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You Can't Get There With ACT! And Outlook
Small and Medium sized businesses typically start managing client contact information in the simplest, cheapest way possible. Outlook and ACT! and common choices. This article points out how simple steps can help a small business market and sell like a Fortune 500.
Copyright (c) 2008 Craig Klein
You business is stuck in a rut with ACT! and Outlook.
There is tremendous potential locked up inside your business -
The power to grow beyond your wildest dreams. The power to take the competitive high ground away from your competitors. The power to make every day a pleasure instead of a struggle. You can unlock that power today, without busting the budget!
Where is this power? Why is it locked up? How do I unleash it?
Every single day things are changing. They’re getting faster and faster and you’re wading through more and more information.
The same thing is happening to your customers. They want answers now! They’re overloaded with information they can’t use. They need reliable partners that can give them specific, useful information quickly, on demand.
The most important message you need to know now:
If you cannot provide answers and solutions quickly enough, your customers will find someone who works at their pace.
To attract and retain customers today, you need to gear your organization to respond at lightning speed.
Remember - this same thing is happening in your customer’s business.
That’s right. Your customers’ expectations are being set not by your competitors but by their experiences in their own businesses and in their personal lives. Their customers aren’t giving them that luxury so, why should they give it to you.
Most companies that have attempted to use ACT or Outlook for contact management end up with 3 very problems:
1. The information is in each employee’s own list or database. It’s not combined into one organized list that everyone can use.
2. Technical challenges cause the information to be inconsistent and unavailable too often.
3. Employees just aren’t keeping the information in the system up to date.
Obviously, this is just not good enough.
But the real point here is that you still can’t respond instantly to any and all customer inquiry using your current system.
Good news! The solution is simple and it’s not expensive or time consuming -
You just need to have all the information in one place. …In a place that everyone on your team can access anytime, from anywhere without the hassles of maintaining all the servers and databases yourself.
Imagine!
You’re customer calls in and asks for their sales rep.
Your receptionist says “Bob’s not in right now, how can I help you?”
The customer explains their question.
The receptionist says “Well, I see that Bob’s in a meeting right now. If I can’t answer your questions, I’ll make sure Bob calls you at 1pm.”
Then the pay off - the receptionist says “I see the proposal that Bob sent you last week. What questions can I answer for you?” Your customer is getting answers immediately!
I know, it sounds expensive and difficult?
Well, this is one of those rare times where you are going to be thrilled that you’re dead wrong!
Stellar Customer Service is easier and less expensive than you think.
You don’t have to be in the Fortune 500 to build superior customer service into your business.
The big guys have the resources to do whatever they want but, their size makes it difficult in itself. Why?
From the customer’s point of view, the measure of good customer service is two fold - how fast can I get what I need and how pleasant is the experience?
The larger the organization, the more layers and departments there are. You want to keep it simple for the customer.
In a small business, there are normally a few key individuals that keep all the information in their heads.
So there’s the Catch 22… Key team members can’t stop long enough to put important facts into a database so everyone else can use that information to help customers.
What if any customer facing employee in your company could look up a comprehensive status for the client on the phone?
Good news! It’s not that hard to achieve. The truth is that the technology part of it is the easiest thing to get right. You shouldn’t expect to spend more than about $500 per employee per year - total!
A couple of dollars a day per employee to kill your competition, thrill your customers and cut the tethers that are holding your business back.
But wait a minute… Are you tired of hearing its time to spend more money on ACT! upgrades, new servers and more IT hours?
Are you ready for something that’s going to work?
If you’re ready to hear what you’ve been doing wrong and do something about it, read on…
Reason #1 that ACT! or Outlook or whatever technology you’ve tried are not working for you:
It’s not about the technology! It’s about the people and being disciplined enough to record information about each and every contact with your clients religiously.
Sure, your best sales person will tell you that it IS the technology. In fact, you may wholeheartedly believe that all this would work out perfectly if the contact management technology just worked more like you do, or was more stable and reliable.
The answer is that the brass ring that we’re reaching for here is bigger than any one person in your organization. You can grow and remain competitive if you’re not constantly improving your ability to respond to customers.
If you’re going to let individuals continue to be walking silos of information, then your organization’s capacity to meet your customers’ needs and to grow to the next level will always be limited by those individuals.
If the right people have instant, easy access to the right information, they are liberated to be proactive.
As much as anything, you have to sell your sales team and key customer facing employees on that power.
Either everyone is 100% on board because they all believe in the opportunity to take your business to an entirely new level, or not.
Reason #2 that ACT! or Outlook or whatever technology you’ve tried are not working for you:
You’re telling stories, not sharing facts.
Think about it. If you lookup the customer in your contact management system and see a 3 paragraph note describing what the customer asked about and what they were told, you can’t really use that information in real time. Its too difficult to digest.
Tip #2 - make it easy to record information quickly, in the form of simple objective facts. You want someone else to be able to look at their information and know essentially everything there is to know about that customer.
The alarm in your head is ring right now isn’t it. You’re saying “Well, of course but, I’ve got to spend a lot of time and money on a system that’s totally customized to our business”. You’re right about one part - the contact management system DOES HAVE TO BE CUSTOMIZED TO YOUR BUSINESS!
But, the good news is that you’re wrong about the time and money part!
You can do this with a little bit of thought and just about any kind of technology.
Tip #3 - What you need is a list of simple questions with simple answers that you can ask any customer get short answers.
In every business there are 5 to 10 questions that you have to have answers to before you know if a prospect is “qualified”. Some of them are obvious:
Am I talking to someone that can make the decision to spend money? Does this person have the money available? Is their need great enough to justify the expense? Which competitor are they using now? …and then it starts getting unique to your business…
Tip #4 - boil the potential answers down to simple facts. Envision a call sheet that your sales reps might bring with them on paper when meeting with prospects.
It only takes one or two experiences in which a sales rep looks up someone they haven’t spoken to recently and sees all this vital information staring them in the face in an easily understandable form. They’re hooked. Now they’re invested in making it work!
Tip #5 - start recording proposals, contracts, agreements, etc. in the contact management system so everyone can get to them immediately.
The way forward is becoming clear now I hope.
Reason #3 that ACT! or Outlook or whatever technology you’ve tried are not working for you:
It’s not instantly available to the right people at the right times in the right places. Information must be all in one place, available whereever you are.
Tip #6 - It has to be “brain dead simple” to use the system and it has to work reliably. If it’s not real easy, your team will blame things on the technology.
Getting your staff members on board and motivated to share information is the key. You’re team will play ball if you make them part of the process of defining what to capture and how!