Case Study - ABCO Pools
I met Nick and Andrew from ABCO Pools when they come out to replace the pool liner in the house we were renting. Nick has successfully owned the family business for over 30 years and now it was time for Andrew (his son) to take the helm. Andrew couldn’t be more excited yet he knows there are some challenges to face and he was looking for help.
Andrew knows the business needed some updating from a technology standpoint. Handwritten contracts and paper files were keeping them from quick access to client information. It was also a time-consuming job and the less time you need for paperwork, the more time you have for the things that make money – client appointments and replacing liners. Streamlining the client database moving forward is key to this business continuing to thrive and grow
They also needed a way to include many years of printed contracts. The majority of them were already scanned, but moving to a new platform could create an issue. If the new platform was ever left for a better one then what/how would they once again move all of their contracts. They’ve always had the desire to move onto a new solution, they didn’t know where to start.
The Challenge
Find a CRM tool to manage all of their customer data
Move over 2000 customer records into a new system
Move over 4000 customer contracts and design files into something that would be system agnostic
Minimize data entry
Research
I spent some time looking into several solutions and technologies to see what would work for their situation. My review included the following tools:
The major hurdle was how to link the customer data with the contracts and design. Most CRMs will manage customer data very well, but once you look into how they can store contracts and images, it becomes a larger issue. Most of them will let you write a contract in their system, however that assumes you have no historic data.
I spent time with Microsoft Dynamics, trying to program their input forms to suit ABCO Pools needs, but Microsoft Dynamics does not allow the attachments of files when creating a new customer record. I’m not a programming expert in Dynamics, and perhaps there are folks out there that have figured this out, but my research into the tool said uploading files was a no-go. It seemed it was an issue with security vs technology. I also still wanted to create a solution that Andrew could manage himself, and not be MS Certified.
Google Sheets would work for capturing customer data, but it wouldn’t be a CRM solution, so I kept looking for the right fit for this particular client.
Salesforce was off the list quickly because of the monthly cost.
I had used Copper with a former client and found it easier to navigate. One key benefit to Copper is that it integrates with Google very well. I realized if we stored the Contracts and Designs in Google Drive, and then link them from Copper, if would give us a great solution for this client.
Solution
The solution would include the use of Google Drive, Copper, Zapier and Excel.
With all the tools identified, it was time to figure out how to bring everything together. The first step was to migrate the customer data into Copper and Google Drive.
We started with a full export of all the data out of a couple of their current data systems. We managed to get all the customer data into Google Sheets and the Contracts and Designs into PDFs, alphabetically by last name. Not a great way to start but at least we had all the data.
In the pool business, while the customers are always important, the real customer is the ADDRESS – it’s better to link the contracts and repairs to the home, not the people. The people may leave…but the pool doesn’t go with them.
Copper has two main categories to store customer data, Companies and People. We decided it would be best to use “Home” for Company and “People” for People. That way all the contracts and designs are linked to the home, and the people could come and go.
Using Google Drive to host all of the contracts would give us the longevity we were looking for. With a folder for each Home we would just need to move the Contracts/Designs files into the appropriate folder. The one obstacle was we couldn’t create more than one folder at a time within Google. Bummer… Enter, Zapier.
Zapier is a tool that will let you automate a lot of tasks, and help get this work done quickly. Plus, Zapier can create Multiple Google Folders on the fly. I created a Zap that would automatically create a Home in Copper and also a folder in Google Drive.
Next up, customer data. We needed to Import the customers (People) into Copper after the Homes were there, this way Copper would link the customer to the home during the import process, the common denominator was the address. For this, I used the traditional Import process in Copper, and since I had the customer data in Excel, I was able to format the data to match the Copper import template.
At this point, we have all the Home and Customer data in Copper, and we have folders for each Home in Google. Now comes the manual part, the only way we could get all of the Contracts and Designs into the Home folders was to drag/drop the files. This will just be one of those things that will take time but the results will be worth it. Once the files are there we can go into the Home in Copper and select the Files section, from there we can link the files directly from Google Drive.
Conclusion
As you can tell, it wasn’t an easy task but the outcome was exactly what we were looking for. ABCO Pools is happy all that their customer data is Copper and easily accessed from a Desktop, Tablet or Phone, including the Contracts and Designs. In the end we loaded over 2000 customers into Copper, which means they can now start looking at Marketing to all of them.
Next up for ABCO Pools, we plan to integrate PandaDoc into Copper so they can create a digital Contract. We also plan on a full website redesign. But we need to jump into the pool first and go for a swim.
