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Armed with ideas and energy, Mary and John Bogdanski launched into the highly-competitive world of Website entrepreneurship as the founders of a pair of e-commerce Websites. As one half of the husband and wife team, Mary Bogdanski runs www.Equus-Rx.com, a Website dedicated to providing news, information, advice and products for horse owners. Operating in a separate entrepreneurial niche, John Bogdanski’s site www.HeatingOilHelp.com is designed to provide research products and advice concerning the consumer heating oil industry. Having used Maximizer very successfully at a previous organization, the Bogdanski’s deployed Maximizer to support their two new growing ventures. With Maximizer, the pair have increased revenues by 35% in a single year, grown a prospect base from 0 to more than 2,300, done away with in-efficient paper filing and managed to increase their leisure time by a healthy 25%.
According to John Bogdanski, founder of www.heatingoilhelp.com, “Without a group of employees to rely on to respond to customers, follow-up on their requests and stay up to date on new heating oil industry research, I absolutely needed a system for keeping my business day organized and presenting a knowledgeable, professional image to each and every customer. With thousands of prospects, managing relationships on paper or in Microsoft Outlook just isn’t going to provide a customer experience that will keep them coming back. With Maximizer, I can track all of my interactions with customers and prospects whether I talked with them over the phone, via Microsoft Outlook email or through requests for information on our Website.”
New Ventures
Whether marketing research related to the heating oil industry or equine health products and information, to do so via the Internet requires a commitment to very rapid responses to customer inquiries and flawless customer service. Indeed, without a physical presence such as a shop counter or in-person sales representative, responses via email and over the phone are the only opportunity to develop a relationship with customers and increase the chances that they will return to the company in the future. Add to this the fact that both equus.com and heatingoilhelp.com are start up companies with a relatively limited industry reputation, and the requirement for near-perfect customer service becomes even more clear. “With Maximizer, I am able to keep everything and everyone organized,” says Mary Bogdanski. “Before I had the system, I had an extensive paper filing system and I hired an assistant purely to handle the huge number of paper files I had to store away. It was very challenging to look up a customer’s file on short notice – especially when they called in to check the status of an order or get information about something they had purchased in the past.”
The Maximizer Solution
In order to grow revenues, expand the customer base and deliver a high-quality customer experience, the Bogdanskis deployed Maximizer for use in their shared home office and began transitioning from a paper-based administrative system to electronic files stored in Maximizer. In a matter of weeks, all customer information including details of contracts, past purchase history, preferences, details of past phone conversations and email messages were available at the click of a mouse in Maximizer. The system has also reduced the burden of reminding John and Mary about responding to customers on time and with the right information. Using built-in Action Plans, the Bogdanski’s can set out a plan for interacting with a customer or prospect including strategically-timed emails, phone calls and outgoing mail – all driven by automatically-generated reminders. “Moving from a manual sales process to technology-enabled customer service has helped me take my business to the next level. I can service each of my hundreds of customers as if they were my only customer. With the integration of Microsoft Outlook I can communicate with customers via email and not worry about keeping track of our conversations over time – they’re all filed in the customer’s record so I can remind myself before the next time I send them a message. This email integration is so important as this is often how Web-savvy customers like to communicate,” says Mary Bogdanski.
Taking Customer Relationships on the Road with Pocket PC
As an owner/operator of a small business, John Bogdanski is pressed to respond to customer requests, fulfill orders and still make time for every day tasks. Using Maximizer synchronized with his Pocket PC wireless device, he takes his customer relationships with him while keeping up with his busy schedule. With Maximizer, Bogdanski can access his customer information including email messages, notes about recent conversations, orders, contact details and other critical information with him wherever his schedule takes him. “Like my wife, I don’t know what I did before I had Maximizer integrated to my Outlook email. This is a very powerful feature. However, sometimes I won’t have access to my computer and at these times, having Maximizer information available on my Pocket PC is very handy and helps me stay right up-to-date with my business activities when I would otherwise be out of touch.”
Return on Investment
Given the Bogdanski’s relatively modest investment of $229 to purchase the latest generation of Maximizer, the business value the pair has achieved using the system is outstanding. With Maximizer keeping track of the complete customer lifecycle, Mary Bogdanski has increased the revenues of her venture by more than 35% while spending 25% less time on resource-consuming administrative activities. Overall, the Bogdanski’s estimate that they are a healthy 50% more productive using Maximizer than they were using their previous paper-based administrative system. John Bogdanski has successfully launched his new Website venture and grown his prospect base from 0 to more than 2,300 targeted contacts. According to Mary Bogdanski, “The decision to use Maximizer was a good one. Revenues are up and expenses are down. In fact, because we are so much more efficient with Maximizer than we were with paper files, I have been able to handle all aspects of the business without the need to bring in an administrative assistant. This alone has greatly increased my profit margins and ultimately, the quality of service I can provide to my customers. And, as a pleasant side-effect, I have a lot more time to spend with my husband.”
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