Using less paper – one client at a time

August 27, 2009

The whole idea behind MioWorks.com is to provide today’s small business owner with an option to better service their clients while saving money and time.  Typically customer service is something that is only done in a reactive manner.  MioWorks helps to change that paradigm so that companies can be proactive in sharing information, responding to client requests and keeping the business running.

One of the benefits of using MioWorks to interact with clients is the fact that by default you will use less paper.  Now this won’t turn  you into a “paperless” office over night. But, MioWorks helps you to reduce the amount of paper, envelopes and stamps it takes to keep your business running.  A great example is from one of our customers in Arizona.  This five person office services over three thousand local residents and helps them manage their property tax burdens.  In a time of tremendous deflation of property prices, business is booming for their small firm.

They turned to MioWorks.com to see if our small business application would help them with a simple project.  They needed to customize and send out a private 10 page report to each and every client.  When they looked into the cost for doing this manually it broke down as follows:

  • 30,000 printed pieces of paper (estimated at $.05/page) = $1,500
  • 3,000 8.5×11 self seal envelopes @ .14 each = $420
  • 3,000 $2.95 Priority Mail envelopes = $8,850
  • 3,000 address labels @ .04 each = $120

The total cost of this single project was $10,890 plus the cost of the administrative labor to print, stuff and label every envelope.  The company created a MioWorks.com account and ran a small test for 10 of their clients.  When they printed out the personalized report, they just saved it as a PDF file instead of printing it.  They then created a contact record in their MioWorks.com application and activated the customer portal.  Finally they uploaded the document to the contact record and shared it with the client.  MioWorks automatically sent the client log in credentials and a notice that the property tax report was available on-line.

Customers in the pilot program were impressed.  They couldn’t believe that the small company could take advantage of internet technology to provide a secure portal to share information 24hrs a day.  Customers could access their report without calling the office and without searching through email.  The level of customer satisfaction increased while the burden on the admin staff began to lessen.  The company then rolled out the program to all 3,000 clients.

The end result is that for the $25 a month MioWorks.com subscription, the company had just figured a way to save well over $10,000 and thousands of pieces of paper and envelopes.  They also improved their level of service and convinced their clients that doing business with them was easy and convenient.  The company continues to use MioWorks as a repository for customer invoices, quotes and even court documents.  They report that the customers absolutely love the solution and it has helped their business scale faster and bigger without needing to add new staff members.

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Posted by David Abramowski

July 24 Updates

July 24, 2009

Today we pushed out several updates to the MioWorks application.  Thanks to all of our customers who provide us feedback on our product.  This truly helps us build a customer driven product that you’ll love using every day.  Here is a brief summary of what we have added to the MioWorks.com application:

  • Note entry on the contact detail page has been augmented to use a graphical editor allowing you to better format notes
  • Added more space to the folder name column to show longer names
  • Added a hoover tool tip that will show the full name of folder
  • New field to add a contact to a list is now on the “add new contact” screen
  • Ability to add keywords when you perform an export action – great for keeping track of reasons for export such as “July-Mailer” or “Shared-with-Partner”
  • Trial expiration date is now displayed on the System Administrator page
  • Fixed several bugs related to Safari 4

Please feel free to send up feature requests and problem reports.  Just click on the “HELP” button at the top of the page when you are logged into MioWorks.com.  Then just fill out the form provided..it’s that simple.

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Posted by David Abramowski

MioWorks email gateway issue resolved

July 17, 2009

Today (Friday July 17th) outbound emails to clients for portal activation and password resets were not being properly delivered.  After diagnosis we determined that our outbound email gateway was accidentally being blocked.  We have rectified the situation and have implemented a secondary strategy for outbound emails so the risk of this problem occuring again is greatly reduced.

If you activated customer portals today and your client did not receive the notification email, please follow these steps to resend a password & login information:

Fist you access the contact detail record in your mioworks.com application, then click on the Portal Access (2) link in the Action for this Contact box.  Finally, click the box to auto-generate a password or type in a password then click “Re-send” (3).   This will resend an email message to the contact with log-in credentials.

resend_password

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Posted by David Abramowski

July 17th Updates

July 17, 2009

Today we rolled out a few customer requested updates into the MioWorks.com production system.  We have added drop down selections for Twitter, Facebook and Fax Number to the “other contact” type field when you are adding a new contact record.  In addition there were fixes made to a few bugs related to multi-keyword SmartGroups and several cosmetic fixes.

Just to keep everyone in the loop, we are currently working on the following:

* Safari 4 fixes for the add contact page
* Addition of custom fields that you can define
* Increasing the size of the folder name field and providing hoover tip with the full name
* Allow you to add a contact to a list at entry time
* Improvements to the issue management display style to be more conversational

These are just a few of the short term fixes we plan to implement over the next few weeks.  As they are implemented we will post updates here on the blog.

Thanks to all of our customers who provide us with information on bugs as well as suggestions for additions.  We always welcome your feedback.  If you have a feature request, please use the contact us form found on the “Help” page when you are logged into your version of MioWorks.com

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Posted by David Abramowski

3 ways to prospect with MioWorks

July 10, 2009

Prospecting is an everyday occurrence for the small business.  Existing clients, new prospects, people you meet on the street – no matter where you are you are always selling.  Here are three ways MioWorks.com can help you with your prospecting…

Call downs with SmartGroups

Call downs are the workhorse of prospecting.  You get a list and you start dialing for dollars.  MioWorks can help you organize this process by using SmartGroups.  SmartGroups allow you to use search terms or tag to create a dynamic group.  At MioWorks we tag contacts with a keyword like July07Calls.  We then create a SmartGroup based upon that keyword.  As the team calls through the SmartGroup they simply remove the tag from the contact.  The end result is that all of us can work on a single list and never have to worry about doubling efforts or calling the same person twice.

Follow up using tasks

A second prospecting method is to use the task feature of MioWorks.  You can apply a task individually to a single contact or a group of contacts.  MioWorks makes it simple to apply a followup task to SmartGroups, contact lists and multiple hand selected contacts.  By adding an individual task you’ll have a record of the task as well as the completion date.  Use this method if you want more accountability and audit-ability on your prospecting.

Initiate a conversation with existing customers

Unique to MioWorks is the ability to initiate a conversation with your existing customers.  This is a terrific form of prospecting that can be done with tact so that clients don’t feel like they are being marketed to.   Now this option is only available if you are using MioWorks and have activated customer portals for your clients.  If you have done this already then great…here is what you do.  For each client that you want to electronically prospect, create a new issue of the type “Question”.  Then ask the contact a question that can lead to a follow up phone call or meeting.  It’s that simple. MioWorks will automatically notify the contact that there is a new message waiting for them.  When the person logs into your MioWorks.com customer portal they will be able to participate in a 2 way conversation about the question you asked. It’s a great way to build rapport and improve your prospecting without being spammy.

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Posted by David Abramowski

Leaping forward with our July Release

June 30, 2009

We have just deployed the latest release of MioWorks.com and we couldn’t be happier.  The newest version builds upon the success of our concept to integrate customers into the business processes of the small and mid-size practice. With this update you’ll be able to use MioWorks.com to help your prospect, manage groups of contacts and really make MioWorks part of your every day routine.  Here are the highlights for this release:

Improved user interface for ease of use

We continue to strive to build a simple to use application.  To this end we have implemented the use of icons throughout the application to help you move quickly and intuitively.

Customer Portal File Folders

You are now able to define file folders for your customers.  This helps you better organize the files that you share with your clients.  Clients will appreciate this too because it allows them to find files faster.

MioWorks SmartGroups & Lists

The new MioWorks SmartGroups allow you to define characteristics of a contact for a group.  When a contact meets that characteristic they are automatically included in the SmartGroup.  If the contact no longer meets the criteria they are dropped from the group.

Lists are the static companion to SmartGroups.  A list is a label for a group of contacts that you can apply individually or to collections of contacts.  You can also snapshot a SmartGroup to a list to “freeze”  the group at a point in time.

Bulk actions on groups

Taking a bulk action on a group can save you plenty of time.  In this new release you can quickly add new keywords, schedule a task, activate portals, change contact types and more.

Exporting contact groups to MailChimp, Constant Contact and more

The new group export features allows you to export a list, a SmartGroup or a selection of contacts to a comma separated value (CSV) file.  This file can be manipulated as necessary and used to import into 3rd party applications.  (Remember that you can always export your entire contact library & information from the Site Administrator page)

Intranet Media Library

The intranet media library allows you to store files like documents, movies and audio in a central location shared by all of your company users.  You can easily attach & share files to individual users or groups of users allowing you to quickly share information.

In addition to an updated www.mioworks.com site, we have also added a few new resources to help you along the way:

MioWorks User Manual
New 5 minute MioWorks overview video

MioWorks User Manual in WordPress

MioWorks User Manual in WordPress

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Posted by David Abramowski

From CRM to interacting with your clients

June 22, 2009

The typical CRM (Customer Relationship Management) solution is a hungry beast.  It requires that you and your team continually feed information to keep it happy.   CRM has proven to be a terrific solution for sales teams to keep abreast of the situation that surrounds each prospect.  It helps management look at the sales funnel and keep tabs on the health of the incoming revenue for the company.   CRM has created an excellent foundation as we progress as business owners in managing our long term client relationships.  But how can you really have a relationship when it’s so one sided.    It’s time that the CRM actually connects to the clients and involves them in the process.

The Internet allows us to change the feed the beast paradigm.  We can now involve customers into  business processes and reduce the workload and increase information accuracy.  Clients actually want to be involved through on-line and offline means.  They want to be able to access their information from the comfort of their home just as the local news starts. They want to help you keep their information updated and accurate.  They want to let you know where there is a problem or a really good idea you should know about. It’s time to evolve CRM into a customer engagement solution.

MioWorks aims to help bridge the gap between CRM and real relationships.   Our product aims to help bring you face to face with your clients in a virtual world.  MioWorks blends the best of the CRM with several additional applications that allow customers to interact with your business.  We call MioWorks a Customer Engagement solution.  No longer are you just feeding the beast, but all the people of your business including customers, vendors and even prospects can now participate.

MioWorks starts with a strong CRM foundation where you can track important information about your clients, vendors and employees.  Just as you would expect  you can keep notes, schedule tasks & to-do items and store files along side each contact in the system.  Where MioWorks steps away from the CRM paradigm is through it’s integrated customer portal.  With the click of a button you can enable a portal for any of your contacts.  Once the portal is enabled, that customer or vendor can now participate directly with you.  They can ask you a question, make a suggestions, or request a followup.  MioWorks records the information and automatically alerts your team of the new request.  The contact can also access important information 24hrs a day.  They can view and download files as well as provide approvals or reject with a reason. The client can even manage their own profile information to help you complete important details and keep you up to date on any contact detail changes.  As we continue to enhance MioWorks, more and more customer processes will be added to streamline the way you do business giving you a technology advantage over your competitors.

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Posted by David Abramowski

MioWorks unaffected by Amazon EC2 outage

June 12, 2009

As reported by CNET News “Lightning took down Amazon Cloud” there was a small outage in the Amazon EC2 infrastructure.  The media decided that this is a great reason to run yet another hype story and provide you with a headline that is really misleading.  The Amazon Cloud did not go down.  The truth of the matter is that a small number of servers in a single location were impacted due to a lighting strike that disabled a power distribution unit.

With this outage, MioWorks.com was not impacted at all.  But if it were let’s talk about the beauty of the cloud.  One of the main reasons that companies use EC2 is because of its on-demand nature.  This means that if your server was in that small cluster that went off line, you can quickly recover and bring it up on another server in an unaffected zone.  And if you have your stuff together you can do it in fifteen minutes or less.

At MioWorks we have seen our production instances go offline for one reason or another.  When this occurs we take advantage of the cloud.  In our environment we always keep a hot spare server running and prepared.  In the event of a problem with a single server, we can just make a few configuration changes and within a minute or two the problem is solved.  In the case where the hot spare is not available or has been just used, our process takes just a little bit longer.  We programatically tell Amazon to give us a new server in an unaffected availability zone, then we load it with our pre-configured Amazon Machine Image.  We run a few automated configuration scripts, re-connect to our storage servers and that’s it.  In the cloud a full re-connect of a server takes us about 15 minutes from bare metal.

So don’t worry, servers going offline is not new to the cloud, but wow it makes exciting headlines.

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Posted by David Abramowski

Interact with your clients

June 8, 2009

“I get to the office and I have an in-box full of messages.  I then spend the next two hours looking for documents, sending emails and answering questions.   I think that some of my clients have it out for me.  It seems like every day they want something that we just discussed last week.  This whole process of doing work and re-work is really killing my productivity and ability to bill hours.  What can I do with a tiny budget and no IT staff?”

As the young entrepreneur picked up her coffee to take a sip it was clear that she was frustrated by the administration and customer service aspect of owning a small business.  I began to talk to her about the reason that we created the MioWorks.com application.  The team of founders at MioWorks have all worked for small companies.  We have experienced first hand the pain of trying to manage a large number of customers with a small number of people.  We have also been on the other side of the equation where we were frustrated waiting for our suppliers to get us information we needed desperately so we could do our jobs.  I started to tell her about the application and how it applied to her small accounting practice.

I could tell that I gained her interest when I told her that MioWorks was all about making it easier to interact with her clients.  On one hand, MioWorks helps the small business to aggregate information on their clients.  By using the on-line application she would be able to quickly record conversations, notes, documents, files and more right along side the client contact information.  By doing this she would always have the latest information at her fingertips whenever that client called. It would save her time looking for information or scouring email to find what happened last time they talked.

On the other hand I explained to her how the integrated customer portal would help her change the way she does business.  The customer portal would give her clients access to the documents, forms and files that they needed on an ongoing basis.  By allowing clients view their histories, download, approve or question files, it would help to reduce the amount of email requests she had to deal with on a daily basis.  She was intrigued but still skeptical.

Just as I was about to show her the application her phone rang and it was a client looking for an IRS form for a new employee.  She said she that this was the third time she had to send it to him.  Before she fired up her email,  I stopped her in her tracks. I told her that in the same time as sending the email we could get the MioWorks.com system up and running for her and that this client would never have to ask again for that document.   She was willing and fired up her laptop in the coffee shop.

I directed her to visit www.miowork.com and sign-up for a trial account.  After less than a minute her site was active and ready.  I then showed her the import features found on the contact tab.  She was very excited that she didn’t have to type in all her contact info again.  We clicked on the Gmail import and within a few seconds all of her Google contacts were now in MioWorks.  She searched for the name of the client and it appeared on the screen.  All she had to do was click the button labeled “activate” and a customer portal was ready for the client.  The system also automatically sent an email to the client notifying them of their user id and password. She had to do nothing.

Finally, she simply attached the IRS form to the contact record with a few clicks.  The file was uploaded to MioWorks and another email was automatically sent to the client informing them of the availability of the file.  Her job was done and now the file was in a secure location ready for the client to view/download it at anytime.

Within a few minutes the client called back.  They were very excited about the portal and wanted to know if she could save their financial statements there.  She said of course, that’s the purpose of MioWorks… so you can have access to your information even if you can’t reach me.  As she hung up the phone she looked at me and said “I think this is what I needed to really make my business work.”  I sat back in my chair and smiled…she got it.  And now she’s a loyal MioWorks client.

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Posted by David Abramowski

Importing contacts from Gmail

May 30, 2009

MioWorks allows you to quickly import your contacts from Gmail.  On a regular basis you can run this import procedure to keep your MioWorks.com client database in sync with your Gmail account.  MioWorks is smart enough to only import new contact records.  To perform the import, log into your MioWorks.com account.  Click on the “Contacts” tab and then click on the “Import from Gmail” link on the right side of the screen then follow these steps:

1. Authorize MioWorks to access your Google contacts.  To do this start by clicking on the link “click here to authorize MioWorks.com”.

Import your Gmail contacts

Import your Gmail contacts

2. By clicking on the link, we will open up a new page on the Google website for you.  If you are not currently logged into your Gmail account you will be asked to authenticate.  After you log in, then you will be asked if you agree to permit MioWorks.com to access your contacts.

Grant MioWorks Access

Grant MioWorks Access

3. Once your grant access to MioWorks.com, you will be returned to the MioWorks contact import panel. This is where you fill in your Gmail address, the contact type that will be set for each of these contacts (choose from Customer, Prospect, Supplier, Employee or General).  You can also add tags to help you identify the contacts from this import.  By default we add a tag called gmail_import with today’s date appended to it.  You may change this to anything that you would like so that you can identify the contacts from this import.  Lastly you can assign the owner of these contacts.  By default the owner will be the account that is performing the import but you may select any employee in the system to own the records.

Set the import information

Set the import information

After you complete the form, you click on the “Import” button.  MioWorks will automatically import all of your contacts while you wait.  Depending on the size of the import, your new records will be available to you in just a few seconds to a few minutes.

If you would like to see all of the contacts that were imported, click on the “contacts” tab and then click on the appropriate keyword in the tag cloud found on the right hand side.  The list of contacts will automatically be filtered and only display those records that were imported.

Once the contacts have been added to MioWorks you can now start to enhance the profiles with additional information, notes or background information.  You can also enable a customer portal just by clicking on “activate” in the client record.  Once activated the contact will get an email with login information and then the two of you can share files, have online discussions and keep profile information up to date.

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Posted by David Abramowski

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