August 2006 Archives

For about a year now, we have been using a VoIP phone line provided by Broadvoice and as a whole have been happy with our service. It was a brilliant move for us while in Prague. We signed up for the Global Plus plan that gave us unlimited calls to land line for over 30 countries. Now that we are back in the US of A, we chose to down grade to regular Global coverage, which only includes about 15 countries.

But, the biggest downside to using VoIP as a primary phone has been its lack of emergency calling or 9-1-1. Due to VoIP’s very nature, the number is assigned to and IP, not an physical address. I received notification from Broadvoice a few days ago, that they have added 9-1-1 support. It was easy. I logged in to my account settings page, and assigned a physical address to our account. Now, if the need for 9-1-1 should arise, the call will get routed to the nearest emergency dispatch. For us, that would be either Sunnyvale or Mountain View.

No one ever intends to use 9-1-1, but I am glad that it is there like a warm blanket. :)

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When we explain to people what we are building at Sproutit (especially when we talk about our next product), they often nod their heads and say “right, its like CRM”.

Sproutit is not CRM. CRM is about helping you keep all the information you have about prospects and customers organized. It’s about tracking sales pipelines, or verifying sales track records.

CRM is about management, Sproutit is about caring for your customers. It’s about helping you make sure that every experience your customers have with you is personal, timely, and helpful. Sproutit is about making you look good to your customer.

That’s the reason Mailroom is designed the way it is. For example, Mailroom does not issue “ticket numbers” or anything like that for emails your receive from customers. Instead, Mailroom tracks conversations just like tickets in other systems, but every email you send through Mailroom will appear personal and individual to your customers.

Ticket numbers are the waiting lines of the internet; they make the customer feel like you don’t care enough to give them individual attention. Mailroom emails, on the other hand, are like private consultations. They send the message to your customers that you really care about them.

The same thing goes for our More About feature. Sure, other systems make it possible for you to dig up all the emails you or anyone else have exchanged with a person, but only Mailroom puts a summary of that info right next to the email when you view it along with a picture of the person if we have it.

Context and personality means better service. It puts you in the right frame of mind to treat your customer like a person even if you never meet them face to face.

Sproutit is not CRM.

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Update: Just to clarify because somebody asked. We use Gmail to handle our personal email accounts. (e.g. charles at sproutit.com) All Mailroom email was delivered on time this last week. In fact, since we finished the move to our new servers last month Mailroom has been up and delivering email almost 100% of the time.

So, Google just announced that they will be launching the first of their Web-based Office suite called “Google Apps for your Domain”. I’m pretty worried for all the businesses out there that are going to adopt this.

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In a world where cheap, easy, and convenient is commonplace, often the difference will be in how you treat your customers. When they contact you, do you know who they are? Do you know what others on your team have promised them? Do you know what kind of experience they have had with you so far and what you need to do to make it better?

If you can manage to deliver a personal and relevant experience to everyone who deals with you, you will matter more to them, and thus become their preferred brand.

Paying attention to your customers is the future of brand marketing.

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Guy Kawasaki has an interesting interview with Jim Fowler, CEO of Jigsaw.

Jigsaw helps sales, marketing, and HR people trade contact information so they can reach key decision makers inside large companies. Jim got (or rather gave himself) the nickname “Dr. Evil” recently because some people, like Michael Arrington at TechCrunch don’t like what Jigsaw does.

No matter how you feel about the issue, Guy’s interview with Jim is worth the read. He gives Jim a good chance to defend his business and what they do so you can make up your own mind, including some interesting information on how small businesses are using Jigsaw to sell to large companies.

Read the interview

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