Sun, Sea, Surf and CRM

17 Jun 2015

I have just come back from holiday. I already miss the heat of the sun but I am really lucky to have brought some back with me, it seems!

I was looking forward to exploring the south of Spain, however once there, my brain couldn’t help but still think of work and home. It’s just what I do. I see people and situations that could benefit from our product and I want to help.

When I was on the beach one day, enjoying the amazing view, the drinks, and my favourite flamenco dancers, I noticed that there was a cover charge for beach chairs and parasols.

Imagine the amount of easy wins you could have if, on a tablet, you pulled up JotForm, quickly entered in the client information (if they are new) and took the €4 per chair it cost, and mark an Activity recording that payment? And if they had already come yesterday, you could simply add an Activity to their record to say they had come/paid again! Then, even if they come a week, a month, or four years later, you can easily search for their record. I know I would feel pretty cool being able to tell them the last time they came in, as it would enhance the customer service.

I also noticed that businesses are run differently than in the UK. The heat causes things to slow way down around 2pm to around 4pm and people use this time to get out of the heat and siesta. But what does that mean to your productivity? If you ask me, I am all for early morning and early finishes. But what about the people who can’t get up, need their nap, and are ok working after 4pm? You would need a way to track their productivity, so with Activities and metrics you could use the Calendars in OpenCRM to assist with this.

All in all, I had an amazing refocusing time. Although, I was not able to completely switch off, I think I learnt a lot about the benefits to our product in a completely new culture. Now I just need to convince the big boss to let us adopt Siesta into our culture!