Chad Fehr CMA, a Padgett Business Services franchise, focuses on helping small businesses succeed by providing accounting services such as bookkeeping, tax, payroll and consulting. They focus on understanding the needs of their clients and providing top notch service. We worked with Padgett Business Services to understand their needs and to address the IT pain points within their business. Here is a list of their IT pain points and the solutions we used to solve the problem:
Pain Point #1
Client relationship management is key to most small businesses but especially accountants. Client engagements and consultations records were kept in traditional form documents. Form documents aren’t very collaborative within the office in today’s world and a better way was needed.
Solution = Salesforce CRM
Over 80 custom fields were added to the “Account” section in Salesforce CRM to replicate how Padgett Business Services engages with each client. Detailed help assist bubbles were added for every record to ensure that staff understood the importance and intention of each field. As well, the engagement process was sectioned on the Salesforce CRM page layout to mimic the actual workflow. A custom tab called “Consultations” was created to associate each consultation with the client’s account and contact. Because of this customization, forms outside of Salesforce CRM are no longer used for tracking client interactions.
Pain Point #2
Once Salesforce CRM was up and running, email, contact & calendar integration was next. Since Padgett Business Services wanted to run with a virtual office where possible, using a cloud email/calendar/contact tool was a given, however integration with Salesforce CRM was now also key.
Solution = Google Apps For Business
Google Apps for Business (Corporate Gmail/Calendar/Drive) was setup to have their email in sync across all their devices (i.e. Windows desktops, iPads & iPhones). Another great App, Cirrus Insight, was installed and is used to associate emails to Salesforce CRM records thereby eliminating the need to organize them in Gmail. Emails are now simply associated to records in Salesforce CRM with one click and then are archived in Gmail. Appirio Cloud Sync was also installed and is used to sync contacts and calendar items with Google (and their iPhones). Google Drive now allows them to share documents easily within the office and link them to Salesforce CRM records.
Pain Point #3
For a small business, the cost of a business line from a traditional phone company was expensive and offered little flexibility with regards to features.
Solution = RingCentral
RingCentral is a cloud based phone system that allows Padgett Business Services to save monthly on their phone bill while giving them an extensive list of additional features that they didn’t have before. Recently, when Padgett Business Services expanded and moved into a larger office space they simply unplugged their phones and moved them to the new office space (without having to call and schedule an appointment to move their phone service). As well, with the new office space came the addition of new staff members and the need for them to expand their phone service. This was done easily by adding new users to their RingCentral account online within minutes. Phone sets were ordered for the new staff members and arrived within the week.
Padgett Business Services now has the tools in place to meet their needs and at a price that fits their budget. To learn about how Perpetual West can help your company solve IT pain points with cloud solutions, visit our website or call 1 (877) 388-6400.