Effective communication is the cornerstone of building strong customer relations.

Proven Power knows this all too well.

With locations conveniently situated in Oconomowoc and Waukesha, WI, Proven Power has always been within reach when its customers needed them most.

Recently, they implemented TargetCRM, striving to establish deeper connections and leave lasting impressions on each and every client they serve. This strategy has yielded astonishing results.

At their Oconomowoc location alone, they’ve had glowing reviews pour in, with over 50 satisfied customers sharing their positive experiences. Even more impressive was the influx of 836 survey responses, signifying a significant boost in customer engagement.

We spoke with Andy Flint, General Manager at Proven Power, to learn more about how they’ve been using TargetCRM. He shared valuable tips and tricks they use to manage texts, follow up with customers, review and respond to surveys, and more.

Why did you start looking for a solution like TargetCRM?

Andy: “We were originally with a different manufacturer called Kenect. As soon as we heard that Charter was going to have an option that tied in with the business system, we switched.

That was really the reason why we switched – because it’s nice that everything in ASPEN automatically rolls over into TargetCRM. It worked great. Having an integration with TargetCRM made a lot of sense for us.”

What was it like communicating with customers before using TargetCRM and the two-way texting feature?

Andy: “Kenect does not have any of the other integrations or the CRM aspect like TargetCRM. That was all manual at that point in time. One of the selling features for TargetCRM was having that choice for auto-response and having a survey that goes out when a ticket is closed.

We had to do it all manually before whereas TargetCRM does it all automatically, which is great. And before we had Kenect – before we did any texting – it was all word of mouth, asking people for a review or emailing them a link to do a review. So having all the stuff automatically has been a great benefit.”

How often are you and your team using TargetCRM?

Andy: “We use TargetCRM all day, every hour, if not every minute, during the busy season. We try our best to send most of our communications via text as opposed to being on the phone.

We can carry on multiple conversations all at once on TargetCRM versus one at a time with phone calls.

We’ve trained everyone in all our departments to use it. We try our very best, if we can, to avoid talking to someone on the phone because we can serve them better and quicker if we can use texts. Frankly, most of our customers prefer it.

All departments are using it, whether it’s the sales reaching out to customers for follow-up or sending quotes. They’re hooking their quotes right onto the message itself and then sending out after-purchase surveys and things like that to get more Google reviews. And the service department is pretty much training their customers to text us instead of calling.

Even our delivery drivers are texting before they go out to let customers know they’re coming using the app. The Parts departments are using it for normal correspondence, letting people know that their parts are in and information on pricing and availability.”

I’m not exaggerating – anything that you would do on the phone, we’re doing it with TargetCRM.

I’m trying to keep pushing people that way just because we can be so much more efficient. We’re spending less time on the phone with TargetCRM.”

What results have you had with the surveys?

Andy: “We’re sending out surveys after every single closed ticket and we’ve had amazing results with that. That’s where a lot of our Google reviews are coming from. We’ve done it actively and passively; the autoresponders go out every time the tickets are closed. Then we have that linked to a pop-up with the five-star Google Review already populated.

Surveys have been great. We have one that goes up for each department in all three locations. They change depending on the department, but it all has the same core message. Most of our surveys get responses. It’s nice to go through and see mostly nines and tens. The survey response volume has been great. If I had to guess, it’s probably one out of three customers that complete them. So, it’s pretty good.”

And what about with texting?

Andy: “It was very successful! The two mass text campaigns that we’ve done, especially the first one that we did, I think we sold over a hundred thousand dollars in parts just based on that alone. So, it was super powerful that we could create a list in TargetCRM and then send out whatever message we want to it.

We sent out a promotion where our customers could use a code for X amount off. Our goal was to put all the information into the customer’s hands. When they called in, texted in, and stepped into the store to get their next load, all they had to do was mention the code that they got sent via text, and we gave them the discount. It alerted them that this is happening. We want to try to blast as much information out as we can with as little amount of work as possible and get the most return for it.”

Who on your team is responsible for setting up, reviewing, and responding to text messages?

Andy: “Everyone on our team has dual monitors. On one of their monitors is their backup monitor with TargetCRM and they listen for notifications and check it regularly. There’s a few of us that have the manager’s privileges. We have three lines and they’re our landlines. That way, if people save our number in their phones, they’re not saving one of the TargetCRM-generated departmental lines.

We’re only using the marketing lines, the text-only lines. That way, when they’re getting text messages from our team, it’s coming from our business line, so they have it saved in their phone, and if they call it, it’s not calling a number that doesn’t actually exist. When unassigned messages come through, one of the managers come in, and it assign it to the appropriate person at that point in time. We make sure to split up messages between people, so we aren’t bombarding one person with messages.

The whole team knows to watch for texts that come in. It’s more like each person is assigned to a conversation as opposed to a department.”

Do you have any helpful tips or tricks for other TargetCRM users?

Andy: “The biggest thing is getting the responses. People are much more likely to respond to a text message, especially during the day.

If you want to turn customers quickly or complete conversations quickly, texting is definitely the way to go. That was the biggest lesson for our sales team.

They would always try to call or email customers, and I told them, “If we’re honest, most people don’t answer emails, and they’re darn sure not going to answer a phone call from some weird number that they may not recognize if they don’t have it saved. But if you text them, they’re so much more likely.”

Another tip for people that are using TargetCRM is to make sure that there is always at least one person checking the system because things move fast via text message. It might be a little bit easier if it’s departmentalized as opposed to ours, where everything’s going into one bucket. You’ve got to watch it to make sure because you may have a message that never got responded to hidden a few pages down. We’ve really hammered on our people to watch for that little red blurb that shows unread and then just sort by unread.

I also recommend to anyone managing the text messages to make sure to mark messages as unread when you assign them to people otherwise, the messages can get lost, and it becomes hard to keep track of what messages have been read by the right person.

Also, making sure that anyone that’s using TargetCRM is linked to their business system to make sure that, going forward that your phone numbers are correct. The system picks up errors 99% of the time but watch out for that 1% of the time when you send a message, and it doesn’t go because you made a mistake in the data.”

What would you say to somebody who’s on the fence about getting TargetCRM?

Andy: “It does not make sense to spend any unnecessary time on the phone if you want to produce volume and really offer your customers great customer service. Because if they’re constantly calling us, especially up here in the Midwest, we’re so seasonal that for three months out of the year, you might not be able to get through on the phone – but at least you can get a text message response a lot quicker.

Target is 100% the best choice. Customers love it. The team loves it too, they can process so much more. It’s a no-brainer.

So that would be one thing – if there’s people out there that are doubting it, try it, you’re going to look back and say, “I can’t believe we used to do business this way.”

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