MAJILLO VIRTUAL

Communication is key to success in business. Keeping track of and communicating with customers is very important. Retaining customers involves the following:

1. Storing contact information
2. Remembering customer interests and requirements
3. Making an intentional effort to stay in touch
4. Continually educating the customer on the value the business provides to them

One of my clients, Indeed Safety, has recently begun to make a concerted effort to improve their customer relationships by following the 4 steps above and using technology to help them. There are many options to choose from for customer relationship management (CRM). From a technical perspective, they need a fairly simple solution. Indeed Safety’s requirements are the following:

1. Store client contact information when customers fill out forms on the company website.
2. Have the ability to send informational emails to contacts who have provided their contact information.
3. Create email campaigns based on customer interests that are specified by the customer on the Indeed Safety website forms.
4. Generate email newsletters from the customer interests that provide information about how Indeed Safety can meet customer interests.

Mailchimp has been chosen for their CRM solution. Not only is it easy to use, but it provides tools that accomplish each one of their 4 goals listed. Mailchimp has an application programming interface, or API, that allows their customers to send data to their Mailchimp account. I created a website form for Indeed Safety so their customers can provide their contact information so the customers can receive materials, such as newsletters or training notifications. This web form is connected to a PHP script that is invoked when the website visitor submits the web form. The PHP script uses the Mailchimp API to add the customer information into the Indeed Safety Mailchimp account.

Customer interests specified on the web form can also be saved in Mailchimp. The web forms on the Indeed Safety website allow visitors to select what they want information on. Visitors have the following options: Newsletter, Free Consultations, Price Inquiries, Other, Training Course Inquiries, and Training Course Registration. When a visitor selects the choices that interest them, the PHP script uses the Mailchimp API for tagging contacts. The tag on the contact will be stored in the Mailchimp database using Indeed Safety’s lexicon for the choices on the web form so they can sort and query based on customer interests. For example, if “Newletter” is selected, a newsletter tag is applied to the contact. An Indeed Safety administrator can then sort their Mailchimp database based on the newsletter tag and see all the customers wanting a newsletter sent to them. This works really well for training courses offered to customers. The customers are tagged with a course inquiry tag and all the customers with that tag can be sent an email notification when that course is available and where to register. When they ultimately register for the course, the customer in Mailchimp is updated with a course signed up tag, providing a convenient means for Indeed Safety to lookup how many people have registered for a particular class.

Email campaigns can be set up within Mailchimp. Mailchimp has a number of templates available that can be modified to accommodate Indeed Safety’s needs for sending out promotional material to customers tagged with a specific interest. These email notifications are similar to mini web sites with links, graphics, and formatting that can make providing information to the customer very interactive, eye catching, and informative. Email campaigns can be very useful in driving traffic back to a company’s web site. Sending out these email campaigns is handled within Mailchimp itself so once the email campaign is created, it can be sent to a group of tagged contacts with a click of a button.

Mailchimp is a nice all-in-one solution for a company looking to improve its ability to manage their relationships with clients. With the ability to store, sort, and query customer details, Mailchimp takes the difficulty of having to create and maintain a database away from their users. Having an easy to use API makes integration with their users' web sites and applications an easy and quick task. Mailchimp’s templates are very intuitive to use and can be saved, making the generation of customer email marketing materials a fairly mundane and easy task. The different pricing options for Mailchimp are reasonable for a small business, particularly the cheapest $10/month subscription. Having worked with Mailchimp, that is a nice price point for all the features that are offered.