Important: Tech Todo
Hi guys. A lot of this stuff is quite urgent, we need it to have an effective system for managing cases and leads... thanks much...
- We need to have a CRM system to keep track of sales leads. This should integrate with GMail and (if possible) with the wiki. I believe we've spent more than a week researching this, which seems excessive given that we need it immediately to keep track of leads coming in (which, if you define lead reasonably broadly, there are now over a hundred of, a majority of which are not in the wiki leads table).
- If possible, the CRM system should send automated reminders when a person hasn't been spoken to in a week or more, for both leads and existing clients (who need to be kept in touch with to provide a high quality of service). There should be a checklist for every incoming lead, and for certain kinds of scheduled events (eg. every sales meeting should have a certain meeting checklist). Canceled leads should get the sales person followup reminders three weeks after cancellation.
- In addition to a case manager, each client needs to be assigned a point of contact, the person who will actually talk to the client. The case manager should get automated email reminders once or twice a week, to ask them to update the contact person on how the client's case is coming along. We need to keep in regular contact with clients and keep them informed to deliver value (several people have already complained about this).
- I recall we had an email alert system set up for the wiki over a month ago, but I don't recall ever using it. Did something go wrong?
- Whenever a client page or sub-page is updated, each person with access to that client (except for the programming team) should be notified by email right away - people on a client project need to keep track of what's going on with said project. We've had at least half a dozen instances already of people doing intake twice, people doing intake and then no one else realizing it for a week, people creating duplicate clients because they didn't know someone else already had done it, and in general mixing up the right foot with the left.
- If possible, the client creation form should include a slot for Researchers, who then are notified by email and get added to the ACL. It's annoying to have to edit it manually for every new client.
- The point of contact for the client needs to have access to the client page, so they can tell the client what the status of the project is and what the heck is going on.
- When a client is finished, there are a number of things we'll want to do (customer satisfaction review, testimonials, upselling, etc.), which we'll want standardized procedures for
- All the client pages should have a list of researchers actively assigned to that client. These assignments should come with a project description, an hours budget, a deadline, and automated email reminders that the person has been assigned the task and needs to deal with it. If possible, we should also keep track of how many hours per week researchers are available, how many of those are already being used up, and any temporary absences.
- From a management perspective, we need to be able to keep track of client budgets. Budgets and researcher pay rates should be in the wiki (although not visible to anyone other than management), and the system should automatically track remaining budget when projects are assigned and alert people for underbudget or overbudget.
- Sales people need to be able to create new clients, and there should be mapping and auto-import between a lead page and a client page so information doesn't disappear and we can track which one is which.
- The lead pages should have categories for how a lead is sourced (personal network, social media, website, PR, advertising, etc.), so we can keep track of what's effective and what isn't
There are a number of people actively yelling at me about this - please help