Page 16 - DMGT308_CUSTOMER_RELATIONSHIP_MANAGEMENT

Unit 1: Introduction to Customer Relationship Management

Notes
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Caselet Not Small for Long

Firm: Hughes Accounting Services/Blissfield, Mich.
Size: Two staff
Product: Zoho CRM
Commencement Date: September 2011

On Record: Principal James Hughes
Challenge/Objective: Marketing and building a client base quickly.
Amount Spent: US $24 a month, no set-up fee.
Process: Hughes started up his firm last fall, initially focusing on write-up, basic
bookkeeping, complete tax work, tax planning, and business assessments. His main focus
is on small, growing business, and he needed to grow his client base as quickly and
efficiently as possible.
He engaged the services of a telemarketing firm, which recommended Zoho CRM — a
cloud-based system — as a link between his office and their efforts.
“I found Zoho CRM to be very intuitive; there’s nothing complicated about it,” said
Hughes. “I just sign in, it has a dashboard, and it’s a point-and-click. I don’t put in any data
and I use it to retrieve what is put in by my telemarketer.”
Hughes picks an area to target marketing efforts, runs ads in a local paper, follows up with
letters (direct mail), and then has his telemarketer follow with phone calls. He uses Zoho
to keep track of where he had positive response and then follow up with them.
Results/Lessons Learned: Through the fourth quarter of 2011, Hughes added two new
clients a month, plus four new ones in March and seven more coming in at press time. “My
biggest challenge right now is keeping up with the workflow,” he said.

Next Steps: Hughes expects to reach 50 clients by this fall, at which time he plans to look
into moving to a storefront, rather than a home office.
“The telemarketing piece of this equation is expensive, but effective, and Zoho CRM ties
in nicely,” he said. “I will likely augment what I’m currently doing with more networking
and direct mail, and then have someone put data in when we get to that point.”

Source: http://www.accountingtoday.com/ato_issues/26_5/CRM-Case-studies-BDO-Hughes-Zoho-
Dynamics-WebsterRogers-62476-1.html

Self Assessment

Fill in the blanks:

10. The data gathered as a part of CRM must consider …………………… and ……………………
11. Customers expect efficiency in …………………….
12. The theories of CRM tell us that the customers are always …………………….

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