Johannesburg, 30 Oct 2014
With 11 day-care centres already open and fast expanding, Opti-Baby has deployed Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013, hosted at Enterprise Cloud, to manage its ever-expanding customer-base. AccTech Systems, a local business solutions provider, provided the solution and the deployment was done within 24 hours by Enterprise Cloud.
Opti-Baby is a successful day-care group providing Internet monitored, high-quality day-care to babies from age six weeks to five years - including intensive early childhood development based on global leading practices.
Opti-Baby's Financial Manager, Leon Smit, says the company has expanded rapidly in the past year. "Managing new parents and children was becoming an enormous challenge on the previous Excel-based system.
"Moreover, management had no way to track what was happening at the various schools, with no consolidated view available. Microsoft Dynamics CRM's easy-to-use interface, as well as its rapid customisation, made it the perfect choice for a quick deployment," he explains.
AccTech CEO, Tertius Zitzke, says Cloud CRM is the perfect solution for a small but growing company that does not have time and resources to spend on systems and servers. "The hosted option, available immediately through Enterprise Cloud, was cost-effective and required very little administration."
A requirements analysis was performed to identify unique requirements for Opti-Baby. For example, custom rules needed to be created to ensure regular report backs to parents on the child's progress. Other key requirements included integration into Microsoft Outlook, workflows needed to be simple, quick and easy-to-use and paper usage needed to be reduced by scanning and attaching electronic documents.
Furthermore, an intensive testing process was performed to ensure that the new system would perform across all of the schools and for all scenarios.
Management can now view the efficiency of the various school managers. Other information that is readily available to school managers and senior management includes effectiveness, average fees, discount levels per school, staffing levels and also lead follow-up efficiencies.
Smit says the child and parent lead generation and the on-boarding process is now completely electronic, with paper forms totally removed from the process. "Leads can now be tracked through the process and those that have not been followed-up are escalated directly to management."
The system allows management to take control of how its managers are offering discounts in order to attract parents, and also allows it to take charge of staffing levels to ensure maximum capacity.
"As Opti-Baby grows through its franchise model, it will be able to offer the CRM system to its franchisees through a secure logon. It will allow the franchisee to automate their processes for a small fee per month, but also enable Opti-Baby to get a consolidated view across the company," Smit concludes.