither option is awesome for the software maker – the time and cost of development certainly isn’t low, and the realities of hosting conventional desktop or LAN-based applications in shared infrastructure are pretty ugly at best.  What these software makers need is a way to allow businesses to continue to use their software for the desktop and LAN, enabling the user with software license use rights to access that software product and associated data on any of their “desktops”, regardless of where that desktop might be (or what device it is running on).  The model is cloud, but then it’s a desktop model too.

Independent software vendors are more frequently turning to platform providers (PaaS) to help deliver whatever “cloud” approach the company elects, and these ISVs are also feeling the bite of outsourced service fees and growing costs of delivery.  It is not just the direct customer questioning the cost of deploying resources in the cloud – software providers are questioning these costs, too, especially as they attempt to deliver resource-intensive solutions from hosted infrastructure that bills them based on resource utilization.  MyQuickCloud is proving that ISVs and their customers no longer have to bear large infrastructure costs in order to deliver complete user mobility. MyQuickCloud supports IaaS providers and their partner networks, allowing infrastructure-as-a-service offerings to include a simple and fast way to immediately make that infrastructure useful for desktop and application delivery.

The information technology industry has seen a lot of disruption in recent years, with complexity and risk in systems rising as users demand more functional mobile capability and software developers struggle to protect and preserve their assets (users included).  MyQuickCloud jumps right into the middle of it, delivering solutions for business customers, software developers and cloud providers alike, and answering the question of whether it’s cloud or desktop.  The answer is “yes”.

jmbunnyfeetMake Sense?

J

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4 Rules for Building Service Customer Loyalty

4 Rules for Building Service Customer Loyalty

Every business owner knows that it’s important to retain the business of good customers, because those good customers will turn into referrals and more customers.  What many business owner’s don’t know is that building customer loyalty – the repeat and referral business that keeps the doors open – takes more than producing a good product or having nice personnel.  Building customer loyalty is a continuous process which involves just about every area of the business. Particularly with service-based businesses where there may be a number of variables involved with the delivery, proper information collection, management, and communication becomes the essential foundation for delivering on the promise of great service, which helps to develop loyal customers.

4-rules-of-thumbIn a previous article titled “4 Rules of Thumb for Business Success”, I stressed the importance of creating the best business impression possible.  Here are a few additional tidbits for service businesses – things the company can do to make sure that the work is done completely and correctly the first time, which is what leads to happy and loyal customers.

Rule 1. Remember that everyone in the company is essentially in a sales and service position.  The customer should be able to get useful help or direction from any employee.  Not that everyone in the company can do all the jobs in the business, but everyone should be willing and able to find the resources necessary to get the customer’s question answered.  And it’s a good habit to try to set any necessary service appointments on the first call – it lets the customer know you’re ready to get the job done and saves them time.  Too many sales teams simply answer inquiries from callers and don’t ask for the business.  If you don’t ask, they can’t say yes.

Rule 2. Structure the order process to make sure that all information is captured, stored, and made available to service techs.  Customer requests should be specifically noted, along with any special details or requests.  There’s nothing more annoying than telling the company to watch out for something when they’re at your place, and then finding out that the tech didn’t get the memo.  Also make sure that any specific work items or parts are listed on the order, making it easier for the tech to record what they do and use.  All of this information should be available not just to techs, but to customer service and sales people, too.  After all, mismanagement of order information is usually not the customer’s fault, yet the customer is the one who ends up not getting what they asked for.  Avoiding this situation is critical to developing loyal, repeat customers.  It also makes getting the customer sign-off more likely, and this signature should be captured at the work site when the job is completed (allows the billing department to get the invoice out much faster, which allows the company to get paid faster).

Rule 3. During the job, make sure customers and co-workers are informed as to the status of the work.  The worst thing is to partially complete a job and leave the customer hanging – a situation that status tracking of service orders helps prevent.  When the work is completed, make sure to let the customer know, and also provide observations and recommendations.  Whether it’s a single job or a regular maintenance contract, always document what was done so that the customer knows exactly what work was performed.  Use a checklist or cheat sheet to make sure things are done completely and consistently every time, including cleaning up and making notes about the job.  Documenting things that technicians notice while at the customer location may provide the opportunity to offer more or other services to the customer, or might at least inform the customer about an issue they should be aware of.  By paying attention while on-site and looking for upgrades or value-adds that might benefit the customer, service technicians can often position themselves as top sales people, too.

Finally, Rule 4, always thank the customer for their business and let them know you genuinely appreciate it.  Smile, hand them a business card, and maybe even ask for a referral.  If you’ve done your job well and kept the customer informed along the way, it’s likely that this customer will bring you more business both directly and through referrals and recommendations.  That’s customer loyalty, and you can’t buy it anywhere – you have to build it.

Make sense?

J

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The Line in the Sand: Your RPO (Recovery Point Objective)

The Line in the Sand: Your RPO (Recovery Point Objective)

IMG_0108Businesses and individuals are increasingly more dependent upon the technology supporting their various activities, and the volume and velocity of information moving through these systems is increasing at astonishing rates.  With the growing reliance on information technology and electronic business data, you’d think that more businesses were paying close attention to protecting these assets. I recognize that there is a broad understanding of responsibilities as they pertain to system security, and businesses of all sizes and types are increasing their awareness of the variety of threats facing their systems and are taking steps to address them.  Yet there remains an aspect of business data protection that too few businesses are really zeroing in on, and that is the time and complexity of recovering or restoring business data in the event of an outage or loss – and the absolute line drawn in the sand which says that “here” is the tolerable loss we can experience: no more and no less.

This line in the sand is referred to as the RPO, or Recovery Point Objective. A recovery point objective is part of the business continuity plan (or should be!), and describes the maximum tolerable period of time for which data might be lost from a major IT service incident.  The necessity to establish this time frame – the RPO – exists whether the business is small or large.  In fact, small businesses have data protection needs quite similar to their enterprise counterparts.  In an article in SmallBusinessComputing.com, Kieran Maloney of Quantum Corporation is quoted as saying that “from a data protection standpoint, smaller businesses face challenges that are similar to those of larger enterprises; the amount, and the value, of their data is growing significantly while their budgets are not”.

What doesn’t seem to make sense is that businesses continue to view data backup as a necessary evil rather than a strategic element, and spending considerations for creating and meeting a realistic RPO remain low.  An article in TheStreet.com on the subject quotes Terry Cunningham, president and manager of EVault, saying “When largely preventable data loss conservatively costs businesses hundreds of millions of dollars annually, it is time to rethink your priorities”.  The author also writes that “while 95 percent of US IT decision makers said they have some type of disaster recovery plan in place, only 44 percent have remote, cloud-based recovery capabilities… More than twenty percent of IT organizations that manage between 2-7 TB of data suffered a data loss in the past year – in fact, more than half of this group suffered 2-3 data losses – each with an estimated average cost of 2-5 percent of total company revenues”.

Part of the continuity plan and a consideration in developing an approach which will meet the RPO timeframe should be the implementation of remote cloud based service, yet this has remained a low priority for many business owners.  Reliance upon more traditional data protection approaches, including tape backups and on-premises HDD solutions provides IT managers with a false sense of security and often cannot even reasonably address recovery from data loss due to hardware outages, much less for potentially catastrophic failures including loss of the location.

When considering the RPO – the minimum acceptable point for data recovery (or maximum tolerable point for loss) – businesses must look at their data management and backup strategies in order to address recovery approaches for various types of outages.  There are benefits and drawbacks associated with the different methods of backing up data, and the cost/benefit of employing any solution must factor in to the requirement to meet the stated RPO.  Daily backups may be the standard procedure, but is a potential loss of 24 hours of data acceptable to the business?  On the other hand, what is the potential cost of re-creating the data, if it can even be recreated?  Consider also that the timeframe for data recovery is not the point at which the last backup was completed; it is the point when the last backup was started.  This could result in a loss window greater than the established 24-hour boundary.

Many businesses would suggest that their tolerance for lost data – due to the cost of lost productivity and order activities – is far less than 24 hours, yet solutions employed to reduce the potential data losses often do not fully address the issue in any comprehensive manner.   IT personnel working with separate products to handle incremental data backups, machine recovery (bare metal) and snapshots of disk arrays often have a tough time trying to piece together the various pieces of the puzzle and often simply hope for the best in terms of outcome.

The prudent move is to thoroughly consider the business disaster recovery and continuity plan, and establish the boundaries for tolerable loss.  No business wants to expect to lose valuable data assets, but expecting technology to perform flawlessly is unrealistic, not to mention the unexpected impacts from acts of nature or other forces majeure.  Architecting systems to withstand service outages and having a comprehensive plan for recovering from system outages in a timeframe survivable by the business is the essential element to making a continuity plan worthwhile.  Draw the line in the sand, and then develop the system protection and recovery plan that will help make sure you never have to step over it.

Make Sense?

J

Here are a few data loss statistics for your reading pleasure… Enjoy  🙂

(stats drawn from summary on BostonComputing.net.  They may be a bit dated, but the numbers have only increased since then.) http://www.bostoncomputing.net/consultation/databackup/statistics/

The following statistics were gathered from various sources:

  • 6% of all PCs will suffer an episode of data loss in any given year. Given the number of PCs used in US businesses in 1998, that translates to approximately 4.6 million data loss episodes. At a conservative estimate, data loss cost US businesses $11.8 billion in 1998. (The Cost Of Lost Data, David M. Smith)
  • 30% of all businesses that have a major fire go out of business within a year. 70% fail within five years. (Home Office Computing Magazine)
  • 31% of PC users have lost all of their files due to events beyond their control.
  • 34% of companies fail to test their tape backups, and of those that do, 77% have found tape back-up failures.
  • 60% of companies that lose their data will shut down within 6 months of the disaster.
  • 93% of companies that lost their data center for 10 days or more due to a disaster filed for bankruptcy within one year of the disaster. 50% of businesses that found themselves without data management for this same time period filed for bankruptcy immediately. (National Archives & Records Administration in Washington)
  • American business lost more than $7.6 billion as a result of viruses during first six months of 1999. (Research by Computer Economics)
  • Companies that aren’t able to resume operations within ten days (of a disaster hit) are not likely to survive. (Strategic Research Institute)
  • Every week 140,000 hard drives crash in the United States. (Mozy Online Backup)
  • Simple drive recovery can cost upwards of $7,500 and success is not guaranteed