I'd be interested in the response to this too as I've heard of a few practices implementing.
We looked at Zendesk and some of it's rivals 12 months or so ago and decided against it. I liked the fact that all emails were stored in one place, so anyone could see the trail and you'd instantly know who were your most "needy" clients.
The downside appeared to be the supporting admin that was needed. I appeared that you needed someone to allocate tickets to "support agents" and that you should be using the priority fields for what was urgent. My team felt that by the time you'd done all that, you could have just dealt with the email!
Personally, I'd love to hear from someone who has successfully implemented and what they thought the benefits were for a small practice
XPM isn't a CRM really, it's a job management system. So, it doesn't have email templates or standard letters built in.
We have bolted a CRM onto it, but I've found that there's really only me that use it. The rest of the team download the list they want to email/ write to and use mail merge functions of word etc.
With regards needing to customise it, yes you do. However, it isn't a time consming task and it does mean that you get exactly the fields, templates etc that you want, not what a software house thinks you should have. If you really don't want to be bothered, you can outsource the whole job to an XPM partner
We have used XPM for around 18 months now. We don't use the timesheets module (except for some very specific jobs). We do however heavily use the deadline management and workflow capabilities.
We reviewed lots of systems before deciding on XPM. As with anything software these days, things move along quickly. If i was looking again today, I'd be tempted to take a look at Karbon too
We use Taxcalc and have been on Xero PM for around 14 months now. The software is ok, but does lack a few features that we'd ideally like. It's also been a little dissapointing that Xero don't seem to have moved the software on at all in the last 12 months
Having looked at the Glide website, the two products look pretty similar in features.
The software keeps a good track on deadlines and you can set up recurring jobs so you don't need to keep creating them.
Overall, I'm happy with what we've got. I keep looking at other solutions, but haven't found anything yet that is significantly better to make yet another software switch worthwhile
I don't ever remember a client saying "thanks for doing that mortgage reference so quickly. I realise you had to drop everything and complete that form that the bank sent through as it was holding me up from getting what I wanted. I'm also grateful you didn't charge me - I owe you one"
Joking apart we never even get a thankyou. Only comment we ever get is "where is my reference, you are holding my mortgage up", even if the form only arrived that morning.
Sorry, but I'm fed up of doing these for free. Clients never appreciate the work you've done on them and I'm afraid I seriously doubt that it builds up any goodwill at all.
My answers
I'd be interested in the response to this too as I've heard of a few practices implementing.
We looked at Zendesk and some of it's rivals 12 months or so ago and decided against it. I liked the fact that all emails were stored in one place, so anyone could see the trail and you'd instantly know who were your most "needy" clients.
The downside appeared to be the supporting admin that was needed. I appeared that you needed someone to allocate tickets to "support agents" and that you should be using the priority fields for what was urgent. My team felt that by the time you'd done all that, you could have just dealt with the email!
Personally, I'd love to hear from someone who has successfully implemented and what they thought the benefits were for a small practice
XPM isn't a CRM really, it's a job management system. So, it doesn't have email templates or standard letters built in.
We have bolted a CRM onto it, but I've found that there's really only me that use it. The rest of the team download the list they want to email/ write to and use mail merge functions of word etc.
With regards needing to customise it, yes you do. However, it isn't a time consming task and it does mean that you get exactly the fields, templates etc that you want, not what a software house thinks you should have. If you really don't want to be bothered, you can outsource the whole job to an XPM partner
We have used XPM for around 18 months now. We don't use the timesheets module (except for some very specific jobs). We do however heavily use the deadline management and workflow capabilities.
We reviewed lots of systems before deciding on XPM. As with anything software these days, things move along quickly. If i was looking again today, I'd be tempted to take a look at Karbon too
The only reason I can think of for not supplying them is that he hasn't paid his bill. If he hasn't, fair enough. If he has, what;'s the problem?
surely he needs to see debtors/ creditors/ accruals etc before signing the accounts off.
The PAYE/ VAT recs might not make much sense to him anyway, so why worry?
Are you worried he'll leave you and try to do his own accounts in future?
We use Taxcalc and have been on Xero PM for around 14 months now. The software is ok, but does lack a few features that we'd ideally like. It's also been a little dissapointing that Xero don't seem to have moved the software on at all in the last 12 months
Having looked at the Glide website, the two products look pretty similar in features.
The software keeps a good track on deadlines and you can set up recurring jobs so you don't need to keep creating them.
Overall, I'm happy with what we've got. I keep looking at other solutions, but haven't found anything yet that is significantly better to make yet another software switch worthwhile
Thanks FT
Tim - Don't think it's a gimmick. If it helps the team work remotely, it's a good thing surely?
Taxcalc recommend 4mbps download speed and 2mbps upload.
We just wear what we want. My team always look smart and I think they reflect the dress codes of today, not some antiquated thoughts.
It's generally smart jeans, shirt and shoes for both men & women
Inform Direct
Started using Inform Direct around 6 months ago and I love it!
Support is brill (not that you need it).
Wish I'd known about it earlier!
@sheepy
I don't ever remember a client saying "thanks for doing that mortgage reference so quickly. I realise you had to drop everything and complete that form that the bank sent through as it was holding me up from getting what I wanted. I'm also grateful you didn't charge me - I owe you one"
Joking apart we never even get a thankyou. Only comment we ever get is "where is my reference, you are holding my mortgage up", even if the form only arrived that morning.
Sorry, but I'm fed up of doing these for free. Clients never appreciate the work you've done on them and I'm afraid I seriously doubt that it builds up any goodwill at all.
Moneysoft
No, Moneysoft doesn't run on a Mac