customer experience – user's Blog!

May 9, 2017

Why Closed-Won is Just the Beginning of Business

Closing a big deal can be very satisfying. It’s dinner and drinks all around when the stage of the deal is changed to 100% (closed=won).

The hard work you’ve invested in prospecting, follow up, proposals, and negotiation have culminated in this highly anticipated moment. Time to sit back and relax, right?

Wrong!

In fact, for most business models, “closed-won” is not an endgame. It’s actually the first step in an ongoing customer relationship.

In this post, we’ll explore why closed-won is just the beginning. We’ll also look at technology that can help facilitate a more fruitful customer lifecycle.

Fulfillment & Delivery Must Exceed Expectations

Soon after a new customer signs on the dotted line, reality can quickly set in. By accepting the client’s business, your company stakes its stellar reputation on delivering an unbelievable (but also profitable) experience. It must walk a fine line between capacity building and providing existing clients the same personalized service that they’ve become accustomed to.

Without the right approach, the addition of new customers can actually be quite disruptive. Unfortunately, many companies are ill-prepared for the sales growth they achieve. By overemphasizing the sales funnel at the expense of downstream fulfillment and delivery, revenue growth actually detracts from the long-term value of the organization.

A more balanced approach (especially one that views sales in context of the broader customer lifecycle) can reduce the risk of overpromising while ensuring fluid on-boarding. How can your organization achieve a more “balanced” approach to sales and fulfillment? For starters, you might try fully harnessing the power of your CRM.

If you’re already an Insightly user, you may have heard that the software facilitates sales and project management. In fact, it’s even possible to convert sales opportunities to projects.

Rather than starting from scratch in a siloed project tracking system, Insightly gives your production and fulfillment teams a seamless view of each customer. The original opportunity record is automatically linked to the new project record. Emails, files, and notes can also be copied to the project. For added efficiency, Insightly activity sets can add new tasks upon project creation or conversion (for example: review customer specs, set up billing information, send a welcome packet, etc.)

By leveraging an integrated sales and fulfillment workflow, your operational team is in a much better position to effectively serve the new customer’s needs. (They’re also less likely to bug your sales reps with redundant questions!) The net result? Less busywork, expedited delivery, and another highly satisfied customer.

Measuring Satisfaction Helps You Improve Your Game

Speaking of customer satisfaction, do have a formalized process for collecting feedback?

Some companies live by the old adage, “no news is good news.” While there may be some truth to this statement, failing to ask for customer input could cause you to overlook new product or service ideas, process improvements, upsell and cross-sell opportunities, and other innovations.

Aside from waiting for customers to complain (or share their praise), what are some proactive ways to measure customer satisfaction? Here are a few simple ideas.

Design a quick survey: There are countless free and affordable survey tools online. In fact, your existing email marketing platform might natively offer polling and surveying (here’s a popular example). Regardless of the tool you select, be sure to invest adequate time and develop a simple, yet effective set of questions. Ask customers to measure various aspects of their interactions with your company. Numeric ranking questions can be particularly useful, especially when comparing the satisfaction of multiple customers. An open-ended question or two can also help you gain qualitative insights into the mind of the customer.

Create a survey distribution plan: Does it make sense to blast the entire survey to all existing customers? Or, would a batched approach make more sense? What about future customers – should you set up an autoresponder sequence that goes out a few months after an opportunity is won?

Make satisfaction data more accessible to your CRM: Insightly users have the luxury of many integrated apps. For example, the Insightly integration for the MailChimp email marketing system can display certain campaign data, making your survey results just a click or two away.

Convert Your Satisfied Customers Into Advocates

Even the largest advertising budget can pale in comparison to the value of a few vocal advocates. Customers who are willing to speak out on your behalf create untold goodwill and help other prospects understand your offering in their own terms.

As customer satisfaction starts to flow into your organization, you’ll find yourself presented with new opportunities. How can you best capitalize from glowing customer feedback? Some common approaches include:

Testimonials for Marketing Use – Would the customer allow you to publish his or her feedback on your website or on social media?
In-Depth Case Study – Would it be possible to interview the client as the subject for a whitepaper or case study?
Serve as a Reference – When future customers ask for references, would this customer be willing to speak on your behalf?
Technical Input – Would your technical or support staff gain value by picking the brains of highly satisfied customers?
Immediate Sales Opportunities – Some customers may simply be unaware of your entire suite of solutions. A follow-up email blast or direct mail piece could generate immediate revenue opportunities with existing clients.
Segmentation for Future Marketing – Even if there is no immediate opportunity, perhaps it would be prudent to tag satisfied customers for future reference.

As you might imagine, these ideas are only a starting point. Spend time reading and comparing customer feedback, and you’re sure to generate many other creative advocacy ideas.

Closed-Won is Important, But It’s Not Everything

Winning the initial contract is an important and necessary step in the future success of your business. However, as we’ve demonstrated in this article, achieving “closed-won” status isn’t everything – far from it, in fact.

By leveraging your CRM throughout the entire customer lifecycle (from initial inquiry through advocacy), you’re bound to yield much greater value from each customer and account.

And, most importantly, your customers will love you all the more!

Matt Keener is a marketing consultant and President of Keener Marketing Solutions, LLC. Matt specializes in content marketing and strategic planning, having helped numerous Saas (software as a service) companies and other small businesses worldwide. Read more of Matt’s work, check out his book, or connect with him on Linkedin.

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 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.

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.

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.