NFIB

Saddle Up
10/ 03/ 2002

by Alan Joch

Sure it's cutesy to send a horse a birthday card, but Robert Ferrand loves the idea. That's why the owner of SaddleTech.com in Woodside, Calif., sends out annual greetings to beneficiaries of his custom saddle-fitting products and services.

Just don't look for Ferrand's name on the e-mail greetings. Instead, they'll be "signed" by Ace, his 10-year-old gelding. "Yes, it's a stunt," Ferrand says. "But the recipients will go, 'Gee whiz,' and then we'll say, 'Here's a link to some of our specials.' "

The strategy shows that Ferrand's two-person shop understands what large corporations have known for years: Customer relationship management (CRM), a formal strategy for hand-holding your best customers and prospects, is good for business.

Ferrand instinctively knew the importance of CRM when he launched his company in 1992, but he also knew that corporations often spend a couple of million dollars or more for such systems. So his CRM plans remained on hold until late last year when he found one of a growing number of affordable CRM services that targets small companies.

These small business-savvy CRM programs help companies get closer to their customers for a couple thousand dollars a year in software subscriptions. The applications bundle pre-sales tools to manage customer contact information, organize customers by sales territories, compile leads from Web site visitors and record histories of conversations with customers. They also help manage post-sales activities, including responses to customer questions and complaints. Underlying the bundles is sales and customer data in a central storehouse that ensure everyone in the company is working from the same information, something that may not happen when individual departments run their own sales and customer applications.

Another big benefit: These bundles require nothing more to run than the business-class PCs, Web browsers and Internet connections that most businesses already operate. Users plug into offsite, corporate-size servers and applications.

Ferrand's service actually connects to his Web site, allowing him to collect customer data and process orders without hiring additional staff. "The customer becomes the clerk," he says. "If you want to buy a product from me, you use the Web site to request information or place an order."

If Ferrand is any indication, there's a lot of pent up demand to tap into. "I could not run my business the way I'm doing it without this service," he says. And a few equine birthdays would be a little less joyous.

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This article originally appeared in the October/November 2002 issue of MyBusiness magazine.

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