True story advertising agency from the provinces: ups, downs and the introduction of CRM
“I am CIO, CTO, Swedish, reaper and dude igrets in a small advertising agency in the top 85 region of Russia. At first glance, all these printing, concept and application are terribly far from Habr. However, it is not. Complex machines, business automation, CRM, warehouse - an incomplete list of the simplest IT infrastructure. And almost every company with Habra and the company where every reader of Habra works, are served in some advertising agency. I was given a word on Habré and I will tell about my experience, about automation, and most importantly, I lobby my interest and write how to communicate with RA so that it does not hurt painfully for the money spent on its services. In general, this is a cool story about sore from a simple representative of a small business. Read me, I wrote this on January 5, 6 and 7, being in a sober mind and solid memory. ”
Our RegionSoft CRM development team does not often disclose client cases — more often we describe only some of the details, which we designate as impersonal inserts- “life stories”. There is a good reason for this: we don’t have the right to disclose the details of the most large-scale and interesting implementations, in other cases clients are not ready to write cases with us, and without their participation, this is pure advertising. However, we were looking for an opportunity to tell about the implementation from the client and, of course, we found it. This is more than reviews on RegionSoft CRM 7.0. We were supported by one of the leaders of a small but very interesting regional advertising agency, more precisely, a creative association. He spent part of the New Year's holiday and told his story.
This advertising agency in one of the regions of Russia, it is engaged in the development of advertising concepts and the production of printing and souvenir products (in fact, a full-cycle agency). RegionSoft CRM was introduced in early 2016, data is partially migrated automatically, partly manually. The editorial board was the RegionSoft CRM Enterprise Plus , because the Production module was needed. The cost of implementation by agreement with the client is a commercial secret, 19 licenses were supplied.
Hi, Habr! I, being a sysadmin, read a lot of you, but never wrote. And finally, I can tell you about sore, about automation and even about the pit in which the regional advertising. RegionSoft and I didn’t have any plans for fasting and cheat sheets, and the guys did exactly two things: corrected errors in my text and removed information about competitors (good principles!). I apologize in advance for some pessimism, but to be honest, so honestly (all the more, a certain anonymity still remains).
When many years ago we decided to create an advertising agency with a partner, we were led by exactly two things: the book “Generation pi” and the thirst for money. We saw ourselves as the future of BBDO and were already scratching our hands in anticipation of Effie or the Silver Archer, at worst. However, a bad end did not happen, a complete SC occurred: nobody wanted our creativity, there were very few examples of work, there was no money for advertising at all. It was a shame to close the case, not having time to open it. Needed customers. We went to the city forum in the section of advertising and marketing - at that time it consisted of 99% of requests like “and who will make 500 banners”, “and where to print 100 T-shirts”, “and who will come up with a slogan” ... (Explanation for young readers : in 2007-2010, city forums continued to be something of a social network, with thematic sections, communities, closed chats, etc. And there it was possible to find a car, a brigade, a party, an order and a bunch of trolls). In general, we were taken for everything: we wrote texts, painted designs and logos, processed photos and made videoson the knee in cracked programs (now all licensed). We ordered printing and production from a friendly company, and saved up on the first machine for printing flyers and small prospectuses. Both worked as sysadmins at an outsource - well, those who “puddle, solder, fix computers”.
After a year of poking around the forums, word of mouth started to work - companies began to come to us on the recommendation of our first clients. We cut through this business and quickly stimulated: for each given client we gave a 5% discount on the next order. On average, it was 5-15% and there was a growth in the customer base. Now this is called a referral program, but then we had this: "Let's make a website" - "Fuck this website, so it will lead."
We sat down, looked over the order history, counted the money and decided:
At that time, the most profitable for us were the texts and slogans (a bit of time, mental strength and zero consumables), and the most expensive were brochures and leaflets that we had to bind, glue and pamphlet on an outsourcing (pay for it). But the competition was not particularly high, we endured.
The rest of the troubles of the printing life of one small company is clearly not for Habr, so immediately to the results: for 2014 (important for us because of the loss of a number of suppliers) we were 15, revenue was 20 million rubles. per year (this is very small for RA), but a steady stream of orders and its own fleet of printing equipment, incl. for T-shirts, mugs and so on. drawing. We made a basic, dumb website, got into social networks, got salespeople on cold and warm calls, launched campaigns in Direct. But in general we are small: in the classic textbooks on advertising, a small agency considers that one whose turnover is less than 20 million dollars a year. Based on this metric, we are an almost non-existent agency.
Here I will stop again and tell you about which promotion channels are working and that these social networks of yours are stupid draining of money. This is an important digression both from the point of view of sales experience and practice, and from the point of view of introducing a CRM system.
Since I’m anonymous and frank, I’ll tell you another secret. Sadly, the advertising agencies themselves in terms of promotion and advertising is a shoemaker without shoes. For example, we don’t have an advertiser or a marketer in the agency, these tasks are laid down on me - in fact, an engineer. Advertising in the regions is not just lies, it is deeply buried and it needs to be resurrected: mediocre video products and creepy visuals, rare successful projects. In general, here one number clearly shows the state of regional advertising. And it is still very creative, I would say - if, if, if only, if:
At this point I finish whining (see - not in vain) about the fate of the advertising market in a small region and turn to why we went to the introduction of a CRM system and how we made bumps.
So, we stopped walking with outstretched hands on forums and acquaintances, there were a lot of customers. How was our account organized?
Direct, direct sales, cold calls, advertising in business magazines, hunting for clients in forums, in social networks - our everyday life in terms of attracting customers. In general, it is even embarrassing to write about yourself on Habré - our business is deeply utilitarian, not glamorous and looks worse than any IT company. So, as I said, advertising agencies are truly tech stories. If they are not technological, they are doomed to death.
We put some free versions of project management systems, but this did not greatly change the situation. However, it was thanks to them that we realized that the Gantt chart is not quite what we lack. Beautiful, of course, but not that. So we need a CRM!
We chose our first CRM from the top 3 advertising issue, it was well-known, and two employees once even worked with it and said that everything was simple there. Simplicity, implementation in 30 minutes (according to the seller), no training for you and almost no settings - then we thought that these were the only requirements for the CRM system. And the vendor was in no hurry to dissuade us, but on the contrary he urged in the spirit: “Everything will work itself”. Bought (more precisely, subscribed to 17 people) and drove. I mean, they started dragging data from Excel by hand, because we were told that our tables were very non-standard. Voooot.
In general, after six months of use, we realized a bunch of important truths. Attention, I throw out a bunch of my banal finds on your sophisticated heads, don't judge strictly!
In general, everything rested on money. In a month we paid about 20,000, plus there was a one-time payment of 7,000 (I will not say why, otherwise you will guess my first system, and they won't let me on the blog). Total for 14 months, we flew 287,000 rubles. It seems not so much, but the effect on a quarter million with a tail did not pull, and then it was necessary to continue paying. We refused to use CRM. And, as it seemed to us, we can without it. Outlook and Excel are back from the link again.
Our task was to do everything so that our customers didn’t hear what was going on, which we meanly save on managing our client base.
The number of customers grew, and we were depressed. Try to take a lot of tennis balls in your hands and carry them in your hands - sooner or later a part will jump out, swept along the arms, a part will fall, a part will freely hang in between elbows and wrists. Ultimately, you will be forced to open your palms with three balls in each to create something like a basket from your hands. In the end, you will catch only the remaining 5-7 balls, but they will be caught not very conveniently. Submitted? This very accurately describes what happened with our client base. There were fakapy: delay, broken deadlines, forgotten calls and meetings, lost letters, forgotten tasks. We felt the hot breath of the next animal:
So, as I said, after our first experience with CRM, we decided that we would not have CRM - we will be overwhelmed. But the feeling of grief scattered balls did not leave us. We decided to gobble up the cactus again and began to look for CRM - no longer simple and enthusiastic, but with suspicious squint and impudent demands. About RegionSoft CRMI read VKontakte in the public of VKontakte, then I went to the blog and “persuaded” - I was bribed by the honest nature of the posts without promises to give the button “Make it hurt”. In actual fact, communication with the guys was also different from the sweet temptation last time - the saleswomen communicated nicely, the presentation was professional and interesting, but the engineers were very precise and pedantic, but they were harsh in communication. To whom both, and I liked it - I know on my own skin that the gloomy, wise-experienced surgeon is better than the enthusiastic intern.
Honestly, at first I had a slight panic - the RegionSoft CRM interface was very different from everything I saw before. This is an ascetic, harsh design of the workplace, without ruches, buns and flashing assistants: each button, row and cell (or whatever it is called) are intended for business, not for aesthetic pleasure. I showed my demo version, they poked around for a few days and ... unanimously approved, but not because it was beautiful, but because they told that everyone found their own: the logistics man was happy with the warehouse module, the managers — with a three-week planner and customer card : from letters and documents to business processes, everyone was pleased with printed forms of primary organizations and contract templates and KP.
The guys from RegionSoft did us a pre-sale audit, which cost us 15,000 rubles. The audit resulted in a recommendation to change our operational accounting model, to which we almost immediately agreed. We were offered in the operational work related to the processing of transactions to move to the project method, and in terms of automation tools to use project management in RegionSoft CRM. Honestly, before that we used the standard sales principles, the management was based on an Excel table in the context of paid bills. The transition to the proposed model allowed us to think in a project-based way: take into account all revenues and costs, personnel involved in the project and contractors, payroll, tasks, history, documents and business processes — all within a specific transaction.
In general, it was necessary to begin to be friends with this huge new system. Well, a small spoon of tar for the tops - you had to buy the maximum version (then it was RegionSoft CRM 6.0 Enterprise Plus), and it was the most expensive. However, 19 licenses cost us a little cheaper than we paid for 14 months of leasing the old CRM, but you need to pay for these licenses once and everything, and not every month. So the spoon of tar was neutralized.
Then there was the usual boring introduction, nothing fun, so for the seed I will tell you about the results of the implementation, and then proceed to the tips - about CRM-systems and not only. Be patient, it is unlikely that some other advertising agency will so frankly tell on Habré how to work with him :-)
So the facts. Complaints reduced by 27%, customer base stability increased by 70%, revenue growth in the first year of life with RegionSoft CRM by 65% (we learned to maintain the base and work with it), in the second year - by 17%, in 2018 it is very pre-growth of 9%. We felt that now our agency is not a randomly selected contractor, but a normal company with a pool of clients. At the end of 2018, we served about 250 clients and we are confident that there will be orders for gender holidays from them and the majority will return at the end of 2019. This is our client base, this is predictability. That's cool. In 2019, we will look for growth points already within our customer base, because market demand is rather limited, and we have gathered our customers ...
Cats from Yandeks.Kartinok
I'll start with the main thing. If you talk pathetically and with tears in your eyes, the main thing in business is customers. Speaking anonymously and honestly, do not trust anyone - the main thing in business is money. For the sake of money, all these stories about loyalty, customer experience and other amenities. No, well, it's fair: it's nice to give money to a pleasant company for cool services. We, too, then give this money to someone for other cool services and things. Capitalism, exchange, capital - everything, as taught by the best theorists of communism and Adam Smith. CRM helps manage customer relationships, and therefore earn more money.
So, like any tool, a CRM system is not a story about savings, it is a story about optimization. (You are not looking for a screwdriver for free?) That is, it is a clean investment in a business: you invest money in an asset, start using this asset and receive capital gains in a mediated manner. The “use asset” component is a key one, the CRM system itself does not sell, does not call, does not score, and generally hangs in the browser or tray and doesn’t shine - the maximum is sending notifications. Therefore, you need to work with the system.
Of course, when introducing CRM (and any automation system!), There are concerns, and we also experienced them. Some of them are completely unfounded, some have a rational grain.
The implemented RegionSoft CRM solution had a huge impact on business. I will enumerate what we got, having worked with this system for 2 years (note - now we have upgraded to RegionSoft CRM 7.0 , for a fee, since the new release).
Getting customers back was incredibly hard. The demand for our services is of a seasonal, wave nature. Forget some customer as you are not putting. In CRM, we see the entire history of relations with a client, no matter how long ago he did not communicate with us, and this gives a wow effect. Compare: “Hello, Oleg Vladimirovich, this is NULL agency, we have new printing possibilities” and “Hello, Oleg Vladimirovich, this is again NULL agency, in 2017 you ordered booklets for the Great Rivers exhibition in 2017. How did the visitors disassemble them? ”And then the dialogue, as with an old friend, including about new printing possibilities and even a super batch of domestic T-shirts for application. Works!
Or another example: when an incoming call from a client is received, the call is automatically transferred to the curator of this client, and on the manager's desktop, the “Incoming call. Client: Remstroy. Contact person: Smirnov Alexey Viktorovich ". And as a greeting, our manager says: “Alexey Viktorovich, hello!”. It works exactly like this now !!!
We have professionally expanded our capabilities. Moreover, it was not a one-time act, it is the constant development work of our CRM together with our company.
We began to allow ourselves to work with individuals - by the New Year and summer, the demand for t-shirts and various hobby prints is growing. Previously, for us, these were orders that we inevitably lost and forgotten, often the clients themselves did not get in touch and we were left alone with their orders. In our CRM-system there is an opportunity to keep a card of an individual, which we successfully do, and at the same time we store several contacts at once to ensure that we find a customer and deliver an order.
Unnoticed by ourselves, we clearly distributed our functions. In the articles on CRM, I often met the wording "if you automate a mess, you get an automated mess," but I agree with it only in part. For example, we reworked only part of our core processes. The most important thing is that they began to lead new projects and production, and the rest were used as they were used to (how it got), but at the same time they actively used CRM as a data warehouse and operational tool. Still, things went much more orderly and more coordinated than before. We will gradually introduce the rest of the business processes, we have formed a new vision of their organization.
We have user stories that provide the basis for promoting agency services and for internal purposes. This is an important marketing acquisition, where you can track the entire customer history, use it, train new ones, etc. Some of the stories we bring to the knowledge base as precedents (it also exists in the CRM system, a simple repository of records with a text editor, we have enough with our head).
CRM is needed not only and not so much big as small - in order to survive, unlock potential, find time for development and save each client, because for all of us - from IP to Google - customers, users, subscribers - the most valuable resource. And if you save every element of this resource, you have a future. Here I want to explain a little that there is customer relationship management, and there is work with them. This is a very big difference. And you can feel it only after working in the CRM system: relationship management is the process of complete immersion in the “you are the client” bundle; within this process you have the maximum of the necessary information and operate it. But working with clients most often: attracted - sold - forgot.
We make commercials for local television and banners for outdoor placement (we print on the side, but we organize the work ourselves, including delivery). It is logical that we can do and expensive service - media planning for the air and street placement. We could not think that for this there is adequate automation and have already begun to design the necessary tables in Excel.
However, it turned out that in RegionSoft CRM 7.0 Media appeared the functionality of media planning, not only for airs, but also for street advertising. We looked at the media block at a time when it’s too early to talk about the details. But I am glad that you will not have to drag everything that has been gained into some kind of new system. If necessary, the migration will turn out to be really seamless.
But, of course, just as the merits of our first CRM were, so are the drawbacks of the one we use now.
But these details did not affect the result and did not spoil the impression.
So, the epic with CRM is over and we are now satisfied users, but since I seized upon Habr, we must take everything from life.
I want to appeal to everyone who works with advertising agencies. Often, an advertising agency is treated like some kind of contractor like a cleaning company: “Here's a layout for you, bring us super printing and three hundred T-shirts, according to terms, just yesterday. What do you mean, you can not do? Pfff Like you, full market. And skidochku? What does it mean, our picture in JPEG is shit? This is not a picture, but a layout! And what, that the size of 200 x 200 pixels, is it not visible? ”Do not be so.
I will tell you right away - an external agency differs from your advertising and PR department in that it is not engaged, is not afraid of your general and his retinue, and therefore is ready in advertising not to praise dignity, but to prepare meaningful messages based on an analysis of the audience. Therefore, the agency is good, and the permanent is even better.
And most importantly, remain human, because we are all human.
Vooooot ... He spoke like that, he said it all at once. In short, guys, automation is good, but this is money and this is a huge internal work. Only then will the result you are waiting for. CRM-system makes life easier, reduces the number of security problems, frees up heads for more creative work and more detailed communication with customers, etc. With her - calmer or something. Choose a CRM-system for yourself, do not look at the brands and visual design, this does not mean absolutely nothing. And also respect your contractors, appreciate good advertising agencies - in our time, such a partnership is an unequivocal value.
PS: thanks to the RegionalSoft team for the word provided!
Our RegionSoft CRM development team does not often disclose client cases — more often we describe only some of the details, which we designate as impersonal inserts- “life stories”. There is a good reason for this: we don’t have the right to disclose the details of the most large-scale and interesting implementations, in other cases clients are not ready to write cases with us, and without their participation, this is pure advertising. However, we were looking for an opportunity to tell about the implementation from the client and, of course, we found it. This is more than reviews on RegionSoft CRM 7.0. We were supported by one of the leaders of a small but very interesting regional advertising agency, more precisely, a creative association. He spent part of the New Year's holiday and told his story.
This advertising agency in one of the regions of Russia, it is engaged in the development of advertising concepts and the production of printing and souvenir products (in fact, a full-cycle agency). RegionSoft CRM was introduced in early 2016, data is partially migrated automatically, partly manually. The editorial board was the RegionSoft CRM Enterprise Plus , because the Production module was needed. The cost of implementation by agreement with the client is a commercial secret, 19 licenses were supplied.
So a word to our friend.
Hi, Habr! I, being a sysadmin, read a lot of you, but never wrote. And finally, I can tell you about sore, about automation and even about the pit in which the regional advertising. RegionSoft and I didn’t have any plans for fasting and cheat sheets, and the guys did exactly two things: corrected errors in my text and removed information about competitors (good principles!). I apologize in advance for some pessimism, but to be honest, so honestly (all the more, a certain anonymity still remains).
A regional advertising agency is service and pain.
When many years ago we decided to create an advertising agency with a partner, we were led by exactly two things: the book “Generation pi” and the thirst for money. We saw ourselves as the future of BBDO and were already scratching our hands in anticipation of Effie or the Silver Archer, at worst. However, a bad end did not happen, a complete SC occurred: nobody wanted our creativity, there were very few examples of work, there was no money for advertising at all. It was a shame to close the case, not having time to open it. Needed customers. We went to the city forum in the section of advertising and marketing - at that time it consisted of 99% of requests like “and who will make 500 banners”, “and where to print 100 T-shirts”, “and who will come up with a slogan” ... (Explanation for young readers : in 2007-2010, city forums continued to be something of a social network, with thematic sections, communities, closed chats, etc. And there it was possible to find a car, a brigade, a party, an order and a bunch of trolls). In general, we were taken for everything: we wrote texts, painted designs and logos, processed photos and made videos
After a year of poking around the forums, word of mouth started to work - companies began to come to us on the recommendation of our first clients. We cut through this business and quickly stimulated: for each given client we gave a 5% discount on the next order. On average, it was 5-15% and there was a growth in the customer base. Now this is called a referral program, but then we had this: "Let's make a website" - "Fuck this website, so it will lead."
We sat down, looked over the order history, counted the money and decided:
- We focus on texts, print ads and short videos, and the souvenir is only for old customers. We were already three, under the video, we could highlight the whole hands. And yes, we had a wonderful accountant girl at an outsourcing, which for 10,000 rubles. per month kept our simple accounting.
- We buy a used sheet offset machine for 2 100 thousand rubles, paper, several cutters, we start a printer - a total of 3 million with a penny and another employee.
- We say goodbye to part-time work and plow on creatives.
At that time, the most profitable for us were the texts and slogans (a bit of time, mental strength and zero consumables), and the most expensive were brochures and leaflets that we had to bind, glue and pamphlet on an outsourcing (pay for it). But the competition was not particularly high, we endured.
The rest of the troubles of the printing life of one small company is clearly not for Habr, so immediately to the results: for 2014 (important for us because of the loss of a number of suppliers) we were 15, revenue was 20 million rubles. per year (this is very small for RA), but a steady stream of orders and its own fleet of printing equipment, incl. for T-shirts, mugs and so on. drawing. We made a basic, dumb website, got into social networks, got salespeople on cold and warm calls, launched campaigns in Direct. But in general we are small: in the classic textbooks on advertising, a small agency considers that one whose turnover is less than 20 million dollars a year. Based on this metric, we are an almost non-existent agency.
Here I will stop again and tell you about which promotion channels are working and that these social networks of yours are stupid draining of money. This is an important digression both from the point of view of sales experience and practice, and from the point of view of introducing a CRM system.
- Forum and word of mouth continue to bring warm customers, because HR and advertisers (and these are the main customer groups) discuss with each other who makes the best options for souvenirs, flyers and prospectuses (by the way, many need it for industry conferences).
- Social networks do not work - very, very. The maximum that can be squeezed out there is on a lazy day to walk through the profile groups and answer in the comments, where they ask about the contractors for their tasks.
- Oddly enough, Yandex.Direct does not work well: there are a lot of untargeted audiences, market analysts and monitoring competitors coming through the ads.
- Cold calls work perfectly - companies in the midst of pre-holiday training really need operational guys with acceptable quality and a reverent approach to deadlines. And here on the background of failures and inflated prices, they also come themselves.
- Truly creative projects (which are about the marketing mix, a good budget, an interesting product, with videos for more than 15 seconds) come from completely different sources: from “Vasily advised” to “saw your signature on YouTube, I want you to work. " And this is our favorite part of the work, but, alas, in the regions they do not really need creative concepts. Comprehensive advertisements prefer alyapistye formats in elevators, CRM-kam - some free "Excel type". In general, if it is short, while the world has outgrown the books of Ogilvy, the depth of Russia has not reached them yet.
Since I’m anonymous and frank, I’ll tell you another secret. Sadly, the advertising agencies themselves in terms of promotion and advertising is a shoemaker without shoes. For example, we don’t have an advertiser or a marketer in the agency, these tasks are laid down on me - in fact, an engineer. Advertising in the regions is not just lies, it is deeply buried and it needs to be resurrected: mediocre video products and creepy visuals, rare successful projects. In general, here one number clearly shows the state of regional advertising. And it is still very creative, I would say - if, if, if only, if:
At this point I finish whining (see - not in vain) about the fate of the advertising market in a small region and turn to why we went to the introduction of a CRM system and how we made bumps.
CRM Essentials
Chief, usyo was gone
So, we stopped walking with outstretched hands on forums and acquaintances, there were a lot of customers. How was our account organized?
- We used an Excel file with a bunch of formulas and sheets. In general, it was a fairly overloaded file, and working in it was not very convenient and, most importantly, unsafe - at any time an employee could mess up and deliver a lot of unpleasant moments. Excel backed up, the common file lay on the corporate ball.
- We had difficulties with the storage of documents, we spent a lot of time on the formation of the whole primary organization, and in RA these were invoices, bills, invoices, acts, etc. There was no question of painlessly forming contracts and commercial proposals. All the paperwork lay on the sales managers and the accountant, it was stressful.
- There were difficulties in recognizing customers - if a person did not say that he ordered booklets from us a hundred years ago, we didn’t remember him, which means the loyalty program went through the forest.
- The main problem was ... communication within the company. The RA, although tiny, has several rooms: an office, a prepress department, a printing house (workshop). Plus, managers take orders to outsourced contractors. E-mail was the best way to communicate, then we tried Slack, Telegram, Skype. Our letters looked like RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: Final_optional_prospect_OOOO_Vintik_v.43 , and it was worth losing one letter, the chain was confused.
Direct, direct sales, cold calls, advertising in business magazines, hunting for clients in forums, in social networks - our everyday life in terms of attracting customers. In general, it is even embarrassing to write about yourself on Habré - our business is deeply utilitarian, not glamorous and looks worse than any IT company. So, as I said, advertising agencies are truly tech stories. If they are not technological, they are doomed to death.
We put some free versions of project management systems, but this did not greatly change the situation. However, it was thanks to them that we realized that the Gantt chart is not quite what we lack. Beautiful, of course, but not that. So we need a CRM!
My ex, whom I will not call
We chose our first CRM from the top 3 advertising issue, it was well-known, and two employees once even worked with it and said that everything was simple there. Simplicity, implementation in 30 minutes (according to the seller), no training for you and almost no settings - then we thought that these were the only requirements for the CRM system. And the vendor was in no hurry to dissuade us, but on the contrary he urged in the spirit: “Everything will work itself”. Bought (more precisely, subscribed to 17 people) and drove. I mean, they started dragging data from Excel by hand, because we were told that our tables were very non-standard. Voooot.
In general, after six months of use, we realized a bunch of important truths. Attention, I throw out a bunch of my banal finds on your sophisticated heads, don't judge strictly!
- CRM without implementation, training and internal CRM guru - bullshit. And this takes time, and within the company.
- CRM makes life easier, and we felt the advantages of working with telephony, began to recognize customers, collect analytics, see the funnel and our bottlenecks.
- In our CRM there was no primary organization and we continued to have sex with all the documents, KP, TK and contracts.
- Addons (plug-ins, applications - as close as possible) such as mail, mailings, telephony were paid. The guys from Regionsoft told me that my “former” business is better now in this regard, and this progress, of course, is happy for the users.
- Every sneeze and contacting technical support were paid, and we sneezed a lot, especially considering the heap of settings for different departments and putting this into a single org. structure.
- It may seem funny, but we lacked a normal, high-quality calendar of tasks - it was beautiful, but not powerful.
- But we had a plus, which we are proud of - all managers were willing to work with CRM, to understand and delve into. They say it happens not at all. This is all because we are a
pandagang.
In general, everything rested on money. In a month we paid about 20,000, plus there was a one-time payment of 7,000 (I will not say why, otherwise you will guess my first system, and they won't let me on the blog). Total for 14 months, we flew 287,000 rubles. It seems not so much, but the effect on a quarter million with a tail did not pull, and then it was necessary to continue paying. We refused to use CRM. And, as it seemed to us, we can without it. Outlook and Excel are back from the link again.
Our task was to do everything so that our customers didn’t hear what was going on, which we meanly save on managing our client base.
Theory of Tennis Balls
The number of customers grew, and we were depressed. Try to take a lot of tennis balls in your hands and carry them in your hands - sooner or later a part will jump out, swept along the arms, a part will fall, a part will freely hang in between elbows and wrists. Ultimately, you will be forced to open your palms with three balls in each to create something like a basket from your hands. In the end, you will catch only the remaining 5-7 balls, but they will be caught not very conveniently. Submitted? This very accurately describes what happened with our client base. There were fakapy: delay, broken deadlines, forgotten calls and meetings, lost letters, forgotten tasks. We felt the hot breath of the next animal:
Severe vendor
So, as I said, after our first experience with CRM, we decided that we would not have CRM - we will be overwhelmed. But the feeling of grief scattered balls did not leave us. We decided to gobble up the cactus again and began to look for CRM - no longer simple and enthusiastic, but with suspicious squint and impudent demands. About RegionSoft CRMI read VKontakte in the public of VKontakte, then I went to the blog and “persuaded” - I was bribed by the honest nature of the posts without promises to give the button “Make it hurt”. In actual fact, communication with the guys was also different from the sweet temptation last time - the saleswomen communicated nicely, the presentation was professional and interesting, but the engineers were very precise and pedantic, but they were harsh in communication. To whom both, and I liked it - I know on my own skin that the gloomy, wise-experienced surgeon is better than the enthusiastic intern.
Honestly, at first I had a slight panic - the RegionSoft CRM interface was very different from everything I saw before. This is an ascetic, harsh design of the workplace, without ruches, buns and flashing assistants: each button, row and cell (or whatever it is called) are intended for business, not for aesthetic pleasure. I showed my demo version, they poked around for a few days and ... unanimously approved, but not because it was beautiful, but because they told that everyone found their own: the logistics man was happy with the warehouse module, the managers — with a three-week planner and customer card : from letters and documents to business processes, everyone was pleased with printed forms of primary organizations and contract templates and KP.
The guys from RegionSoft did us a pre-sale audit, which cost us 15,000 rubles. The audit resulted in a recommendation to change our operational accounting model, to which we almost immediately agreed. We were offered in the operational work related to the processing of transactions to move to the project method, and in terms of automation tools to use project management in RegionSoft CRM. Honestly, before that we used the standard sales principles, the management was based on an Excel table in the context of paid bills. The transition to the proposed model allowed us to think in a project-based way: take into account all revenues and costs, personnel involved in the project and contractors, payroll, tasks, history, documents and business processes — all within a specific transaction.
In general, it was necessary to begin to be friends with this huge new system. Well, a small spoon of tar for the tops - you had to buy the maximum version (then it was RegionSoft CRM 6.0 Enterprise Plus), and it was the most expensive. However, 19 licenses cost us a little cheaper than we paid for 14 months of leasing the old CRM, but you need to pay for these licenses once and everything, and not every month. So the spoon of tar was neutralized.
Then there was the usual boring introduction, nothing fun, so for the seed I will tell you about the results of the implementation, and then proceed to the tips - about CRM-systems and not only. Be patient, it is unlikely that some other advertising agency will so frankly tell on Habré how to work with him :-)
So the facts. Complaints reduced by 27%, customer base stability increased by 70%, revenue growth in the first year of life with RegionSoft CRM by 65% (we learned to maintain the base and work with it), in the second year - by 17%, in 2018 it is very pre-growth of 9%. We felt that now our agency is not a randomly selected contractor, but a normal company with a pool of clients. At the end of 2018, we served about 250 clients and we are confident that there will be orders for gender holidays from them and the majority will return at the end of 2019. This is our client base, this is predictability. That's cool. In 2019, we will look for growth points already within our customer base, because market demand is rather limited, and we have gathered our customers ...
And now the arguments
Cats from Yandeks.Kartinok
I'll start with the main thing. If you talk pathetically and with tears in your eyes, the main thing in business is customers. Speaking anonymously and honestly, do not trust anyone - the main thing in business is money. For the sake of money, all these stories about loyalty, customer experience and other amenities. No, well, it's fair: it's nice to give money to a pleasant company for cool services. We, too, then give this money to someone for other cool services and things. Capitalism, exchange, capital - everything, as taught by the best theorists of communism and Adam Smith. CRM helps manage customer relationships, and therefore earn more money.
So, like any tool, a CRM system is not a story about savings, it is a story about optimization. (You are not looking for a screwdriver for free?) That is, it is a clean investment in a business: you invest money in an asset, start using this asset and receive capital gains in a mediated manner. The “use asset” component is a key one, the CRM system itself does not sell, does not call, does not score, and generally hangs in the browser or tray and doesn’t shine - the maximum is sending notifications. Therefore, you need to work with the system.
Of course, when introducing CRM (and any automation system!), There are concerns, and we also experienced them. Some of them are completely unfounded, some have a rational grain.
- [Rationally] Users believe that this is a monitoring mechanism, a tool imposed by management against their will. No, but if you have such a feeling, then the management is doing something wrong. Therefore, the introduction should not be lowered from above, but a common cause.
- [Nonsense] Users find that using CRM makes it harder for them to work. With proper preparation and training there are no problems.
- [Stupidity] CRM functionality is not relevant to the process. No comment: CRMs are created for business, based on business experience and, by definition, cannot be outside the processes in a company.
- [Rationally] There are other important information and data that exists outside of CRM, and not inside, which forces users to look into other resources, and this kills time. Yes, of course, all data cannot be in one system - if there are any overlapping arrays, you need to either configure the integration, or process both arrays in a convenient tool. But this problem is far from being for all companies.
The implemented RegionSoft CRM solution had a huge impact on business. I will enumerate what we got, having worked with this system for 2 years (note - now we have upgraded to RegionSoft CRM 7.0 , for a fee, since the new release).
Getting customers back was incredibly hard. The demand for our services is of a seasonal, wave nature. Forget some customer as you are not putting. In CRM, we see the entire history of relations with a client, no matter how long ago he did not communicate with us, and this gives a wow effect. Compare: “Hello, Oleg Vladimirovich, this is NULL agency, we have new printing possibilities” and “Hello, Oleg Vladimirovich, this is again NULL agency, in 2017 you ordered booklets for the Great Rivers exhibition in 2017. How did the visitors disassemble them? ”And then the dialogue, as with an old friend, including about new printing possibilities and even a super batch of domestic T-shirts for application. Works!
Or another example: when an incoming call from a client is received, the call is automatically transferred to the curator of this client, and on the manager's desktop, the “Incoming call. Client: Remstroy. Contact person: Smirnov Alexey Viktorovich ". And as a greeting, our manager says: “Alexey Viktorovich, hello!”. It works exactly like this now !!!
We have professionally expanded our capabilities. Moreover, it was not a one-time act, it is the constant development work of our CRM together with our company.
- System approach - we see the state of affairs in all divisions, manage warehouses, replenish stocks of consumables in time, analyze sales, conduct client incidents and tickets right in CRM.
- Scaling - in an advertising agency is generally a hell of a story. I bought a machine - I hired people, a sea of nomenclature and new consumables appeared. New Year - expanded pool of remotes and contractors, not new year - narrowed this pool. And constantly need to scale for employees and assets. In CRM, this process goes unnoticed, but we buy the necessary licenses as we grow.
- Data storage. Although we are small, but terribly proud, we therefore respect our work and data on transactions, customers, products, etc. for us is gold. RegionSoft CRM can store data and even secrets (using the mechanism of private clients). Access to information is fast, even if you trickle up the filters - it’s true, we don’t have as many records as any super-holding, but we don’t pretend.
- Business processes. In short, before meeting with the severe RegionSoft team, I did not know anything about business processes - and from where, a simple guy, a polytechnic finish, we didn’t finish Plekhanov. In general, these are such flowcharts with links, but without mind-blowing data types. I threw up the stages, set up the dates and those responsible, prescribed nuances like the formation of documents, sending letters and reminders - and voila, everything goes according to plan. No, well, of course, this is not so easy, and we had to tinker with the revision of processes with our complex production, then drawing on paper, editing, setting up in the process editor, but the result is worth it!
- Production is a very important module for us, just arch. Therefore, the automation of relations between the office and the production, production and warehouse became for us a breath of air and a salvation from the monthly bunch of packs.
- KPI. Key performance indicators - bread advertising agency employees. In RegionSoft CRM there are a lot of possibilities in terms of customizing KPI, we were able to realize our wildest fantasies. I was sure that we would not be able to make a very non-standard KPI indicator related to the sales funnel, when for each employee of the sales department his personal customer dump is considered during the transition between the stages of the funnel. But I was wrong. Have done and works.
- It is very important to work in a single interface - no need to rush from window to window, from system to system, all for one tab on the desktop. The whole office was opened there, the mail client, telephony, processes running (in a good sense of the word), and coordination ... The only thing that is absolutely not enough is the built-in chat for the employees to communicate. But demanding it from a developer in the age of the sea of instant messengers is sacrilege. Better yet something useful sawing.
- This is safety. Alas, there are rats everywhere, they have been in our cozy team. The apotheosis was the simultaneous departure of three employees with an attempt to open a similar company and withdrawal of the client base. Then we were still on cloud-based CRM and it was enough for them to have a working password to slowly merge the data. It was after this event that we terminated the contract with that CRM. Our customer base is interesting to competitors (do you remember the difficulty of gathering customers by the bottom of the barrel?), And they are willing to pay for it. Today, desktop CRM helps us out due to the fact that it can be safely controlled. Hard access rights are set up and all the moves are recorded - it is much more difficult to download the list of clients and go unnoticed. You can make screenshots, but this is under my control. So let the pen in a notebook rewrite, if there is no conscience.
We began to allow ourselves to work with individuals - by the New Year and summer, the demand for t-shirts and various hobby prints is growing. Previously, for us, these were orders that we inevitably lost and forgotten, often the clients themselves did not get in touch and we were left alone with their orders. In our CRM-system there is an opportunity to keep a card of an individual, which we successfully do, and at the same time we store several contacts at once to ensure that we find a customer and deliver an order.
Unnoticed by ourselves, we clearly distributed our functions. In the articles on CRM, I often met the wording "if you automate a mess, you get an automated mess," but I agree with it only in part. For example, we reworked only part of our core processes. The most important thing is that they began to lead new projects and production, and the rest were used as they were used to (how it got), but at the same time they actively used CRM as a data warehouse and operational tool. Still, things went much more orderly and more coordinated than before. We will gradually introduce the rest of the business processes, we have formed a new vision of their organization.
We have user stories that provide the basis for promoting agency services and for internal purposes. This is an important marketing acquisition, where you can track the entire customer history, use it, train new ones, etc. Some of the stories we bring to the knowledge base as precedents (it also exists in the CRM system, a simple repository of records with a text editor, we have enough with our head).
CRM is needed not only and not so much big as small - in order to survive, unlock potential, find time for development and save each client, because for all of us - from IP to Google - customers, users, subscribers - the most valuable resource. And if you save every element of this resource, you have a future. Here I want to explain a little that there is customer relationship management, and there is work with them. This is a very big difference. And you can feel it only after working in the CRM system: relationship management is the process of complete immersion in the “you are the client” bundle; within this process you have the maximum of the necessary information and operate it. But working with clients most often: attracted - sold - forgot.
An important advantage of RegionSoft CRM for us, which turned out to be a surprise
We make commercials for local television and banners for outdoor placement (we print on the side, but we organize the work ourselves, including delivery). It is logical that we can do and expensive service - media planning for the air and street placement. We could not think that for this there is adequate automation and have already begun to design the necessary tables in Excel.
However, it turned out that in RegionSoft CRM 7.0 Media appeared the functionality of media planning, not only for airs, but also for street advertising. We looked at the media block at a time when it’s too early to talk about the details. But I am glad that you will not have to drag everything that has been gained into some kind of new system. If necessary, the migration will turn out to be really seamless.
What is wrong with our CRM system?
But, of course, just as the merits of our first CRM were, so are the drawbacks of the one we use now.
- You need to get used to it - like everything new. It is important to learn the main principle: everything is a table, the same one that you have in Excel or Google Docs, but only at times more convenient and more intelligent. You enter data into fields — a table is formed, you load reports and configure filters — tables are working and “concatenate” to give you the result, etc. CRM according to the logic of work is no different from any other software.
- Sooner or later, something is missing - if you develop and your business is unique, you will need refinement. You can do them yourself, on your own (not everything and not for free), or you can call for help from a CRM provider (this is paid, but quickly and professionally).
- I do not want to buy priority technical support. In general, you need to pay for high-quality support, I am convinced of this as a sysadmin and manager. Another thing is that you always want freebies :-)
- Integration with 1C is not as simple as I read about it in 1C. Think about what you need in this area and how closely. There is no need to customize complex work scenarios without much need.
- There is an extra functionality - again, there is no software without unnecessary features, because we all need different functions. But again, I am convinced that it is better to buy a ready-made solution and hide a couple of unnecessary blocks than to develop "your own perfect software on the knee." Only time will kill, we to some extent passed this stage with prepress preparation.
But these details did not affect the result and did not spoil the impression.
So, the epic with CRM is over and we are now satisfied users, but since I seized upon Habr, we must take everything from life.
Bonus track: how to work with advertising agencies
I want to appeal to everyone who works with advertising agencies. Often, an advertising agency is treated like some kind of contractor like a cleaning company: “Here's a layout for you, bring us super printing and three hundred T-shirts, according to terms, just yesterday. What do you mean, you can not do? Pfff Like you, full market. And skidochku? What does it mean, our picture in JPEG is shit? This is not a picture, but a layout! And what, that the size of 200 x 200 pixels, is it not visible? ”Do not be so.
How to build relationships with advertising agencies?
I will tell you right away - an external agency differs from your advertising and PR department in that it is not engaged, is not afraid of your general and his retinue, and therefore is ready in advertising not to praise dignity, but to prepare meaningful messages based on an analysis of the audience. Therefore, the agency is good, and the permanent is even better.
- Be sure to maintain personal contact, recommend your contractor, be friends with your manager. This will give you huge privileges.
- Do not shake your ideas and solutions, based on the concept of “consolidated”, it is better to clarify why a solution was chosen. If you do not like something, discuss the issue.
- Small agencies are very dependent on the taste of clients, because there is neither a credit of trust nor an extensive portfolio. But this does not mean that you need to sculpt white Comic Sans on orange banners, because your boss is wearing such ties. Learn to discuss any concepts: audio, text, graphics, etc.
- Not to make petty, insignificant edits to the already approved layouts at the start of production - both printed and etheric products go through a serious stage of preparation, and a tiny edit may delay the output for a week. Believe me, 90% of your audience will not distinguish between # 0a0a0a from # 000000 or # 0a0000.
- Do not be afraid to admit that you frankly like or dislike the layout. The price will not change because of this, but RA always wants to make a worthy project (well, almost always).
- If you are a manager and you have a vision and requirements, do not hesitate to communicate with the agency manager directly - the epaulets will not fall, it is checked. But there will be no broken phone.
- Honestly tell about the product - so we can find the best of his hand and advertise as it should. A lie will quickly come out, harm your reputation and cost much more.
- Evaluate the time for the execution of the project - as a rule, regional agencies are very busy both before the holidays and, for example, before the regional exhibitions.
- When choosing an agency, you should be guided by general information, knowledge and experience within your market, creative resources, production capacities and deadlines associated with loading, specify whether there is a possibility of going to the media and the sites you need.
- Watch the budget and estimate.
And most importantly, remain human, because we are all human.
Vooooot ... He spoke like that, he said it all at once. In short, guys, automation is good, but this is money and this is a huge internal work. Only then will the result you are waiting for. CRM-system makes life easier, reduces the number of security problems, frees up heads for more creative work and more detailed communication with customers, etc. With her - calmer or something. Choose a CRM-system for yourself, do not look at the brands and visual design, this does not mean absolutely nothing. And also respect your contractors, appreciate good advertising agencies - in our time, such a partnership is an unequivocal value.
PS: thanks to the RegionalSoft team for the word provided!