FollowUpCRM.com Screenshots and Information

Exciting News Everyone!!!

Hi, Everyone! I am very excited to announce that FollowUpCRM.com will be going live on 1/1/2010. What is it? It is my new online CRM system. Right now, it will support car salespeople and in the future it will support...

• Insurance salespeople
• Real estate agents
• RV, 4-wheeler, motorcycles, snowmobile salespeople
• Doctors, Lawyers, other Professionals
• Cell Phone salespeople
• Appliance Salespeople
• Boat sales, etc. The sky is the limit!

As the name states, it is an online program that you run through your browser. It works well on windows, mac, cell phones, net books, etc. It will work over any browser from any computer. Check your customers at home, at work, on a plane, in a train, on the beach--wherever!

I will be charging a small charge to use it--probably $10-$15 per month per user (more for dealership versions with the manager stuff...) and will be giving away free months for trials, for referrals, for people that post a lot in the forums, etc. We are going to have fun!

OK--first question people may ask is, "What about security?" Here is what it will have in place...

• 128bit SSL encryption
• Encryption of sensitive data like addresses, emails & phone numbers.
• Encrypted passwords to get in the program with encrypted online folders.

Here is a screen shot with a sample of the encryption. It is (as far as I know and have studied) un-crackable.

Here is what the main screen will look like.

On the upper left, notice the "Money Made"--you can keep track of where you are. Under that are a ton of quick links. Next to it are some easy to use search functions and then lists of your customers sold this month, hot prospects and pending sales/sold orders. To the far right is a "To Do List" as well as your appointments.

If you notice the menu, it is a pull-down type and makes it easy to create certain types of customers or prospects. Here is an example of creating an internet lead.

After you click NEW INTERNET, you are taken to the PROSPECT SCREEN to enter the internet lead's information. From there you can edit data, track contact history, print letters, set appointments, send emails and more! Here it is.

If you will notice, unlike my previous versions of CSA, only important information for prospects are on this screen. I also made it where you put "Vehicle Wanted" and "Trade Info" into text boxes without having to have a field for Year, Make, Model, Color, etc. It makes it a lot easier and faster to create a prospect or customer. Notice the "Contact History" on the bottom right. Put what you talked about in the text box, click ADD and it is added to your history. If you print a letter or send an email, it is automatically added to your contact history. See the field that says "Last Contact?" When you add to your contact history (or print a letter or send an email) it makes that into todays date so in the main form, you can call certain types of prospects or customers at certain intervals. Here is a screen shot of the settings where you can set up your own values for call intervals.

In this example, I will contact internet customers every 2 days and sold customers every 45 days, etc.

What about automated follow up? FollowUpCRM.com makes it very easy. The easiest it has ever been in any of my programs. You can create your own custom letters and emails and save them for laster. The program automatically merges your data with them. By the way--the emails are full HTML so you can have colors, images (you have to link to them on an external website), different fonts, etc. Here is a screenshot of the word processor.

See the stuff like ~firstname~ and ~lastname~? FollowUpCrm.com merges that with your data. If you print a letter, it is converted to a PDF file and you can use a pdf reader like Adobe Acrobat (free from Adobe.com) or any other one to view and print the letters.

Setting up follow up is very easy now. Here is a screenshot.

In this example, 1 day after a sale, it will generate a letter for a sold customer that is either new or used that has paid cash, financed or leased. You can break it down and send a csi letter (for example) to only new car cash deals 14 days after the sale. You can have an unlimited amount of follow up items and it can generate phone calls, letters or emails. Also, if you set up a follow up email for an internet lead and they come in and buy, the program will know this and quit sending them follow up emails as a prospect and switch over to sold follow ups.

Speaking of email, when you are a paid user (not available with trial) you will get your own FollowUpCRM.com email address. You will be able to use it to send emails to your customers. You can send a monthly news letter, a thank you email, etc. If someone responds to the followupcrm.com email, it gets replied-to your real email address so you can use it as usual. I have to give users a followupcrm.com email address because that is the only way that godaddy (my host) will allow people on my website to send email and because it will stay out of spam filters better if the email is from the hosted website.

One more screen shot of the program in action. This is the customer screen. Notice the differences between it and the prospect screen.

Oh yeah--did I mention that this program works well over a cell phone? At no extra charge? Proof is in the pudding. Here is a screenshot of the program in use via my I-Phone. That is an older version of it so the final product might look a little different (the zip code won't be wrapped for example...)

Well, everyone, as you can tell, I am very excited. I hope you all give my new program a try. I'm even going to have a button that you can click if it helps you sell a car so everyone can see how effective it is.

Best regards and Happy New Year!

Marv Chomer

www.CarSalesAssistant.com

www.FollowUpCRM.com

Coming on or around 1/1/2010: FollowUpCRM.com!

I am proud to announce that my new service, FollowUpCRM.com will be up and live on 1/1/2010 (or within a couple of days LOL) Instead of a one time big charge, there will be small monthly charges for its use--I'll keep it reasonable, I promise! Also, I will be offering free trials so people will be able to see the ease-of-use and the power of this program.

Think of it as Car Sales Assistant that runs online through a web browser on any computer, net book or even cell phone that has a true browser on it (I-Phone does and I think Blackberry does, I'm sure Android does, etc.) It will be very cool! I am using it full time right now and I love it--I love the fact that if I am on the lot and need a #, I can access my data through my I-Phone, click to dial, and call my customer.

Initially, it will be released for car salespeople (since I am one.) Next, there will be a version for dealerships with cool manager stuff like averages, closing ratios, blah blah blah. Then, the fun starts--versions for boat salespeople, insurance agents, real estate agents, RV salespeople, etc. You know what? I had an insurance agent give me a quote for health insurance 2 months ago and she has never called me to close the sale. Whoops! FollowUpCRM will almost force her to call me and make a sale (I'm ready to hook up but her laziness might cause me to shop her--just like your customers will shop you if you don't do a decent job of follow-up.)

OK--I'm on a rant. Lets just say that I am very excited about this one.

Here are some cool features...

• Full html email support with a built-in editor where you can create templates and use them over and over--FollowUpCRM will even merge it with your customer data!
• Print letters to your customers ONLINE! How? FollowUpCRM will take your letter and create a PDF file that you can print. Don't like the cheap ink jet printers at work? Print at home on your big-daddy $1000 color laser! Oh yeah--your letters can have colors now. Sweet!
• Set the number of days to contact certain types of customers. For example, I have mine set to call my sold customers every 45 days and my internet leads every 2 days (as well as phone ups, prospects, people on your general mailing list, people on a want list, etc.) If the person is not contacted (email, letter or phone call) within the # of days, they will show up on a quick link until you contact them! (Too bad the insurance agent I spoke about didn't have this feature--I would have already hooked up!!!!!)
• Speaking of contacts, FollowUpCRM keeps track of your contact history AUTOMATICALLY!
• I'll admit--the automated follow up feature on CSA7 can tend to stink. I have simplified it dramatically. It is very easy to use and set up and has automated letters to print AS WELL AS automated emails to send. Whoopie!
• When you first log on, you go to a main screen--there you see all your quick links (like CSA7 has) as well as your money made (today, month, year, career), a quick search area, a quick list one (for example, if you want to quickly see all your phone ups from last month or your sold customers from March of 2003...) It also has your sold customers for the month, your HOT prospects (people you are working), a cool TO-DO LIST and your appointments.

OK--this just scratches the surface of what this program has. A few people have asked me about security. I take security very seriously--I don't want people snooping at my customers and I know you don't either. Your customers are your property, not mine--I just store them for you and provide a program to manipulate the data to help you sell more cars.

Here is a list of the security measures that this program will employ...

• Your log on password is encrypted. For example, if you use "password" as a password, it is encrypted to read rN20SDiz6HJ0fJ6xHUHAjA== (which is "password" encrypted)
  The password has some "salt" added to it--do a google search for "encryption salt" for more info--lets just say that it adds an extra layer to protect from dictionary attacks.
• All sensitive data (address, birthday, phone numbers, vin #'s, email addresses, etc.) for your customers will be encrypted using a 128 bit encryption process that even the defense department can't crack. There will be a private key to insure that if someone were to steal the database, even they wouldn't be able to read your data.
• The database will be hosted through godaddy.com. They take security very seriously and back up the data on a regular basis.
• The folders will be "role protected." In other words, if someone doesn't log in to get access to the data, they will not be able to access the folder where the data resides. Since your password will be encrypted, they will not be able to log in!
• All data transmitting over the internet (to and from the FollowUpCRM server) will have a SSL 128 bit encryption layer so if you transmit the data over an un-secure connection (like a public wireless) someone will not be able to hack in and even if they could, they would see a bunch of giberish.

Simple data like a customer's first and last name or any notes you type in and even the vehicle year and make will not be encrypted--why not? Well, if someone were to steal the data and see that you sold a "John Smith" a "Chevy Impala" in the state of Ohio--well, what the hell would they do with that info? They won't have John's phone #, VIN, email address, home address, etc--all encrypted!!!

I just want people to understand that I will keep all of their stuff private and make follow up a very pleasant experience. Oh yeah--referrals will get you free months!!!

Thanks everyone and once again, Happy Holidays.

Marv

Service Customers

I have a new routine. Every day, I get handed a stack of everyone who has used our service department on the previous day. Here is what I do with them...

• I call them and if they answer, I thank them for stopping by our service department.
• I then ask if everything was handled to their satisfaction.
• Most of the time, the customers are very satisfied and tell-me-so with joy in their manner of speaking.
• I can see from the service sheets where the people have bought from before and probably 80% of the people did not buy at our dealership. In that case, I'll tell them, "I'm going to send you a business card. Please call me personally if you ever need anything."
• Usually they are very appreciative because of their good service experience (we have an excellent service department.)
• I then put them into my new program, FollowUpCrm.com (not up yet for the public but will be soon...) and I print a "Thanks for stopping by our service department" letter. FollowUpCRM keeps track of the fact that I sent them a letter and I have it set up to contact these people every 90 days.
• In the letter, I thank them again and let them know that I am a salesperson at the dealership and to contact me if they, or anyone in their family need anything.

I have been doing this for about 2 weeks and here are a couple of thing I have noticed...

1. Once again, I work for a dealership that has an excellent service department. It actually makes me happy to hear that from our customers because...
2. When I'm trying to sell a car, I can bring up the fact that I contact the service customers and 99.9% of them love their experience.
3. Once in a while, I get a buyer on the phone. I talked to a guy originally from Canada the other day (across the river from my home town of Wyandotte, Michigan) and he told me, "The vehicle you are calling about--it was a lease and I just turned it in. I'll stop by in a few days because I need another vehicle."

Now, if you know sales statistics, I have a huge chance of selling that guy when he comes in--probably 50% - 75%.

"What about missing an up when you are on the phone?" you may ask...

Well, I have a nice office on the corner of the dealership and have a nice bay window (no more cubicles for me) where I can watch the used car lot ($$$) and we only have two salespeople so I catch a good portion of the customers anyways. Also, it keeps me busy and sharpens up my skills because I am constantly talking to people.

The owners love it (no managers at this dealership--yay!), the customers love it, I love it and the other salesperson at the dealership laughs at me. LOL

Keep checking back to this blog. I know I haven't written much lately but I have had some huge changes in my life (moving across the country), I sell cars a lot (55-60 hours a week) and program a lot (20-30 hours a week.) I plan on opening FollowUpCrm.com to the public soon--I'm not kidding--you are gonna love it.

Marv

p.s. I'm going to have cool email alerts--FollowUpCrm will contact you via email to remind you about appointments, etc. It's gonna freaking rock!

Online CRM Coming!!!

Well, things are going pretty well for me in Tennessee. I just perhaps just finished my best November in my life--all during deer-hunting season which in Michigan, was usually the kiss of death.

I'm working on an online CRM for car salespeople (and later real estate agents, boat salespeople, RV, motorcycle sales, etc.) that is going along very well. I'm going to charge a small monthly fee for use instead of a one-time fee like CSA7 but it will have some cool features like...

• A simple design that makes it quick and easy to do follow up.
• An enhanced automated follow up system that will allow you to differentiate between new and used customers as well and purchase types (cash, finance, lease). It rocks!
• The ability to use from ANY computer with a web browser. You will not need to install the program and updates happen on my server-end so when I add a new feature or fix a bug, it will be there instantly.
• You can use this program over a cell phone--I have tested it on my IPhone and it works well and fast. Another cool feature is that the IPhone automatically takes phone numbers and makes it so you can click to dial. This helped me the other day when I wanted to call a customer--I looked them up, clicked their # and called them. Cool feature that I didn't expect!
• When you print letters, the program creates a PDF file that you can save to print later, move to another computer to print or print on the spot.
• Speaking of printing letters, the program puts the name of the letter into a follow-up history so you can keep track of who you have called and how long it has been since you have called them.
• Speaking of how long between calling people, you can set the number of days to call your people. For example, I have it set to call my sold customers every 45 days, unsold prospects every 3 days, internet leads every 2 days, people on a mailing list every 90 days, etc. When you contact a person (whether call, email or send a letter) it will reset the date so it will not notify you again until the number of days have elapsed.

Quite frankly, I think this program is the future of my business. I'll still make computer versions that you purchase and install to a single computer but I think this will be easier to use as well as more versatile for my customers because of the instant updating, ability to use anywhere, etc.

I'll be giving away free trial copies soon so you all can check it out.

Marv

p.s. A dealership version will also come out that will rock and roll!