Intuit's New Customer Manager Lets Small Businesses Focus on Customers

The forte and value proposition of small businesses is their ability to anticipate and respond quickly and effectively to customers’ needs, with think-out-of-the-box/freed-of-red-tape flexibility.

To do that successfully though, small firms need to have on hand or get their hands rapidly on all of the customers’ information. Yet too often companies rely on what is in the owners’ or managers’ heads, in paper files, on wall calendars, housed in obscure computer documents, or on paper or offline electronic organizers. When customers are on the lines, voice or text or at the counters, scratching skulls and/or fumbling through the pages and electrons wastes time and annoys the buyers. This makes the small companies look like that they’re not ready to run with the big dogs.

Intuit has come out a new tool, Customer Manager that makes managing customer relationships easier and more efficient. It allows small businesses to keep and track all their customer information in a single place, making it available when and wherever they need it. With it, says Intuit (News - Alert) “small businesses spend less time searching for data and more time focusing on customers.”

The tool therefore enables small firms to live up to the web truism ‘on the Internet no one knows you’re a dog’ i.e. by appearing professional for all anyone knows you’re a Fortune 100.

Customer Manager, built on the Intuit Partner Platform, is conveniently accessible anytime, from anywhere and from any devices wired or wireless. It is provided as an online service and mobile application.

Here are some of the key features:

--Provides access to up-to-date information online or on-the-go

--Automatically syncs with QuickBooks 2009 or 2010 financial data, allowing the customer contact database to remain up-to-date and in one place. It also updates with the most important financial information like current and overdue balances. This lets small businesses know if a customer is in good standing or has a payment due, so they can easily mention it during a conversation or when sending an e-mail

 

--Consolidates all contact information, key financial data from QuickBooks, pending tasks, scheduled appointments and critical notes about customers in one place

 

--Quickly imports existing contact data into Customer Manager from popular applications like Outlook

 

--Tracks customer appointments, office schedules, team meetings, work due dates and team responsibilities accessible from any location

 

--Enables users to tailor Customer Manager to meet their unique business needs. It organizes customers’ information with customizable fields such as “referred by”, “preferred payment method” or “warranty expiration dates.”

Customer Manager for Mobile provides access to important details for business owners and employees while outside the office. They can search for contact information, see past due balances, add and view notes, or see maps of customers’ addresses. The service is designed to work on popular smartphones. It currently supports BlackBerry (News - Alert) Curve 8520, 8300 and 8800 series; Intuit is actively working with other manufacturers to roll out on additional devices.

“Small businesses rely on the strength of their relationships with customers to grow,” says Angus Thomson (News - Alert), vice president and general manager of Intuit’s Grow Your Business division. “This is especially important in today’s economy, as all businesses look for ways to both keep their current customers happy and acquire new ones. Until now, there has not been a solution in the market that truly meets small businesses’ needs. Customer Manager fills this gap. We designed it to work how small businesses really work – to make it easy for them to provide great service, keep growing and be as successful as possible.”

Intuit Customer Manager customers agree.

“When a customer calls us for information it doesn’t matter where I am located; I can immediately pull up their information and leave notes for tracking purposes,” says Joy Allgood, sales and marketing representative of Dental South Inc. in Gainesville, Ga. “Being able to have instant access to important information, such as item numbers and POs, means we don’t have to dig through files and it saves us a lot of time and money.”