Providing a high level of customer service is important for all businesses, but for companies that specialise in customer service training, practising what you preach is crucial.

Sandra Anderson Small Business Specialists (SASBS) is a business advisory and training company located in Palmerston North.

The company has consulted to hundreds of small and medium businesses across New Zealand on areas including customer service, business planning, finance, marketing, sales strategies and time management.

It also runs a comprehensive suite of training programmes for start-up and growth businesses, including government-assisted training courses such as Be your Own Boss.

The need for change
SASBS’s five staff had been using a Client2000 system to manage customer information, but a lack of support from the vendor prompted them to look for an alternative solution.

The company chose ACT! by Sage after discussions with business associates revealed the solution offered a good level of customer support. Since installation, the new solution has brought a wealth of benefits to SASBS, including reducing time spent on administrative activities and giving staff the ability to work more quickly and efficiently. This in turn, has greatly increased business productivity.

After using Client2000 for five years, company director and business adviser Sandra Anderson felt the solution was no longer fulfilling the organisation’s business needs and was beginning to become a burden.

“We felt our solution was holding us back as it was not able to grow with the business,” she says.

Choosing a solution
Anderson began her search for a new solution by speaking to her employees about what they wanted the software to achieve. She then formed their suggestions into a wish list of essentials and began the search for a new solution that would meet the following criteria:

• Include a centralised database for staff to store and access customer information;
• Provide a greater level of business transparency to help the organisation improve its customer service; and
• Offer integration with SASBS’s newly installed QuickBooks application.

Anderson discussed this criteria with her business associates and received numerous good reports on customer and contact management solution, ACT! by Sage. The organisation looked at several solutions and decided that ACT! by Sage stood out from the competition, especially as no additional costs would be incurred for customer support.

“We were attracted to ACT! by Sage as it had a strong brand name and could be purchased off the shelf. The software also offered first-class customer support which was something we deemed very important,” Anderson said.

The fact that ACT! by Sage could be customised to meet the company’s specific requirements was also a major selling point.

The business benefits
SASBS’s staff adapted to the new solution quickly, meaning benefits were quick to emerge.

The system’s ability to track client history has provided SASBS with a previously unattainable level of business intelligence. By allowing staff to refer back to previous interactions with individual customers, the solution has helped the company better understand and meet each client’s needs.

The company has also been able to reduce customer data errors due to the integration between ACT! by Sage and QuickBooks which ensures staff always have access to the most up to date customer data.

The main benefit ACT! by Sage has brought to SASBS is productivity gains, says Anderson. “We estimate that we have saved about 30 per cent of our time since installing ACT! by Sage,” she says.

“If we want to target a particular category in our database, it’s extremely easy for us to use the quick filter feature, whereas with the old solution, this would have taken a significant amount of time.”

Anderson also added that she estimates the organisation has achieved a 20 per cent increase in productivity since installing ACT! by Sage.

Positive feedback
“Everyone in the company uses the software and the feedback has been extremely positive,” says Anderson.

“All of our employees have said that the solution has been easy to learn. The software allows us to also have an online tutorial with an ACT! consultant if we encounter any problems or issues, which has been useful.

“ACT! by Sage has brought more benefits to our company that any software we have used,” she says.

“We’ve become much more productive and efficient in the way we do things, allowing us to focus on what we are best at and excel in customer service, which is of utmost importance to us.”

For more information
Sage Business Solutions
www.sagebusiness.com.au
0800 775 617

August 2007