RING! RING! PICK UP THE DAMN PHONE! PART 5 (CRM’S AND SYSTEMS)

CRM uses for NDIS providers

This week we are continuing our series on telemarketing where we will look at CRM’s for NDIS providers and why they are must in your marketing campaign.

What is a CRM I hear you ask?

CRM stands for Customer Relationship Managment. So a CRM is a system of communicating with your participants and communicating with providers you could potentially work with in the future or those you partner with now. A CRM helps to improve the relationship you have with current and potential providers as well as current and potential participants. A CRM allows you to know in a moments notice who you have previously had contact with, why you had contact with them and how that contact was made. For example a CRM shows you that you spoke with x on a particular date and time and you discussed maybe the possibility of them referring participants to you. It also shows you that x requested information and if that information was sent and how it was sent ie: via email or post or was a meeting arranged, how did that meeting occur? was it phone, Zoom or face to face? What was the outcome of that meeting? This information is important to capture so that next time you communicate with x you know exactly why you are contacting them. For example, you may notice an email was sent 3 days ago so you might call them and say “Hi x, this is y from abc, you requested some information from us on (DATE) and I noticed that we hadnt heard from you so I was giving you a quick call to see how I can be of assistance at this time”. Now if I didnt have a CRM with that information I may never hear from that person again. A CRM is important to support all departments within your business so that during the onboarding process the person who is doing the onboarding can see exactly when they began communicating with your business, why they are communicating with your business and why they are being onboarded. Without this information it is impossible to onboard a new participant and provide them the service they require and as a result of providing the service they require they keep coming back and refer others.

For those who like facts and history, the first CRM was created in the early 70’s and is what we today call Excel which, if you have no budget for a CRM, could still be used today but it can be very clunky and hard to read the more information you put into it. The first real CRM was ACT! which was first developed by Sage in 1986 and is like having a digital Rolodex (you know those old 70’s address books and card systems businesses used – showing my age). Today CRM’s include functions such as: Live Chat, Compile Data from various sources, Softphone (Online Dialer for making calls via the internet – Commonly known as VOIP), Email, and even social media management. This allows you to produce product or service specific marketing material that is customer centric.

There are countless CRM systems available today and pricing varies widely depending on functionality and budget. Some examples of CRM Systems include:

KEAP – http://keap.com

SOHO – http://zoho.com

Salesforce – http://salesforce.com

ACT! By Sage – http://act.com

Hubspot – http://hubspot.com

Agile CRM – http://agilecrm.com

Sugar CRM – http://sugarcrm.com

Freshsales – http://freshworks.com

Zapier – http://zapier.com

Pipedrive – http://pipedrive.com

Mailchimp – http://mailchimp.com

Microsoft Dynamic – https://dynamics.microsoft.com/en-au/crm/

Zendesk – https://www.zendesk.com/au/sell/crm/

Monday – http://monday.com

Insightly – http://insightly.com

MyPhoner………..and………MANY MORE! I have used ACT! but it can be expensive. Hubspot for me was very confusing to use (the free version at least). Sugar CRM and Monday are very basic and more like a handy list of contacts than a full CRM but probably why they are FREE or very cheap. Freshsales in my experience can be very expensive if you add a dialing function as they use a 3rd party dialer. Their customer service is also not very helpful or accomodating. Salesforce, Pipedrive and Insightly are all very similar and good if you need a very complex and comprehensive CRM but because it has all the features that any business in any industry would ever need it can be quiet expensive. If anyone has any other recommendations for a good CRM feel free to leave a message in the comments.

NDIS specific CRM’s you may know of or may want to check out include:

Lumary – http://lumary.com

Simple Plans – http://simpleplans.com.au

CTARS – http://ctars.com.au

Shiftcare – http://shiftcare.com

According to Nucleus Research the average ROI on a CRM is $8.71 for each dolar spent. 91% of businesses with more than 10 employees use a CRM daily. Now, I use MyPhoner which allows me to set reminders, make notes, dialout, create reports on number of calls, cost of calls, answered calls, callbacks, leads, leads lost, how long each call is, how many attempts have been made to call each lead and many more reports including daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly reports for each user. It even records all calls but just be aware of the legalities in your state around using this feature. In total I can produce about 21 different reports which show my how each prospect and each campaign in tracking as well as each user. I can also download those reports as an excel spreadsheet and email them to my clients with in minutes. I can do all this and probably much more for as little as $29 USD a month plus calls. In total every month it costs me about $250 AUD every month.

There are many features with a CRM and those features vary widely from CRM to CRM. The most import features that an NDIS provider needs in a CRM would be:

  1. A central hub for staff to be able to access information about referral partners, potential participants, current participants and past participants.
  2. Easy connection via the CRM to all marketing channels.
  3. Ability to test and measure marketing tactics then view data that allows you pivot quickly when and where needed.
  4. Help you target your marketing.

A good CRM allows you to:

  1. Know exactly who you are marketing to.
  2. Send the right content to the right person at exactly the right time. (No more spray and pray).
  3. Analys data so that you know who to target your marketing to
  4. Easily find patterns in who is interacting with you, when and how are they interacting with you. It also shows you why they are interacting with you.

All of this allows you to know who your target market is so that you can target your message to a specific participant that you have the capability to help. When you can nail this one area of marketing you will greatly improve your long term profitability. When choosing the right CRM for your business you need to think ahead and make sure that whatever CRM you choose it will meet your needs as your business grows. You may even consider a CRM that you can personally customise to your specific needs but again CRM’s that include this feature can be expensive compared to an out-of-the-box CRM that is less flexible. Prices for a CRM range from FREE with limited features to well over $100 per month per user for a customisable CRM solution.

For more information on how to run an effective telemarketing campaign got to www.hasslefreemarketing.com.au