Managing Customer Relationships With MLO - Is It Possible?

[mr.jose...@gmail.com]

Hi, I've been using MLO for years to manage my personal life.  I still feel I'm a novice at it and now I want to use it to manage my customer relationships.  Any advice on how I can do that?  Here's what I need:

• Customer info (address, contacts, etc.)
• List of tasks/projects
• Place for logging work completed that can include attachment

It's pretty basic, but I'm hoping to use MLO to record the work I've done for each customer and keep track of the commitments I've made to them so I can follow-up in a timely manner.  I feel that this is possible with MLO.  I just need some advice on how to break it down so it doesn't intermingle with my personal tasks/projects.

Maybe a new MLO file with each customer setup as a "project" and I'll create sub-projects for the work I'm doing for each?

Thanks for any thoughts you have :)

Joe

[Stéph]

Well, MLO isn't a dedicated CMS, so it won't do anything like automatically logging your calls, but you could do something with it if your needs are relatively simple.

I have my personal and work tasks and projects all in the same file, because that gives me more flexibility for filtering and zooming, plus I won't miss a notification just because the relevant file happens to be closed. I then manage everything via different branches in my outline.

First level in my outline is "area of life" (Personal, Home/family/friends, work and community).

Under the "Work" branch, the next level is my roled (electrical engineer, safety engineer, line manager...). I also have an "Admin" folder, under which I keep some text information like contacts for different topics, my development notes, etc.

Next level is the client organisation name.

After this comes all the projects for that name, with sub-projects and tasks as necessary.

I record the names of contacts in the notes for each project.

I make a date-stamped note of any conversation, call, or email relevant to a particalar task.

Where informatoin is online or on a server, I save a link to it <surrounded by angled brackets, so that spaces don't break the link> 

Note that you can't have attachments in an MLO file. The best you can do is to save the item somewhere and then copy a link to it into the relevant MLO folder, project or task note.

I hope that helps you think of a structure which suits your needs.

All the best,

Stéphane

[Joseph Bowen]

Thank you!

This was extremely helpful.  I really didn’t want to use a separate file, so your suggestion may be exactly what to do.  Too bad about the attachments, but the online source link is a reasonable workaround.

Thanks again!

Joe

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[westpo...@yahoo.com]

Hello.

 

I used MLO for years (before shutting down my business do to COVID and fewer customers) for customer followup. Briefly, here’s what I did:

1. I had a TEMPLATE for new customers.  The template was a project, and the sub-tasks were material I wanted to send the customer, one per month.  12 things in all, spanning a year.  When I had a new customer or prospect, I copied the TEMPLATE, un-hid it, and changed TEMPLATE to the name of the customer.
2. I also had a recurring task for each customer which simply told me to call that customer.

 

For data, though, I used MS Access. Specifically, a custom form where I could check off the customer’s interests, sub-forms with conversations, etc.  MLO’s memo-section would have sufficed for keeping track of small quick things, and probably done a good job at it, but I felt I wanted to greater horsepower of Access, in conjunction with the ease of pulling up who I need to contact today, in MLO.

 

 

Take Care,

 

Michael Emerald, CFA

 

Performance Business Design

Owner, Business Strategy Consultant

 

Performance Business Design:

NEW: http://www.PerformanceBusinessDesign.com/consultants

OLD: http://www.PerformanceBusinessDesign.com 

 

Massachusetts Plein Air Artists Group:

http://www.meetup.com/painter-84/

 

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/michael.emerald

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[Joseph Bowen]

Michael,

Great suggestions!  I am an Access expert, but really didn’t want to take the time to build a custom DB.  The template idea and reminders are awesome.  If I can’t avoid Access for some of my needs, perhaps I’ll have to bite the bullet and build a DB.

This group has been so useful to me.  I can’t wait to read the next suggestion.  Thanks for your response!

Joe

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[Laurence Glazier]

An alternative relational database is Notion. It does not include forms like Access, but has other advantages. It is easy to link to a Notion page from an MLO task, and the reverse should be true according to the MLO manual, though for me the Copy as URL option in MLO had not always worked from the Chrome address bar.

Hope this helps

Laurence 

[Joseph Bowen]

I’ll take a look at that, too.  Thanks!

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[Stéph]

The thing with Access is you can't take it with you on a mobile device (I think... well, looks like there is one on iOS, but it gets very poor ratings). However, I'd just like to give a shout out for an app which has been very-much under-rated. When I was looking previously, it was the only properly relational database app out there - HanDBase Database Manager from DDH Software. They support just about every platform out there - I used to use it on a Psion organiser and have been using it for years on my iPhone and iPad.

Having said that - I've just discovered that the latest version of Tap Forms, which looks like it would be slicker, but only has iOS and Mac versions (though it can import and export). I see that their website has some blog posts about building a CRM database, in fact - which would be very relevant to you.

That's another option to consider, then.

One more - I wonder how good Microsoft Lists will be for that, when it arrives.

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[Joseph Bowen]

Thanks Steph!  I'll look into those options as well.

Joe

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