I’m trying to come up with some new systems for my business to make everything more efficient and hopefully, less time consuming. The system I’m having the hardest time revamping is my customer records. What’s the best way to keep track of them? Keeping track of their information, keeping track of how often i should call them back, [B]keeping track of my cleaning routes?[/B] Without a system I would have a hard time keeping track of where I’m supposed to go, and who I’m supposed to call month to month, season to season, or even quarter to quarter. What do you do?
Even more, what about the people you’ve bid a job for but haven’t actually gotten the job yet, how do you file them while waiting for that call back?
Really if you could, just explain the whole process from start to finish. Getting the call, before doing the job, after doing the job, planning the routes, calling them back. Whatever is done to make sure you’re on top of who’s calling, who you’re cleaning, when you’re cleaning, where you’re cleaning and when you’ll be cleaning again.
May be a bit in depth but any information would be appreciated.
There are quite a few good solutions out there. You can search for scheduling or crm on the internet and go from there.
One piece of advice I’ll share is to keep your accounting system separate from your sales/marketing/scheduling system. As you grow, your not going to want your order taker screwing around in your accounting software.
It will be difficult to find a starter package that does everything exceptionally well, so you may end up with multiple systems at the end of the day. That’s ok as long as they ‘talk’ to each other or allow some kind of connectivity or method to synchronize your data.
I use one cloud based system for my scheduling/billing/estimates/payroll, another for email marketing, another to manage leads and opportunities, online file storage for internal documents, and then I have my good old accounting software on a standalone server.
Start with documenting your process of what happens when you answer the phone, take an order, schedule an estimate or a job, how to collect a bill, and what do with the money you collect. Having clearly defined processes will make your transition into automating your business processes much easier.
My technology bill is pretty high each month, but the systems I have in place save me on manpower and keep my entire company accessible at my fingertips…no matter if Im in the office, in the field or on vacation.
David,
You can’t beat salesforce. Its a good foundation to start from as its unbelievably configurable -but easy to use and learn. There are online and offline versions, you can customize everything, build your own objects, or add new fields to existing. Fire off business rules with any kind of variable imaginable…automate reports and fire off a series of emails to whoever you want.
The capabilities of the solution is limitless. Its got a killer API, so you can connect to existing databases and farm that metadata or update different databases in real time.
Also, its just not the inherent abilities that come with the product - its the 1000’s of applications that seamlessly plug into it. Its seriously worth checking out.
Id say the yearly cost for a full implementation for an operation the size of ACWC would run about 25k a year…maybe a little more. A deal all by itself as it could do the work of dozens of team members…perfectly and easily. Sorry…I love this solution and was rambling…but its really good and worth checking out. I’ve implemented several instances into corporations and would be happy to talk to you if you have any questions.
I also love Constant Contact for emarketing, google docs (drive).
Sure, customers records is very imported. It is better for both. Several softwares are available in market. You can record your customers purchasing or shopping.
I just replied back to your email. I CC’d in Steve from The Customer Factor who can get you all set up or answer any questions about the software. Good luck!
