FileMaker Remote
How FileMaker can help your business in the ‘remote economy’
All businesses are in a new reality which we would never have anticipated three years ago. In the past two years, business have allowed their workers to work remotely out of necessity because of lock-downs. But now, in this post-pandemic economy, workers are demanding to work remotely. And in this battle of the wills, the employees are winning. Even Apple has had a very tough time forcing their workers to come back to the office.
Rather than fight the inevitable, I am happy to report that FileMaker has the solution to let your business continue to thrive in the post-pandemic, remote-work era in which we find ourselves. FileMaker by Claris has all the tools built into its system to let your workers work, and your business to still make money.
Three Principle Benefits of FileMaker
- Automate your Business
- Integrate your Data
- Coordinate your Employees
1. Automate your Business
FileMaker can help you to manage your business by automating many of your processes. Historically, managers have been seen as the people who oversee others to make sure that things get done. But if you build in your business processes into FileMaker, then FileMaker can help your employees to get their work done.
Typical example: a potential new customer contacts you, what do you do? Maybe you want to capture their information, find out what they are interested in, who they need to talk to; you need to send them some information, and schedule an appointment with a salesperson. You could make a list, and put in in front of the person who answers the phone. This will work as long as it is in front of the phone the customer calls into; and assuming the person whom you trained is at their desk and answers the phone; and that the checklist is not misplaced. And then once it is done, they need to make sure the information gets delivered to sales, and marketing, and entered into your rolodex; right, you don’t use an old rolodex anymore; now you use a new ‘digital’ contact list that sits on somebody’s computer, on their desk; and once they enter a new customer’s name into it, then they have to make sure they tell sales to look in the list for a new name; or send it over on a yellow sticky note, etc. You know the story; it doesn’t matter if it is ‘digital’, if it is not ‘automated’. What we usually have is a set of disconnected actions, people, and data, without a clear automated system to pull it all together.
With FileMaker you will be able to create automated systems which guide your employees to take the actions which you, as their manager, would want them to take. We can build those actions right into the system.
For example, if you have a FileMaker SYSTEM automating your business, when the potential customer calls, your desk person has FileMaker CRM system up and running. They tap the ‘new’ button and as they speak with the customer, the fields they need to fill in are all highlighted in yellow. This will remind your person to get full name, position, company name, city location of the company, phone, email, primary aspects interested in. As they select certain products of interest, the salespersons responsible for that are already getting flags created in the app. Then they can be notified by whatever method you choose, email, text, or announcement when they log in next time. Then once the call is over, the office person can click the ‘follow-up’ button, and a series of actions can be pre-programmed. For example, maybe an automatic ‘Thank you’ email is sent; and the sales person is notified, and a tickler reminder is created to reconnect with that prospect in three days.
All of these are simply actions which can be built into the system. And the great thing about it is, they do not have to be sitting in front of their desk at work to do it. If it is built into FileMaker, then they can do this from home, as they work remotely, and all the same actions will happen. It doesn’t require them to be physically in front of their desk to review the checklist, or fill out that yellow sticky note.
FileMaker can help you to automate your business, even your remote business.
2. FileMaker can help you to Integrate Your Data
Let’s continue on with our example of a business that needs the help of FileMaker. In this case, each person has their own data on their own laptop. So when you need somebody’s information, like phone number or email address, you have to chase down whichever person last spoke with them and was informed they have a new email address, for example. Someone says, ‘oh that’s right. Jim the salesman mentioned yesterday that Joe Customer has a new email address.’ You say, ‘well where is Jim. I need to send Joe Customer our project proposal.’ They say, ‘oh Jim went on vacation to Papua New Guinea this morning.’ Therefore, you are out of luck with being able to send that proposal over, and maybe make a new sale.
Enter FileMaker Pro by Claris. With this tool we have integrated data. There is just ONE PLACE where all customer and prospect data is stored, and that is in the unified cloud-accessible FileMaker CRM system. And of course, this applies to more than just phone numbers and emails. You can also store data like PDF’s containing signed contracts, previous project proposals, tech specs of various sorts; even video or audio files containing critical information. You can drop a zoom video recording in there for later reference. The key idea here is that unless you have ONE PLACE as a company to store company data, you will always run into such problems. That is why FileMaker Pro by Claris is the perfect solution for growing companies, and for organized companies.
3. FileMaker Pro can also help you to Coordinate Your Employees
What do I mean by ‘coordinate your employees’? In a lot of businesses, there is an assembly line of steps which must take place to serve a customer. Take the example of a print shop. First sales speaks with them about a new project. Then they meet with graphic design that works up the new logo, for example. Then it gets move to pre-production who have to place that onto their new company letterhead. Then production gets it. And finally, it goes to shipping. And to complete the circle, then sales should be informed it is done, so they can check in on the customer to see if they are happy.
How would you manage this six-step process? In many companies, they are still using a piece of paper that gets moved from group to group. (Unless of course, the paper gets lost, misplaced, falls behind a desk, gets dropped in the shredder, gets coffee spilled on it, etc.) Or another problem is that whoever has the current part of the work just forgets to inform the next group. And of course, this is all made so much worse in the remote economy. Now you cannot even pass that piece of paper along; nor can you run down to their office and pass the ball along. You might have to call them up on the phone! (like a caveman).
These sort of issues can be addressed with FileMaker Pro by Claris. By building an integrated project management software system, each department does their work, and when completed, just checks off the ‘completed’ status button for their department. The system then informs the next department in the process that it is their turn to make it happen.
Because of the integrated nature of such an automation system, we at HighPower Data like to call it a “SYSTEM” that Saves You Stress, Time, Effort, and Money”!
When you pull all three of these together, then you have a pretty impressive tool to help you in the remote economy.
So to summarize it, here is what FileMaker Pro by Claris can do for your business:
- Automate your Business
- Integrate your Data
- Coordinate your Employees
FileMaker Pro by Claris is the perfect tool to help your company to excel and thrive in this new remote economy.
~William Miller