No matter what business you’re in, most likely you and your office colleagues are constantly in touch with prospects, customers, vendors, and partners. And if you’re smart, you keep a database of some type in which you track all of your contacts.
The problem is – with most small businesses anyway – it stops right there. Just a database of contacts (address, phone, email, etc.) stored in MS Outlook or something similar. And usually, each employee keeps their own contact list, with no sharing of data between employee’s contact manager databases. So a common question any employee might have is “when was the last time anyone in our company dealt with this customer, and what was it about”? And of course, that’s hard to answer because each employee has their own notes in their own database.
In addition to these basic contact questions, the sales force needs access to historic sales data and other financial information (balance owed, etc.) which is usually only available in the accounting system. For example, maybe you want to do a mailing to all customers who have not purchased in the last 90 days, or perhaps you want to create a list of names and phone numbers for everyone who is more than 30 days past due on their account.
The technology solution to tracking all this information, centralizing it, and controlling access so that sensitive data is not put at risk, is referred to as a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. With CRMs, you have a complete, corporate-wide solution for tracking customer (and vendor, partner, or whatever) information in a centralized, secure, and controlled way.
For the most part, most CRM software companies target their solutions at the fortune 500 companies since the needs in those companies are so clearly evident. However, even very small businesses can benefit greatly by implementing CRM systems.
An Overview of the Legrand CRM system
Legrand Software is a company that has created the Legrand CRM system, which integrates with QuickBooks (QuickBooks Pro, Premier or Enterprise Edition - 2003 or higher) using the Legrand Accounting Link. This link manages a bi-directional transfer of information between the databases, eliminating double-entry, ensuring the consistency of contact information, and providing live access to sales histories.
Most importantly, this occurs without providing non-authorized users direct access to sensitive accounting information.
QuickBooks Accounting Link
The link allows employees in other departments (who cannot directly access QuickBooks) to view information such as customer balances, contact information, credit limit status and accounting notes from within Legrand CRM.
Legrand CRM Accounting Link updates customer information between QuickBooks and Legrand and the interface supplies various views of accounting transactions and contacts. The customer information is stored in both QuickBooks and the Legrand CRM database so that all users can view this information, even those without the optional Accounting Link module.
Legrand Accounting Link exchanges customer data with QuickBooks on a bidirectional level. This means that information can be passed from Legrand to QuickBooks and from QuickBooks to Legrand. This eliminates redundant data entry and ensures customer information is consistent between the databases.
The link allows you to create new customer records either directly in QuickBooks or in Legrand CRM. Each time you synchronize the databases, the link imports customer records from QuickBooks into Legrand CRM, and vice versa. Furthermore, the interface ensures updated customer addresses and contact details are synchronized between the CRM and QuickBooks databases.
The Accounting Link interface to QuickBooks can be executed in batch mode or it can be used to exchange data for one particular customer. Batch updates perform four operations:
- Import the latest financial data from QuickBooks into Legrand CRM for customer accounts that have already been linked;
- Scan either QuickBooks or Legrand CRM databases for accounts that do not exist in the other database, allowing the user to select which ones to transfer.
- Send/Receive address and contact detail updated for accounts that have already been linked.
- Import sales transaction into the Legrand CRM database.
Company/Account Management
Within Legrand, the “Company” view provides a quick summary of all the key information concerning a customer: address details, list of contacts at that customer, list of recent activities, appointments and tasks related to any of the contacts at that company, as well as any centrally stored documents.
Figure 1 Company View
Navigation
One of the major benefits of Legrand CRM is the easy to use, intuitive interface. Actions are indicated by blue underlined text, and all fields are actionable via the practical right click menu. All of the field labels can be renamed, enabling the personalization of the database for each user.
Figure 2 Easy-to-use interface
Activity Notes
Activity notes are generally used to record information about the customer on a case-by-case basis. Emails, phone calls, information gathered from meetings and other information can be added to activities notes. Legrand CRM allows these activity notes to be created and added to contacts and companies. A definite plus, is that these activity notes have the capacity to be linked in various places to other records. One activity note can be assigned to a customer, a marketing campaign, a sales opportunity, and a customer service issue. It also allows for the attachment of a document.
Figure 3 Activity Notes
Keyword Information
Legrand CRM has introduced the function of keywords to their companies and contacts section of the database. This highly effective means of classification means that the user can tailor the groupings to meet their needs. The option to mass assign keywords based on search criteria means that creating groups and sub-groups within the database is very easy.
Figure 4 Assigning keywords to contacts
Security and User Rights
Legrand CRM provides advanced User Rights management. In addition to providing username and password access to the database, the appointed Legrand Administrator is able to set the rights of each individual user. The user rights specification covers all sections of the database on a detailed level, and allows the selection of access examples including: Add, delete, edit, export, assign values/keywords, etc.
Optional Item Tracking Module
Item Tracking, especially when used in conjunction with the QuickBooks Accounting Link, is awesome. This module makes it possible to track of “Items” that have been sold to customers. Items can be a product or service items, depending of the relevance to the end user. Item records have many fields to store information about the product or service purchased. For example, serial numbers, purchase date, purchase price, warranty expiry date, etc. There are eight user fields which can be customized to your needs. With item tracking, you get much more than just balance information, but also exactly which products or services each customer purchased, when it was purchased, and even when it expires (if relevant).
Figure 5 Optional Item-Tracking module
Optional Customer Service Module
Available as an optional module to the PRO and CORP editions, the Customer Service module enables the tracking of customer service issues, from initial contact through to resolution. A ticket number is automatically assigned when a new customer service issue is created.
Information carried within the customer service ticket include: summary information, description and response fields. Again, for the relevance of the user, there are 5 additional modifiable data fields.
Legrand CRM automatically creates an activity record when a Customer Service issue is opened, closed, re-opened or re-assigned to another staff member.
Re-assigning a service issue to another staff member automatically triggers an email to that staff member to alert them that a service issue has been assigned to them.
Tasks, calendar events and activity notes are easily cross-linked to a Customer Service issue.
Product Evaluation and Pricing
Legrand Software makes demonstration evaluation copies of Legrand CRM to potential customers. You can download an evaluation copy from their Web site at http://www.legrandcrm.com/index.html, or you can request a disk to be mailed to you. There are three editions available (Std, Pro, and Corp), and pricing ranges from $225 to $450 per user, plus optional modules.
Conclusion
Like most available CRM packages, Legrand does all the basics and it does them well. Where Legrand excels is in the bonus features it provides with the product. From a customer management perspective, the informative viewing screen allows for users to see all aspects of the contact record on one screen: address details, individual contact details, comments, calendar events, activity notes, tasks, opportunities, customer service, accounting, and so on. The Accounting Link not only provides critical accounting summaries to sales staff, it also allows for reporting on customer purchasing history, even at the item level (if you add the Item Tracking module.
Overall, we’re very impressed with this product. If your company uses QuickBooks, and if you aren’t getting what you need out of your home-grown (or non-existent) CRM system, I highly recommend Legrand CRM.