Unleashing the Power of a CRM in your Firm

In this episode, the discussion revolves around the significance of customer relationship management (CRM) in firms, highlighting how it centralizes customer interactions and drives proactive relationship management. They emphasize the importance of having someone responsible for managing customer relationships and how tools like a CRM software enhance this process.

Main Points:

John Mitchell: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to unleashing the power of a CRM in your firm. Darren and I are going to spend some time today talking to you about a customer relationship manager and how important it can be for your firm. Darren, this is a passion for us. 

Darren Root: John, where was this? When I practiced for 35 years, 

John Mitchell: all over the firm and all different corners, I 

Darren Root: mean, this idea of customer relationship management, it just happened in silos back then, you know, unfortunately I was maybe even a little bit before emails or certainly early on in the email world.

And, uh, you know, this concept of. Copying everybody in the firm that needed to know something about a customer and then trying to dig through emails. Oh, my gosh. And then if we had to keep notes and things like that, or, you know, we had to send out some sort of bulk emails. I mean, what a pain it [00:01:00] was. Uh, so I'm super excited about talking about what it means to, this is kind of your wheelhouse, what it means to do CRM.

John Mitchell: Yeah, man, I love a customer relationship manager. And I think I even like the, the title CRM, the idea that the customer would be in the middle and the relationships that we have with a customer would be in the middle of my firm that, that instead of seeing tasks or instead of seeing products or in, instead of seeing even communications as sort of the center of the firm, I'm seeing human beings.

As the center of what I do, this brings clarity to your team. This brings clarity to the processes. This, what it also does is every time that you give your customer the impression that you're in charge. It takes a deep breath for them, because think about going into your famous, uh, scenario is going into Starbucks and going, uh, I think I'll have a cheeseburger.

You know, the, [00:02:00] they know what they serve. They know how they serve them. They know who their target customer is and what they do there. So they tell you what they're going to serve and you get to choose from what they already have. The, The idea of a customer relationship manager is to create that type of clarity, both for your team and for your customer.

And it really does. It is the vehicle that puts the S the customer in the center of your firm. 

Darren Root: Well, when you say that you really bring up a couple of thoughts for me. I mean, the first one, uh, and we've talked about this and as a part of this series, is this idea that the client. Is at the heart at the center of the firm and all the information around that client is organized a CRM or customer relationship management tool.

Or functionality or feature is hugely helpful in managing all these different pieces of data that that we've shown you here. [00:03:00] But you said the 2nd thing I think that can sort of, uh, prompted me along here. John is a customer relationship manager. Right. So that's, that's kind of a different concept. So there's this tool that you can use in canopy manage, organize that data and manage that customer relationship.

And we'll talk more about that. But then there's this idea that inside of a firm. You have somebody or people responsible for managing those relationships. Can you talk a little bit about that? 

John Mitchell: Yeah, I mean, this is something that, um, follows the guidelines that we know inside of business and life in general, that if someone's not in charge, nobody's in charge.

You know, if, if you don't say to someone, um, you're in charge of our customer relationships, then it gets desperate. It gets hard to quantify. Um, my wife, the reason I'm passionate about this is my wife happens to be a customer, customer relationship manager in her firm. She is a people person. Um, she's [00:04:00] actually not an accountant.

She has no background in finance, but she is a people person and she, her job is to manage. The customer relationships. So what, what a CRM does and what Canopy has created is something that allows her to do her job. This is something that gives her the tools, brings everything together in the same place so that she can manage the relationships with the customers.

Because that's really what drives all of the customer expectations. That's what drives the work and even drives the conversation between employees when it comes to getting the work done. 

Darren Root: What we believe, John, is that, um, The client is the center of the firm operating system. Yeah. Right. And so it is, is a heartbeat of the firm operating system.

And in your, in, in, in your wife's case, um, she, she needs to go to that customer record. And see everything that's happening with that customer, you know, at a [00:05:00] glance so that she can more effectively manage that relationship. But in addition to that, it gives her the tools to start being proactive and really not just that being a relate, uh, A reactive relationship manager, but a proactive relationship manager.

John Mitchell: Yeah. I imagine instead of when a customer calls, um, and they, maybe they call or maybe they come in or maybe you get an email from them and they have a request or they have, um, a question instead of. Walking around the office and saying, does anybody remember what we told this person? Does anybody have any conversation?

Did anybody know whether they have a buy sell agreement? Does anybody, all of those things, when a call comes in, when a customer comes in, you have one place to go. To pull up their contact and see the information, see the conversations, even see the emails that maybe other staff members have had and be able to see them all in one place.

This is what we mean by putting the client [00:06:00] in the center of your firm. 

Darren Root: Yeah. And this is what canopy does as, as a part of their sort of CRM component, uh, or feature set in, in, inside their platform. And, um, I'm super excited for Armin to show this, but it's going to show you how to, um, Manage your email. So lots of email communications and those emails ought to reside on a, on a client record, right?

Yeah. You ought to be able to search client records and send out mass communications if that's what you want to do. Or there's these notes that, you know, need to get created in and around a client that other people in the firm can see. And then there's also documents and things like that that get attached.

All that lives at the client record level. That's what we're, I'm excited for Armin to show you today. Thanks 

John Mitchell: Yeah, Armen's a good friend of ours at Canopy, who's a really smart guy, um, and really has accounting firms on, on his mind as he's, um, talking about the development of Canopy. So [00:07:00] let's let Armen tell us just a little bit more about the customer relationship manager portion and management portion of Canopy tool.

Armin Kadic: Let's talk about CRM and how Canopy helps you manage that relationship with your clients. We start by pulling in all of your clients from your existing systems and pulling in all of the data that you currently have. This is going to include custom fields that can be pulled in and set up very seamlessly, as well as any additional information or notes that you need on that client record.

Once all the information is pulled in, what we do is we integrate your email so you can quickly sync all of the communication that's happening between you and your clients. Within each client profile, there's a communication section that houses all of that communication and that back and forth between your staff and that client.

As long as I have [00:08:00] access to the client, I am able to see all of the communication that's being exchanged. So if one of us ever gets a call from a client, We're quickly in the loop about what's going on and can see all of that communication in one place. Canopy also helps you blast out emails to your clients and organize them into specific groups.

So if I go into my client list, I can filter down a specific tag that I want to see of clients. And from there, I can grab that client grouping and be able to send out bulk emails. We make it really easy to target groups, to send out marketing or mass communication. Um, and you can do all of that from within our system.

Not everybody's going to be cc'd on an email. It is personalized to each of the customers or clients that you've selected. And you can quickly send that out using our system. Once the clients are in Canopy [00:09:00] and they're set up, not only do we track all of the emails, but we also have an area for notes, for files, as well as for all of the additional tasks and jobs that you're performing for this client.

We make it very, very easy to track everything in a single profile. So if a client ever does call in and has questions about a single job, communication, right, where things are at. You're able to quickly go through and see exactly what you need to find within that client record. Gone are the days of having to jump through multiple systems, looking through inboxes, having to rely on being cc'd on emails.

Canopy is your one central source of truth across your firm. 

John Mitchell: Man, Darren, that just gives us an overview. There's obviously more. involved, but, um, I think it gives us a really good overview to [00:10:00] see that, uh, that a tool like this, whether in other verticals, it may be used in just for marketing and it's good for that, but man, it's so much bigger than that, especially in an accounting firm, 

Darren Root: you know, most.

Tools that I see out there today, um, John are more, especially practice management tools, if you will, are more about projects and tasks and time and billing and so on, you can see that this is a whole lot more than that. This allows you to put your client at the center. And if you want to. Market to them products that they don't currently buy, or you want to track leads in this system and market to them, uh, to pick up new customers.

Um, this CRM system allows you to do both of those things, but it's not just about marketing. It's also about giving tools to a customer relationship manager inside your firm and giving them the tools. To actually do their job effectively. Yeah. 

John Mitchell: I love [00:11:00] the, the way this enables firms to see their client base as their best opportunity for growth in their firm as well.

So rather than to, to think about getting bigger, um, in terms of more clients, let's get deeper with the clients we have and the way that, that a CRM allows you to do that, the way that canopy allows you to. Dive into your current customers to see everything you're currently serving them to see opportunities for further products and deeper relationships allows us to take a firm that may just be a mile wide and an inch deep and go deeper with our customers, which we know, Darren builds more loyalty.

It builds more revenue. It builds a more clarity inside your staff. Less customers is better for everybody. And let's go deeper with the ones that we have. 

Darren Root: Yeah, I think it, it helps you simplify the operations of your firm. When you can get clear on what you want to sell, holistically [00:12:00] serve those customers and go deeper with that job.

So, 

John Mitchell: uh, great tool for that. Thanks, Armin. Thanks, Darren. Let's go deeper with our best customers.