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September 7, 2016

Insightly Heads Down Under to Xerocon South 2016

The next stop for Xerocon is Brisbane, which means that Insightly is headed back to its Australian homeland to attend the one of the biggest accounting events of the year from September 7 – 9. Similar to Xerocon San Francisco and Xerocon London, this gathering of accountants, bookkeepers, and tech companies is an exciting opportunity to share ideas and network, so it’s fitting that the conference theme is “The Network Effect.”

With more than 2,000 people expected to attend, and an impressive line-up of speakers, it’s no surprise that Xerocon is one of the fastest-growing events for cloud accountants. Xero is one of the most used cloud accounting software for small businesses, serving more than 717,000 customers around the world and offering over 500 apps and integrations in the Xero Marketplace.

Insightly is proud to be an add-on partner (we took home the award for emerging add-on partner at Xerocon London!), and we’re constantly working to make our CRM integration with Xero easy-to-use and intuitive for customers. (Tweet this!) We know it’s a huge part of day-to-day business operations – from closing a sale, to invoicing and payments.

Attending Xerocon South? Stop by our booth #70 to see a demo or say hello! We’d love to chat.

At Insightly, we offer a CRM used by small and mid-sized businesses from a variety of verticals. Learn about Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial.

August 29, 2016

How To Take Your Customer Service Beyond Your CRM

If you’re in any kind of business, customer service is an important part of your team’s daily responsibilities. And in today’s demanding market, answering the phone is no longer enough. Businesses are expected to communicate on every level, from extensive informational content on their website to responsive social media.

Trend-Spotting

Taking your customer service way above and beyond calls for fast, intuitive response to questions and issues, and that means knowing what they’re thinking before they even think to ask. One way to predict what your customers will ask is to analyze your data and find questions customers have already asked.

Predictive analysis is great for customers stalled in your sales pipeline as well. If leads hit a certain point and drop out, you’re failing to provide what they need to make the decision to buy. To figure out what you lack, look at what customers consistently ask. If your staff is well trained in CRM use, a keyword search should turn up all the information you need to fix the problem – and plug the hole in your funnel.

Trends can include anything from seasonal buying patterns, related items, or the desire for updates to existing products. Learning from your customers requires two things: staff who are well-trained to record and tag input from customers, and the ability to retrieve and use the data to your advantage.

With Insightly’s custom reporting features and built-in search functions, gathering the data you want is easy. Then all you have to do is figure out how to use the information. The answer might be in providing additional information on your website, allocating targeted web ad spend, or sending a timely email with the information that will land the sale or anticipate a complaint.

For example, let’s say you’re selling a software with a learning curve, and your data shows that customers inquire about more features 90 days from purchase. That probably indicates it takes 90 days to get comfortable with basic operation, and after that, they are ready to learn more advanced use.

Adequate customer service is training your staff to walk customers through the features when they call.
Good customer service is a tutorial on your site.
Great customer service is a video or interactive slideshow delivered to their inbox 90 days after purchase. Hit it just right, and you’ve delivered exactly what they want, exactly when they want it.

Be Everywhere Your Customers Are

Part of stellar customer service is fast responsiveness. Whether they have a problem, a random question, a request, or a compliment or comment, they want a fast answer. Social media helps you connect with your customers and answer every mention as fast as they are posted.

The key to efficient social media is not trying to be everywhere, it’s being where your customers are. Using their emails, Insightly attaches links to your customers’ social media profiles into their customer records, making it easy for you to determine how many customers you have on each of the major platforms. With that information, you can decide where you need the most active presence.

Personalize Your Contact

Before CRM and the web, personalization was almost impossible. Now you can send out emails with the customer’s name and a personal message – maybe a happy birthday and a special gift or deep discount. Who doesn’t like to get an email that says “Happy Birthday, Lisa! Since you recently bought a stand mixer, we’d like to help you celebrate with a cheerful set of rainbow mixing bowls. Click here to collect your free gift.”?

You can also personalize your customer service calls with knowledge of past history and last contact. With information stored in your CRM, your CSRs can say, “I see the last time you called, you had trouble logging into your account. Did we resolve that for you?” or “Looks like you haven’t had an update in a while. Have you heard about our new services?”

CRM integration lets you carry on a conversation right where it left off, even if a call is dropped and another rep picks up the callback. Everybody hates having to repeat a story. Comprehensive CRM records save your customers from telling their story again when they are transferred to a manager or another department.

Passive customer service just doesn’t cut it anymore. You no longer have the luxury of expecting your customer to call in and leave a message, then getting back to them when you feel like it. You have to be available, responsive, and proactive to stand out from your competitors. Your growth depends on your brand reputation…and your brand reputation depends on what customers say about you.

Check out Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial of the best CRM around.

August 24, 2016

Why CRM Needs to Be a Priority Item in the Budget Plan

Most small businesses need to keep a tight budget across the board. So it may not be a surprise to some readers that implementing tech tools is a line item that often gets crossed off early on in budget planning. We conducted a survey of small businesses owners and found that more than half of the respondents consider CRM to be too expensive (Tweet this!). This is one of the biggest misconceptions about CRM and why many SMB owners will opt to use spreadsheets or a pen and paper to track customer details rather than making the investment in implementing CRM. We’re here to breakdown the top three reasons CRM deservers to be a priority line item in the company budget.

It will change the way you interact with customers.

Customer contact details and personal preferences can be logged in a single platform and easily accessed by any user. Customers receive a fluid experience, no matter which person they speak with, since you’re no longer digging through emails to figure out when you or a colleague last spoke with a customer and what the conversation consisted of. It can also track personal details like birthdays and anniversaries, which gives customers an even more unique and pleasant experience when interacting with your company. CRM gives users the ability to show customers that they understand their needs and preferences. Even better, CRM allows users to do so in a scalable way – now you can simultaneously remember these important details for hundreds or thousands of customers.

Your sales pipeline will always be full.

Tracking leads and moving them through the pipeline in an efficient way is key to business success. CRM helps sales people to efficiently handle lead management by keeping track of where leads fall within the customer journey and making it easy to follow up at the appropriate time and with the most appropriate content. For example, when a potential customer is interested in purchasing a product but isn’t quite ready to sign on the dotted line, a sales person can make a note to follow up on a particular date or share relevant educational materials that will help the lead to make a final decision.

It won’t break the bank.

CRM has been historically considered to be a tool that only enterprise companies can afford to use, and that it’s not a tool that is well suited for smaller businesses. Clearly, this isn’t the case, and there are plenty of plan options that can fit into even the smallest of budgets. Even better, CRM solutions that have been specifically designed with small businesses in mind, not only offer low price points, but also the features and functionalities that will address SMB business owners’ specific needs. So rather than wasting time trying to figure out how to use clunky platforms that have hundreds of features that you’re likely to never use, a CRM designed specifically for SMBs can start to show ROI almost immediately.

The benefits that a CRM will have on your line are worth any upfront cost. Your customers will be happier, your employees will be more productive and your bottom line will increase. During the next budget meeting, remember these factors when considering how important it is to the allocate funds needed to implement a CRM – the benefits will surely outweigh any costs.

At Insightly, we offer a CRM used by small and mid-sized businesses from a variety of verticals. Learn about Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial.

August 18, 2016

Join us for a Live Twitter Chat with SmartHustle Magazine Editor, Ramon Ray

Join us on August 23rd at 12 pm, PST, for an all new Twitter Chat with SmartHustle Magazine editor, Ramon Ray. Ramon’s Insightly Twitter Chat will cover a wide range of topics that will resonate with business owners and budding entrepreneurs, alike. Tune in to experience thoughtful answers to pressing questions that include:

How to incentivize employees in your small business?
How to effectively use social media to promote your business?
How much should a small business owner invest in technology and automation?
What are the most common mistakes of first-time entrepreneurs?

Don’t miss this live event! Join us @ #LoveYourCRM on August 23rd, 12 p.m, PST.

At Insightly, we offer a CRM used by small and mid-sized businesses from a variety of verticals. Learn about Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial.

August 17, 2016

Top 3 Reasons Food Service Organizations Need a CRM Solution

Customer experience is central to the success of food service businesses, where a bad egg white omelet can make or break a career. In order for owners and managers to extend a superior level of service to every customer, they need systems in place that minimize missteps and keep the business moving in the right direction.

Implementing a CRM can be the difference between failure and success in this increasingly competitive industry. Three business owners share their story of how a CRM solution improved their food service operations.

Elevate your customer service level.

College Chefs employs classically, professionally trained chefs to cook for fraternities and sororities in the U.S. – each of which operates similar to a restaurant. There’s a supervising staff of 10 to 15 people who manage about 100 chefs and 75 customers. It’s a large operation with a lot of moving pieces, so a CRM makes it easy to track customers and keep a historical record of all interactions. For example, if one fraternity loves blue POWERADE, the chef can add the preference to Insightly and ensure it’s always in stock. Since implementing Insightly, the business has tripled in size due in part to the ability to provide superior customer service and cater to the desires of sororities and fraternities.

Stay organized.

Michael Gurevich is the owner and Schnitzelmaster for Seven Hens, a growing restaurant chain specializing in combining chicken schnitzel with different flavors from around the world. Rather than scrolling through hundreds of lines on every spreadsheet to access information, Gurevich wanted to make the team’s life easier to make his company better. With a CRM, the data was easier to sort through and act on when the time came to process and order. Seven Hens manages more than 300 contracts using Insightly, as well as data related to potential customers in the area. With Insightly, Gurevich can keep track of prospect and existing customer data more effectively, and as a result, he can schedule more meetings and attract prospects.

Manage growth.

Tisano is the creator and originator of brewed Cacao Teas. The small team faced several business challenges that led them to a CRM, including a struggle to keep pace with growth. For example, after attending a few trade shows, the company found itself with information from more than 3,000 prospects, media representatives, vendors, and other contacts – they couldn’t manage all the relationships via spreadsheets. A CRM helps them to manage both sales efforts and customer relationships from a single dashboard. With Insightly, Tisano can manage remote employees more effectively and move most of its operations to the cloud to save approximately $5,000 every month. The team closed numerous deals with the help of a CRM solution, including one with an interested prospect who was hesitant about the cost. Tisano used Insightly to reformulate the deal with the hesitant prospect, meet their needs, and ultimately make the sale. This capability allowed Tisano to close deals with corporations like Virgin America, Whole Foods Market, and Peet’s Coffee and Tea.

A CRM provides business owners and managers with a single dashboard that offers a complete picture of their customers and their individual preferences, which is important for long-term satisfaction and loyalty. For these food service providers, implementing a CRM made all the difference in daily operations – for the better.

Want to get cooking with Insightly? We offer a CRM used by small and mid-sized businesses from a variety of verticals. Learn about Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial.

August 4, 2016

5 Ways to Create All-Star Content for Your Brand

Ah summer…sunshine, green grass, fresh air, and of course BASEBALL! It’s America’s national pastime!

As marketers, you might be struggling to hit a home run in the slower summer months. Sales can lag in this quarter, as folks pack up their bags and the office and hit the road for summer vacations. Once you’re past the start-of-year, over tax season, and haven’t hit the holiday and end-of-year rush yet, you might be feeling the long lazy days of summer hitting your bottom line.

So what can we learn from the “boys of summer” to keep things fresh, and make sure you’re hitting home runs with your customers and not striking out. Keep batting a thousand and keep your customer experience out of the park.

1. Keep Content Current
Focus on current events, stay up on industry trends, keep tabs on your customers and know what’s going on. One game can rarely make or break a team in baseball (unless it’s the World Series), but cumulatively a series of losses add up. Stay up on what’s going on and don’t let a miss cause you a big loss.

Organize your customer data and track leads, sales, and points of contact regularly. Reach out to customers consistently with targeted communication. This might mean keeping your social media content fresh, regularly posting to your blog, and engaging with customers online. Respond to customer feedback, and keep your content relevant and up-to-date.

On the same note, if you’re hitting a slump when it comes to marketing ideas, focus on what’s going on in the world around you. With current events (Olympics, election, sports and trends) you can easily pick and choose content that touches on the pulse of what’s happening in the world.

While you should avoid sport-industry-level controversy, of course, mentioning current events helps customers realize you are timely and in the know (and can boost your SEO and trending topics).

2. Know Your Stats
They say baseball is a thinking man’s (or woman)’s game. It’s a game of statistics. Incremental returns and cumulative scores add up into a series of wins or losses. Your analytics are your own personal statistics. Many of us avoid our analytics because they can be intimidating, or even – well, let’s face it – boring. Learn to understand the story and you can find your stats to be just as riveting as any MLB All Star.

Your analytics reflect your customers’ experience. They can tell you what’s generating responses and what’s being ignored. Data paints for you the ways your customers are interacting with your content and reveals what searches lead them to you.

Watch for trends. Watch for marketing efforts that get clicks, shares and engagement, and keep going with similar content. Ask for customer feedback and keep your eye on satisfaction and customer happiness. Customer satisfaction matters in all industries, including baseball.

3. Save Your Closers for the Final Inning
When you’re in the bottom of the ninth and the bases are loaded, your entire team looks to the closing pitcher to make or break the game. In your business, when you’re at a make or break point, whom do you look to?

What member of your team is the closer? Not just in sales, but the team leaders who can rally and do what it takes to keep you on top of the game? Those people are your leaders. They are the employees who should be treated like gold.

Typically, your all-star team members are the ones on board with the company’s vision. They understand the big picture, and are in it for the best outcome for all, not just themselves. Find the employees you can rely on and who are loyal and honest. Keep those hardworking visionaries happy. Put them in the bullpen and bring them out when you need them to throw some strikes. Take care of them, and they’ll take care of you.

4. Know Your Competitor
When a visiting team comes to your stadium, you know their stats. You’ve studied the talent on their team, and pick your best players who can go head-to-head for the win. Know your competition just as well as you’d know the opposing team. Don’t keep your eyes focused on the dugout, worry about the game at hand, but know what your opposition brings to the table and plan accordingly.

Study industry news on your competitor’s successes and failures. Keep a handle on what they’re doing well, and what areas you excel at. Play on your strengths and learn from theirs. If your competition has great customer service, then it might be time to focus on building your customer experience. If your competition has great social media presence, then maybe it’s time to bolster your own.

At the same time, if you are known for your ability to deliver on a deadline, or your attentiveness to the individual customer, don’t scrimp on your strengths to compete with another company. Play up the things you do well, and work on the areas that need attention.

5. Rely on Your Fans
When it comes down to it, the things that make a baseball team truly great are the fans. Sticking it out through inning after inning, flying out of state for spring training, jotting down the stats in their notebooks as they sit in the stands with their baseball mitts. True fans are vital to the success of Major League baseball; just as much a part of the game as beer, hotdogs, peanuts and Cracker Jack.

Your customers should be your biggest fans. Loyal, repeat customers are your most valuable commodities. It takes years to build up a customer and seconds to lose one. Paying attention to the needs of your clients, being attentive and quick to address their concerns, and working hard to stay “on the ball” will keep you ahead of the game.

When summer is over and the season has ended, applying these lessons from America’s favorite sport can help you hit home runs in your industry all year long.

At Insightly, we offer a CRM used by small and mid-sized businesses from a huge variety of verticals. Learn about all of Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial.

July 28, 2016

Keep Your Business Moving During the Summer Slump

Summer is in full swing, which means warm weather, barbeques, and more time with family. But as you start to trade in your office chairs for beach chairs, remember that your business shouldn’t have to take a vacation. Here are four tips to help keep your business moving forward through the remainder of the summer months.

Plan ahead.

Many companies experience a dip in activity over the summer. It’s important to prepare well in advance so there’s a stream of business to take you through Labor Day. Ahead of the summer months, look at new contacts and prospects that could fuel business during the slower months. Additionally, take a look at your team’s summer vacations to make sure all your customers have a point person checking in regardless of schedules.

Stay visible.

This is your chance to get some quality face time with your customers and strengthen your relationships as their schedules slow down for the summer. A weekly newsletter informing customers and prospects about company updates and new blog posts is a great way to maintain engagement during the summer. Doing so will show customers that you haven’t forgotten them over the holiday months and reminds them why they selected you as a business partner.

Take on a project.
Use the slower-paced period as a time to work on other projects. Redesign your website, brainstorm new ideas or revisit old ones that your team had discussed earlier in the year but couldn’t pursue because of bandwidth. These activities will help you and your team to innovate and continue to move the business forward.

Recharge.

Go on vacation and enjoy the weather while it lasts. Everyone, (yes, that includes you.) needs time to relax and recharge. Take a few days off, and encourage your staff to do the same, so everyone can come back ready to get to work. But make sure you appoint someone to answer any incoming customer queries or questions while you are out!

Use these tips to build up a pipeline that will continue business momentum throughout the slow season. Summer is a great time to refocus and recharge, so take advantage of the slower season to get your business on track for a successful second half of the year.

At Insightly, we offer a CRM used by small and mid-sized businesses from a huge variety of verticals. Learn about Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial.

July 16, 2016

Are You Managing Your Sales Team Efficiently?

Whether you’re in sales, marketing, or administration, when arrive at work in the morning chances are you’ve got a long list of “to do’s” for the day. Unfortunately that list sometimes resides solely inside your mind, leaving other people in the dark when it comes to accessing important information. In fact, 44% of sales executives think their organization is ineffective at managing the sales pipeline, yet companies with effective pipeline management grow 15% faster (Vantage Point Performance).

Lead by example with specifics

Manually assigning leads is a tedious administrative process which takes time away from other more important tasks which will actually grow a business. And, manual processes are always subject to errors. So, manually assigned leads will likely be mis-assigned, not assigned at all, or assigned when the lead has already gone cold.

With Insightly you can build out and maximize an efficient workflow by creating lead-flow processes that are both logical and repeatable. If your sales team is generating solid leads, for example, you can use Insightly to help qualify their potential. Likewise, if you’re collecting prospect information through a web form, you can flow that information right into Insightly using the Leads tab.

We’ve recently added a new feature to lead management with the release of Lead assignment rules. Lead assignment rules automate the process of assigning leads as they are added to Insightly. If you’re a sales manager, this makes it faster and easier to distribute leads evenly or according to specific criteria, including:

Geographic area, by selecting fields like Postal Code, State/Province, or City.
Number of employees, by selecting the Employee Count field.
Your own custom fields that you’ve set up in Insightly.
Round robin, by selecting a team or multiple individuals to receive leads on a rotating basis.

By automating the lead assignment process, your sales reps stay informed in real time which helps them to more accurately schedule their daily sales activities.

To create a more comprehensive picture, Insightly Lead Forms are now also supported by custom fields. Custom fields give you the flexibility to create fields for non-standard information such as billing ID numbers, birth dates, contract renewal dates, project types, and referral information.

Meet in the middle

When used correctly, one of the many benefits of a CRM solution like Insightly is that it takes the burden off of your brain by minding the details for you. You have to meet in the middle, however, by taking the time to input information consistently. If you remain consistent, at the end of a busy day, you can stop worrying about the “herding cats” aspect of managing your team’s activities, knowing that you’ve got the end-to-end support you need to take a hot lead and turn it into a sale.

At Insightly, we offer a CRM used by small and mid-sized businesses from a huge variety of verticals. Learn about Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial.

June 22, 2016

CRM, Google Apps, and Xero Help Winsightz Keep Personal Service in Sight

Founded by Winston Faircloth in August 2015, Winsightz helps small-to-medium businesses (SMBs) and nonprofits recapture and retain customers, donors, and volunteers. Through a blend of software and coaching services, Winsightz helps organizations translate business requirements to the right technology solutions and learn how to apply those solutions to achieve their goals.

As a solopreneur, Winston Faircloth found it a big challenge to just keep track of conversations, emails, appointments, leads, and myriad other details. Faircloth found Insightly mentioned favorably on a few blogs, but it was the Google Docs integration that compelled him to give Insightly a try. Using Insightly for relationship tracking allows Faircloth to quickly see interactions, attachments, next steps, and tasks in the queue. And Insightly’s tight integration with Google Docs and Gmail makes creating or updating a contact record or project seamless. When Faircloth learned that Insightly also integrates with accounting tool, Xero, he was thrilled. He loves how Xero brings in transactional data from the bank, credit cards, PayPal, etc., which makes that part of the accounting incredibly easy.

In addition to effective relationship tracking and management, streamlined organization and accounting, Insightly helps keep administrative overhead lean and frees up Faircloth (and his future team) for customer-facing activities. Although still in the early days of his new company, Faircloth feels Insightly is an important part of the company’s journey and future success.

Insightly allows me to take what’s in my head and share it with my employees to help them learn and get up to speed faster. It’s a clean, simple and intuitive tool that helps me stay organized and allows me to provide the best service possible.

– Winston Faircloth, co-founder and president, Winsightz

Find out more about how Winsightz uses Insightly to track and manage client relationships and accounting, and streamline organization. Read the full story – and others like it – in our customer case study library.

June 22, 2016

CRM for All: Business Services

The business services segment is broad and encompasses companies across industries that offer a variety of services including marketing and advertising, consulting, legal services, security and many more. While the sector is large, they all share a common need to keep leads, contact information and projects organized. But using pen and paper, email, Excel spreadsheets and/or Google docs to keep information straight and up-to-date is a recipe for disaster. As a result, many business services companies have quickly realized that what they really need is a customer relationship management (CRM) tool. And the benefits of implementing a CRM are endless. In fact, according to a recent survey of Insightly business services customers, 49 percent improved the efficiency of a business process with Insightly. So what was the “aha!” moment when these Insightly customers knew they had found a tool that would change the way they did business for the better? We compiled a list of our favorites:

Guidance Aviation: With Insightly, Guidance Aviation reps have successfully used the data stored within the platform to give students more attention and highlight the benefits most likely to suit their needs. This individualized attention has resulted in consistently increasing enrollment rates for both of its programs.

Hive Business: Insightly has become the 7th member of the Hive Business team. Now, sales and marketing can manage and communicate with clients and prospects simply, quickly, and with complete transparency. The efficiency of the company’s sales process has developed from an unknown to a constantly improving figure that allows the team to have confidence that no opportunity is being left behind.

Peter Greeno Photography: Peter’s business relies heavily on referrals, which means he needs to keep each client happy and satisfied throughout the entire process. With Insightly, he can easily keep track of more conversations with potential clients, and as a result, sales have increased substantially. He’s also saving a considerable amount of time on back-end processes, allowing him to invest those resources to grow his business by investing more time into marketing for the next season.

Sandler Training: After just five months of using Insightly, the Absolute Sales Development team, a Sandler Training center based in Miami, completely overhauled its client management process. Employees were eager to use Insightly because it is easy to add new clients, and the organization benefits from having all customer data in one organized database. The intuitive nature of Insightly’s user interface makes it easy and fast for the team to navigate through contacts and sort them to identify tasks.

At Insightly, we offer a CRM used by small and mid-sized businesses from a huge variety of verticals. Learn about Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial.