I recently was hired as the Business Development guy at a start up. In the beginning I have been using a CRM tool Free CRM to track contacts, accounts, Pipeline and Activity. And ,yes it is free.
Friday they had some problems with their servers. With Free what do you expect: not the following
FreeCRM Customer Service Update
Post-Mortem Notification for August 19th Issue
Dear FreeCRM Customer,
First, I would personally like to offer our sincerest apologies for any issues or loss of service over the last few days that were the result of our systems downtime.
In our company’s 7 year history, we have not had a situation in which we have had a security breech or loss of data, or significant downtime of any kind. Although we have had a great track record, this does not excuse any problem or failure whatsoever, and we have instituted a new operational procedure to prevent any kind of occurrence like this from happening in the future.
He went on to explain what happened, what they did to fix it and how they were going to work to avoid it in the future.
How refreshing, an organization that 1) recognized it caused its customers (non –paying I might add) a disruption. 2) they were open about what happened and 3) they told us what they were doing.
How often do you hear that kind of response from your suppliers? (I’ll bet you said not often enough). This one may hurt…How often have your clients gotten a response from you like this?
It matters
Take Good Care
Hi John,
Customer Service seems to be the theme of the week. Everyone in business knows the facts about the time and cost of acquiring new customers versus selling more to the customers that you already have. Acquiring new customers is expensive. Selling more to existing customers is cheap. With that in mind, shouldn’t our company plan involve not just satisfying our current customers with our service, but delighting them!
Yes, the software you are using is FREE and they aren’t making any money off of you… yet. But when you outgrow the free version and need the paid version their excellent service is going to play a big role in your decision on which product to buy. By providing you with such great service now they are preparing to generate additional revenue downstream.
To me, this is just good business sense.
In business we have to remember that you cannot save your way to prosperity. The best way to make more money is to generate more income. And the best way to generate more income is to have your customers be such raving fans that they look to you first for their new products or services, that they tell others about how much they enjoy your products and services, and they willing and even happily send you referral business.
Thanks for a great article on this very important topic.
Dave