COMPANY BACKGROUND:
This North Carolina-based marketing agency doesn’t have the longest of client lists, but the projects they create for their very select customers are huge undertakings that take months to complete. They basically become the outsourced marketing arm of their clients, handling everything from scheduling to resource management.
The Problem:
The company already has a project management system in place. Trouble is, it’s proving to be a lot more complicated and inflexible that they anticipated. It could integrate with Google Calendar, but the settings made it hard to use efficiently. They were also having trouble keeping track of any support requests sent in by customers as they didn’t have an automated tracking system for support emails.
The WORK[etc] Solution:
APP INTEGRATION
The company’s current project management solution supports syncing with Google Calendar. The problem is that it syncs everything. That all-important initial client meeting slated for 2PM on Sunday gets added to the calendar right alongside John’s dentist appointment and Karla’s lunch date with her new boyfriend. This ends up in Calendars that have become way too full and cluttered that it’s hard to actually use them for their intended purpose — to keep track of important dates.
WORK[etc] offers a similar sync feature with Google Calendar, with one big exception: it allows users to create multiple calendars and choose which ones are shared with the team and which ones remain private. You can then choose which calendars to sync, resulting in a Google Calendar that is more organized and less cluttered.
Another Calendar-based problem that the company has is that despite the integration, they have to follow a very roundabout way to add milestone dates to both Google Calendar and their current system. They first have to set the date in one then go back to the other to add a task for that milestone. In WORK[etc], all you have to do is create an event in a project for a milestone date and it’s automatically added to the system calendar, ready to be synced with Google Calendar.
SUPPORT CASES AND CLIENT INQUIRIES
When it comes to customer support, the company currently has no system that lets them easily track incoming emails about client requests, updates, and the like. Instead, they actually have someone make and upload a list of all the emails to Google Drive. Another staff member will then track the lists. Since these lists are for multiple clients, it gets a little hairy sometimes as these two staff members are the only ones who really know what’s going on.
In WORK[etc], tracking becomes easy as you can give your customers a support-specific email address that automatically adds every single email sent to it into the system as support tickets. These tickets are then automatically attached to the records of the customer who sent them in.
As with almost everything in the system, these support tickets are fully sortable, searchable, and filterable. The system adds most pertinent details — who the client is, when was the last time they contacted you, the description of their problem, and even the status of their support ticket.
Another approach is through WORK[etc]’s built-in Customer Portal. This client-facing portal lets your customers send in support tickets, access targeted knowledge base articles, view the status of their previous inquiries, and even view invoices.
ACTIVITY STREAM
The company was also in need of a way to collate all project data into one container. They have understandable concerns about just going ahead and dumping it all into one file, as they felt it would make searching for the data extremely hard.
Fortunately, WORK[etc]’s project management module has an Activity Stream that automatically keeps track of every piece of data and work that they do within the system — project notes, correspondence, budget information, timesheets, and more — yet still allows them to find whatever specific information they need by using filters and search criteria.
The Activity Stream even keeps track of everything that’s associated with any project automatically. For example, if a client emails them about changes that have to be made to their trade show marketing strategy due to slow ticket sales, that email can automatically be entered into the system and show up immediately on the Activity Stream.
Even better, search parameters and results can be saved to make the information immediately available for next time. If they want to keep track of all emails sent by the trade show organizer mentioned above, they can just run a search for his name or email address, save the results, and be able to quickly access it by adding a dedicated link to the results to the menu bar. That way, they can access the results with a single click.
Results
WORK[etc]’s intuitive and easily filterable Activity Stream works as a running record of everything the company does for a client or project. By taking advantage of the web based CRM’s features, the company will have a singular database that keeps them always abreast of what’s going on.
The same goes for their support ticket tracking issues and their concerns with messy calendars, both of which can be solved by leveraging the system’s support link or customer portal and its seamless integration with G Suite, respectively.
SUMMARY
Requirements:
To find a system that lets them track and respond easily to customer support issues, has enough scheduling flexibility to keep their calendars from becoming too messy, and is capable of holding all pertinent data regarding a project without it becoming too unwieldy to efficiently search and sort through.
Solution:
Take advantage of WORK[etc]’s support link and customer portal features, seamless G Suite integration, and its intuitive, filterable, and ubiquitous Activity Stream.
Results:
The company is better able to keep track of everything that they need to keep track of, from customer support issues and important project milestones to every single piece of data attached to any of their projects.
What this means for your Marketing Firm
Adaptability and customizability are two of the main hallmarks that make WORK[etc] stand out from the rest. It lets you see what you want, when you want, how you want quickly and easily. Find out for yourself why WORK[etc] is more than just any CRM by signing up for our free 14-day demo.
