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Client Relationship Management – it’s an opportunity!
Many businesses have long understood the importance of delivering appropriate service levels to different clients and types of client profiles. Now an increasing number of accounting and consulting firms are benefiting from a well defined client management strategy underpinned by integrated CRM (client relationship management) software.

Why CRM?
CRM systems enable you to use the wealth of information already captured in your Practice Management system to more effectively:

	manage clients and client interactions
	identify and manage business opportunities
	manage events

The problem with most stand-alone CRM solutions is that they don’t integrate with the firms Practice Management and compliance software, which means either duplicate maintenance or the systems are not aligned.

Client Management
Not all clients are equal. The only thing worse that giving D class service to an A class client is giving A class service to a D class client. APS with Advance CRM is enabling firms to execute a client management strategy to ensure:

	appropriate client contact for defined client profiles
	all staff have 360 degree view of clients and client interactions
	marketing and communications are highly targeted and personalised
	closer client relationships translate to greater loyalty and higher value

Opportunity Management
Profiling clients and prospective clients and matching their needs to the firm’s service offerings highlights opportunities to grow the business. A clear view of business opportunities helps formulate a growth strategy. Should we:

	target new clients?
	generate more revenue from existing clients?
	focus on specific service offerings?

Opportunity management will also:

	Capture information relating to an opportunity ($/£ value, key contacts, history, next steps, etc)
	Define and drive the process steps needed to realise opportunity revenue
	Track the time and cost of generating business
	Track where business is coming from and where we should focus our energy
	Pipleline reporting
	-	what opportunities do we have?
	-	what stage are they at?
	-	when are they likely to close?
	-	are we on track to meet budget?
	-	do we have capacity?

Event Management
Generating and refining an invite list is the first step to running a successful event. The new version of Advance CRM manages the entire process of managing an event within the central database including:

	tracking responses
	generating reminders
	managing related documents
	budgeting and tracking costs, including staff time
	report on attendees from both Client and Event view

Fully integrated with Advance Suite and Microsoft
Advance CRM is fully integrated with Advance Practice Management, as well as:

	Advance Practice IQ and Advance Tax
	Interwoven Document Management
	Microsoft Office
	Collaboration with other SQL databases

To get the conversation started on how CRM can work in your practice, please contact:

Australia - Sam Allert – email: sama@aps-advance.com
New Zealand – Grant Linton – email: grant.linton@aps-advance.co.nz
UK – Tim Bennett – email: timb@aps-advance.com