With all the hype about Cloud Computing, all the benefits of having your data and programs has never been more promising. But what happens when The Cloud goes dark? It certainly does happen!

Unless you have a copy of your data on your computer or handheld device,  you’re cut off from your information.  Users who have experienced this say it feels far worse than a broken computer or cell phone.  Why?  Imagine opening your email to find that it’s all gone. Your contacts? Gone too.  Accounting data and the ability to generate invoices, pay your bills and more?  Gone!  The fear stems from not knowing if you data is gone permanently or temporarily compounded by when the system will be off-line.

I am not suggesting that The Cloud is not a safe and viable way to store your data and use software programs.  I meerly share this with you so you can be prepared before it happens to you and inevitably it will.

This is has happened to Microsoft, Google, SalesForce.com and other “big name” cloud technology providers.  Click here to review The 10 Biggest Cloud Outages of 2011 (so far).

There are virtually hundreds of add-on products that work with ACT!.  Need calculations between two fields?  Got it.  Need to link ACT! to QuickBooks?  Done.  One of my favorite add-ons is the Call On CRM solutions that allows you to dial your phone directly from ACT!.

“What happened to the ACT! phone dialer?” is a question I’m often asked.  Some of you ACT! “Old Timers” remember back in the day how easy it was to call from ACT!; there was a dialer icon right up there on the icon bar.  The setup was also easy:  plug a phone cord into your computer and you were good to go.  But hold the phone (pun intended); that was back in the days when computers came equipped with a phone jack so that we used to connect to the Internet via a dial-up connection.  If you’re using a computer that’s ready for the Smithsonian you might still have one of those but the rest of us have moved on to faster connections and therefore can’t just hook our phones to our computers.

Ironically, what was so simple a few years ago has now become a complicated mess.  If you work in an office with a phone system you might be lucky enough to have a “TAPI compliant” system which is computer-speak for “connect my computer to a dial tone.” However, I find that once a company sells you a phone system the chances of getting them back in to your office to connect you to TAPI are slim to non-existent.  Enter VOIP (voice over IP).

Many people think of Vonage or Skype when they think of VOIP.  Those are “public” VOIP systems.  “Private” VOIP carriers are designed for business users and are generally cheaper than your local phone service.  Business class VOIP offers lots of cool features like “Auto Attendants” who direct callers to dial 1 for Sales or 2 for Leave me Alone, and what I affectionately call the “hunt me down like a dog” feature that will try your office, home or cell phone until you’re found.  Best of all, if the VOIP solution you use is “Broadsoft” compliant it can be easily connected to your ACT! database using the Call on CRM add-on.

Here’s how Call on CRM works.  When you want to call a contact in your database you simply click their number; when you complete your call the ACT! History window pops up.  You can either add a few notes or simply click OK and a history of the call (included the actual time spent) appears on the contact’s History tab.  The same thing happens when you receive a call; the History window pops up when you disconnect, you add a note and the History appears on the History tab.  You can even have ACT! schedule an activity for any missed calls you might have received.

Call on CRM includes a number of other cool features including the ability to send a text message to multiple contacts, transfer a call to a remote staff member and keep phone call logs.  Personally, I’m happy not to have to dial the phone or look up contact records. If you’d like more information you can find it at the Call on CRM website.

Karen Fredricks
www.techbenders.com
blog@techbenders.com

Every successful company I have dealt with invests heavily in systems and processes to insure their customers have a positive experience when dealing with them. These investments include Customer Relationship Management software such as ACT! to extensive customer service training.   It’s not often that I come across one who shoots themselves in the foot repeatedly yet remains in business for a long period of time.  Recently I came across one that I’d like to share with you.

I have been a happy Audi car owner since 2004 and recently traded in my 2007 for a 2010. Over the years, I have relied on a car broker to source my cars since I really can’t stand the process of buying a car from a dealer.  Over the years, I developed a relationship with McDonald Automotives Audi service department in Denver  for warranty work.  The people were always nice, but numerous times the loaner I had reserved wasn’t available when I arrived which cost me about two hours of my working day each time this happened?  It could have easily been avoided had they called me on the morning of the appointments to tell me they were short cars.  Another time they actually crashed my car while fixing it.   

So it’s time to trade in my leased 2007 and I decided I would put the exact model out to bid.  During this process, I heard about the American Express Dealer network.  I received 3 prices from the dealers, including one from McDonald Audi.  I went with the low bidder who made a deal with us, who agreed upon ALL the figures, yet we when the car arrived, they added more costs – and I quote them “there are $489 in undisclosed fees we don’t tell people about” until they sit down to pay for the car. The fee is for Document preperation.  

Then came the insane part of the transaction.  This manager named Christian stated the fee is non-negotiatiable, but that they don’t want to sell me a car unless I’m happy.  He went on to explain how important is was that when I was at a party, picnics, etc and talked about my experience with McDonald, they I tell everyone how great they are and the worst thing that could happen was me giving them negative feedback.   I ordered this car and waited months for it.  I had the money, but was arguing based on the pricinicapl.  Do you think I’d walk away at this point?  

For $489, he bought all the negative feedback in the world. 

I shouldn’t be surprised even though we agreed upon figures that were “all inclusive”.  Despite their constant marketing, occasional calls and nice people, they lost a customer forever.  No wonder McDonald Automotive Audi is one of the worst ranked Audi dealers in the country.

In our business, we’d write off $500 in a minute if we over charged someone after coming to terms with them rather than lose a customer and have them bad mouth us.  

How do you handle this sort of thing?

John Kaufman, Principal
The CRM Connection
Denver, CO

It’s been a while since I created a blog article. Part of the reason is I’ve been traveling a lot and business is very good this year.  The other reason is I’ve been under the weather with this awful upper respiratory thing that is spreading across the country.  I was so distraught this week over the issues I had simply trying to find a doctor to see me that I said, in a Twitter update, that I wish I could write about the apathy seen in the medical profession in my business blog.

Julie Bestry, an amazing lady and Twitter goddess (@ProfOrganizer), saw my post and responded with this: “Sure you can…how apathy in business owners sends clients to their competition…and they DO have competition.  Doctors and the rest of the healthcare idustry still make a good starter anecdote. And good bedside manner = good customer care. You’ve got a whole metaphor!”

By George, she was right.  And that’s the theme of this blog – “How do you ensure you don’t suffer from business apathy.”

Here’s what started me down this path.  I don’t visit the doctor often because I usually don’t need to.  That’s not a bad thing except when you really need one. Over the last five years, four doctors I have seen have either left the medical profession or moved away.  Ok, that’s cool, but the offices should still have my records, right? Wrong.  I spent over 5 hours calling around to various doctor offices, including, first off, the office named as my primary care physician.  They couldn’t find my records.  We’re sorry, they say, but since your original doctor has left, you are a new patient and we’re not scheduling new patients until May.  This is March – I could be dead by May.  No amount of cajoling on my part convinced the less-than-pleasant receptionists to help me out.  After four phone calls with equal results, I was near tears, which is not something I normally do, and decided to visit the Urgent Care facility.

I really didn’t want to go this route.  The price of medical insurance is high for a lot of reasons, but one is because they have to cover the people who have to spend more money going to emergency rooms or urgent care facilities for exactly the same reason I ended up in one.

Continuing on with this  saga,  I enter the Urgent Care offices and the receptionist there treated me with even more disdain than the people I chatted with earlier via phone. Is there a school for “how to be completely apathetic and non-caring in 5 easy lessons.”  Is this happening because doctors feel they are indispensable and we have no choice but to take this kind of apathetic abuse.

This led me to the idea of what would happen to businesses today if they  responded in kind.  Take this hypothetical example.  “Hello, I am a new client in the area and I’ve interested in your services.  May I come in today”…. “No, we’re sorry, we are not seeing new clients for at least a month.  Please call back then.”  How long do you think that business would be alive and viable if that was the way they operated.

If the receptionist in your office reacts the same as the ones I dealt with today, what will the rest of the experience be with your company?  Probably the same.  If the bedside manner of the company – whether it’s the person greeting the clients or answering the phone or your sales team – does not reflect the true image of your company, then you are lost before you  even start.

Companies spend a lot of money on sales and marketing, drip campaigns, email blitzes, etc.  But, if the result of all that external work ends up at the desk of the I-don’t-care-about-you receptionist or on the phone with a sales person suffering from a similar disorder, you have just wasted a lot of money.  Before investing in all that effort, you need to make sure your home front is in good working order.  Are your employees motivated?  Are they empowered to give quality service?  Are they rewarded if they do? Do you, as the business owner, project the kind of attitude you want represented throughout your organization?  Is your bedside manner equal to what you would expect from a doctor you visit?  Think about it.  Step outside of your space and imagine what it would be like to be sitting in front of you.  Would you like what you see and hear.   Try to imagine walking up to your office for the first time.  Does it invite people to return?  If the only way people reach you is via phone, the same thing applies.  Do they get a real person or an auto caller with 15 steps before you realize you can hit zero and by-pass the “helpful” choices which in reality cause many people to hang up before even talking to a human.

Julie was right.  This did turn out to be a good topic for a business blog.  The message is this – make sure your company bedside manner keeps the clients returning.  Then, give them a lollipop and send them on their way, happy and satisfied with the results.

I tend to reflect on the past year each December and to look forward to an
even better next year (that way, I’m free to relax on December 31).  What
went well, this year and where I can improve my business practice next year.
Since I use ACT! 2010 software to manage my relationships, calendar and
activities,  I think of ways to better use the software. 

Here’s my “top ten” for next year (starting today!):

1. Clean out my old contacts. I have over 4200 names in my database, many
   are no longer valid.  I use $120 Duplicate Record Removal Software to merge
   the duplicates.
2. Clean out my unused Groups. Groups have a life of their own – I should
   delete the ones I don’t use.
3. Stay in touch with the people you do business with by sending newsletters
   on a regular basis.  I do
4. Clean the antiques out of my task list. There are tasks from over a year
   ago that I’ll never get to.
5. Stop rolling over my calls, to-dos and meetings (I don’t currently
   roll-over activities, and neither should you!).
6. Call one day ahead of time to confirm all my appointments (Not really an
   “ACT!” thing, but I’m going to do it anyway).
7. When someone hands me a business card, I will write a few words on the
   card to remind me about this person (How many times have you looked at a
   card and not remembered who the person is, or where you met?).
8. I will put every business card I have in ACT! (Why leave it to mold on my
   desk?)
9. When I make an unscheduled call I will ALWAYS record it in ACT!  (And
   schedule a follow-up.)
10. When I clear an activity I will ALWAYS schedule a follow up call.

Does you have any tips they’d like to share?

Subtitled:  Search, Search Search

In an earlier post I mentioned that I use hundreds of folders to organize all of my e-mail messages.  I should mention that I also use ACT!’s contact management capabilities to file most of my client-related email messages.

However, the point of this message is search.  Outlook’s built-in search is no-good.  So I use X1 (www.x1.com).  With this tool, purchased by yahoo a couple of years ago (and like the google desktop search gadget) you get full-text indexing of all the contents (every single word) in all e-mail messages, spreadsheets, documents and most databases for near-instantaneous retrieval.

Try a desktop search tool, you’ll like it.

Subtitled:  Folders, Folders, Folders

I try to keep my inbox to 10 or less messages.   And I have another folder called “Action Needed” which I keep to under 35 messages (It’s a struggle).  So I have LOTS of folders (several hundred, I’m sure).  They are hierarchal organization, with 10-15 top level folders and nested 2-3 layers deep.

Here is my ‘method’. 

1.       I try to leave messages in my inbox for less than a day.  Then I move them to “Action Needed” because they obviously are not going to get immediate response.

2.       I go through “Action Needed” at least three times a week, filing as many messages as possible, acting on some and, occasionally, moving one back to my Inbox.

3.       I’ll make active use of the “Favorites” area, moving shortcuts to folders in and out of this region as projects become active and inactive.  Most project folders are in Favorites for a few months at the most.

4.       And, again, I make extensive use of folders for storing

5.       When I send a message I’ll move it to the appropriate folder immediately.

The real trick: Staying on top of your messages – keep your inbox lean.

Challenge: As a software consulting  and IT firm, we are required to manage a myriad of information on our clients. Information that we need to manage at an application level includes:

1. Version of application(s) they currently have installed as well as what service packs or hot fixes they have loaded for that application.
2. Account number with the software manufacturer, in this case either Sage or Intuit.
3. Add-ons or custom programming the client currently has installed for that application.
4. Whether or not the client has corporate support or software renewals through the software vendor and when their expiration dates are.
5. For accounting software clients, tracking whether or not they do their payroll in house.
6. In addition to maintaining this information on behalf of the client, we also use this information to determine client elgibility for upgrades, service updates, hot fixes and also to notify clients when their support or software upgrade plans are coming up for renewal.

Options Explored:  Track information in spreadsheets either on a product line level or at a client level, build a custom access database to manage all the pieces of information that we needed to know or customize ACT! to track all of the information.

Solution: When ACT! introduced the company feature with ACT! 2005, we customized the company layout to track all of the client information that we needed. Our process was simple: we created one tab for each product line that we support. For each product line, we created custom fields that were specific to that client application. For example, our accounting software tabs includes checkboxes for Payroll and Credit Card Processing – items that are unique to the accounting software lines. For the CRM tabs, we created a large memo box to track all of our client serial numbers and added fields for clients whose database maintenance we perform.

In addition to adding customized tabs to the Company layout, we also created checkboxes that stretch along the top half of the screen: one box was created for each product line supported. The idea was that anyone in our office can see the company record and know what product we support  for that cleint based on the boxes that were checked.

To ensure this data was managed properly, we did develop a few rules as to when the company record was to be created and who was responsible for maintaining the information at the company level. Our workflow is as follows:

1. When a prospect becomes a customer, their information is entered into our accounting system and at the same time a company record is created.
2. At that point, the company record is filled out with all of the information we’ve accumulated on the client as part of our sales process.
3. Anytime a technician does work for the client, either the technician or managing partner goes in to update the company record with any changes (like service packs installed or upgrades done).
4. We also customized the company record to track how the client found out about us. At the end of each year, we run a source of referrals report in ACT! by company that tells us exactly where our business is coming from.  This allows us to determine where our marketing dollars should be spent in the upcoming year.

Over the years, the company record in ACT! has been a constant work in progress for us. We’re always making changes to the information we are collecting to ensure we are managing our clients more efficiently. It is a tool that I have come to rely upon heavily in regards to the day in and day out management of our clients.