Professional Services Automation (PSA) provides a solution by integrating different processes into one central system. Initially, PSA was primarily used by IT and consulting firms. But over time, PSA platforms have expanded into many industries where project-based or client-based services are critical. Today, healthcare organizations, logistics companies, marketing agencies, creative studios, and even wellness businesses use automation platforms with PSA-like capabilities to manage resources, scheduling, compliance, and client engagements.

What PSA Really Is

In layman’s terms, PSA is software that brings together essential functions in running a service-based business. Its purpose is to replace or connect to existing tools to centralize operations, automate tasks, and provide real-time insights.

Take CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), for example. The former focuses on managing client interactions, while the latter handles internal resources and finances.

PSA combines the two and creates a single platform that:

• Tracks timelines, milestones, and deliverables (Project Management)
• Coordinates client bookings and staff availability (Scheduling and Booking)
• Assigns the right staff to the right tasks (Resource Management)
• Automates invoicing and billing (Improved Cash Flow)

PSA in Sales Management

Client engagement often starts in the sales department. Implementing PSA streamlines the process. Lead capturing via email campaigns or social media becomes easier to manage with a PSA platform. The sales team can enable automated follow-ups and track proposal statuses. Some platforms even let you generate contracts directly in them.

Implementing PSA has a few notable benefits:

• Shorter sales cycles thanks to automated workflows
• Improved forecasting via real-time visibility into deal stages
• Higher conversion rates through improved lead tracking and follow-ups

Ultimately, organizations that operate on projects and appointments utilize PSA to connect sales data with scheduling. In doing so, they ensure that clients are booked with minimal delays.

PSA in Customer Relationship Management

Good service or timely delivery is not the be-all and end-all factor in customer satisfaction. Businesses need to understand their clients well and respond accordingly. Instead of collecting information pieces from different systems, it makes more sense to store records in a single data hub. PSA systems integrate with CRMs or come with the features themselves.

A centralized approach also excels in offering personalized services. Teams have access to a complete history of past purchases and general notes on client preferences. Keeping the information in a centralized platform leads to a stronger relationship with the clients, which leads to repeat business and referrals.

PSA in Logistics and Service Delivery

Logistics is a notable challenge for service businesses with moving parts. Consider having to coordinate a team of consultants who live in different time zones. Or what about ensuring that therapists have the right treatment rooms available? What seems insignificant can turn into a nightmare. PSA tools could be the difference-maker by:

• Tracking deliverables in real time
• Adjusting schedules in case of conflicts or cancellations
• Allocating resources based on availability and skill sets

Take a marketing agency, for example. Such an agency could ensure that its account managers, designers, and copywriters are assigned to the right projects. Or what about field services companies? With the help of PSA, they could track technician locations and job completions.

Professional Services Automation Benefits in Various Business Areas 

Booking and Appointment Management

One of the most notable niches where PSA shines is managing bookings and appointments. Missing a streamlined system in client-facing industries means:

• Double-bookings
• No-shows
• Wasted staff hours

PSA platforms incorporate the booking feature directly into their core functions. It comes with automatically updated schedules, sending reminders to clients, and processing payments. Such a system eliminates day-to-day administrative headaches.

Collaboration and Internal Coordination

According to the BLS, nearly half of US employees with an advanced degree work remotely. And remote work has not disappeared in the US or the world, even after the pandemic. A common challenge in growing a business is making sure everyone is aligned, and this becomes even more difficult with remote workers or those working across different locations (time zone differences).

Centralizing communications with PSA could come in the form of shared modern workplaces where teams have a place to get updates, progress reports, and files. Consider this from the point of view of different teams. Sales would know if a service delivery is delayed. Service would know when a client adds a new requirement. Managers would spot resource conflicts before they snowball. By eliminating these and other silos, PSA improves team efficiency, performance, and communication. Everyone involved sees who is in charge of what, what needs to be done, and what the deadlines are.

Data Insights and Reporting

The wealth of data PSA generates is often overlooked. Managers track activities in a centralized system. Accurate, up-to-date information on client satisfaction, profitability, and performance opens a lot of possibilities.

It’s also worth mentioning that more advanced PSA platforms utilize predictive analytics to spot trends, identify growth opportunities, or forecast demand, and finally improve customer experience. For instance, if you notice a booking spike during a specific time period for a specific service, it’s easier to readjust staffing and other resources.

Challenges in PSA Adaptation

PSA offers clear benefits. Nevertheless, there are a few notable challenges that come with implementing it.

The first is over-automation. The idea to automate as many processes as possible is appealing because it saves time and frees up staff. On the other hand, automation also means stripping away personal touches that many clients value.

Next, there is integration with existing tools. Many companies still rely on legacy systems. Connecting these legacy systems to PSA may not be as easy as one might expect.

Staff adoption could present problems as well. Not all employees are tech-savvy enough to welcome changes.

Businesses that plan for these challenges have a higher chance of minimizing them. Also, rolling out PSA in phases tends to show better results because it’s not as overwhelming for everyone involved.

The Future of Professional Services Automation

Deskdate suggests that, as a concept, PSA first appeared in the late 1990s. Naturally, what we had back then cannot be compared to modern PSA platforms.

The future of Professional Service Automation looks bright. With the improvements to Artificial Intelligence, PSA will benefit as well.

Industry-specific PSA solutions should become even more prominent. Different sectors have different needs, and if there is a PSA to make education, beauty, healthcare, or another industry more efficient, you can bet to see it emerge.

Many experts also suggest that mobile-first design will play a prominent role, too. Professionals want flexibility, mobility, and availability when managing operations. Smartphones and tablets feel essential these days, particularly if you are an on-the-go service provider.

Conclusion

To sum everything up, Professional Services Automation is no longer just a tool for IT consultancies. Instead, it’s a powerful and adaptable solution for service-based businesses looking to streamline their sales, CRM, logistics, booking, and more operations in one place. Thanks to the processes PSA automates, businesses have more resources to focus on delivering exceptional customer service.

Businesses that will succeed in the coming years are those that embrace automation in the digital workplace, but without replacing personal human touch and expertise. Rather, PSA should be a tool that frees that expertise from the burden of redundant administrative work.

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Lead Generation

Undoubtedly social media are great tools to create leads. However, as in case of any tool it is important to know how to use it to achieve your intended purpose.

Martin Sparsø, Co-founder of BARVIVO, claims that “the best way to generate leads is by finding your audience social media place. For an example if you’re selling kitchen utensils, you’ll have to focus on Pinterest ads. Linkedin if it’s business related, etc, etc“.

Moreover, Arjun Arora, Founder of Immediatelyapp.com, suggests us that “a combination of a high value content email newsletter combined with a variety of paid channels including FB, Twitter and LinkedIn” is a great practicefor successful lead generation.

Lead Conversion

Regarding lead conversion, Marc Prosser of Fit Small Business, points out the value of follow-up as “one of the most crucial aspects of lead conversion. With CRM software, you can schedule tasks for the future without cluttering up your personal calendar or having to make an overcrowded spreadsheet.”

In a more detailed insight, Vasili Puntus, Marketing manager at Xpansa Group describes “We made the effort to know our customers, had a great knowledge of our products, kept connection with the customer until he signed, tried to answer in the next 5 minutes and use our CRM to control and ping all leads timely“. He also underlines that “quality and the right price of the products were relevant elements“.

Customer Satisfaction

Arjun presents their followed practice which enabled them to maintain strong and long-term relations with their customers declaring “we ensure that we continue to communicate frequently with our clients, we are hyper responsive and ensure that we understand the customers needs outside of our product as well so that if we can be helpful in other ways we do (for example: recruiting, bring them customers, or helping them with marketing)“.

Martin focuses on a widely acknowledged pattern: “existing customers are often willing to buy more“.In addition, herecommendsas “the best way to create long-term relations with existing customers to invitecustomers to a special VIP email list, make them feel special, share great content to them once in a while“.

Vasili believes that the customer must feel not only special, but also safe, as being part of a family. “We are available for our client 24/7, establish relations, assistance in marketing promotion, service excellence. We organize meetings with our key customers at least three times per year…“

For a conclusion, it is great to quote Mike Schultz, President of RAIN Group, who focuses on strategy commitment. “We have several full-time staff members at our small company dedicated to thought leadership creation and marketing, and it’s taken years for the snowball to gather snow. But if you have the willingness to stick with it, it’s a great strategy“!

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David Waring, editor at Fitsmallbusiness.com , is totally a CRM Project Management fan basically due to their low cost and simplicity: “Having everything in onesystem allows me to manage the deal both before and after it’s closed from one system. This saves me from having to renter a lot of information from my CRM into my project management system once the deal is closed.”Simon Ensor, managing director of Yellowball, addressed the issue of having to log into different applications for CRM, Project Management or to communicate with his colleagues by migrating Yellowball’s processes over to a more comprehensive system with one login, therefore reducing wasted time and potential mistakes that occur with double data entry.

Kelly Fallis, CEO of Remote Stylist, deals daily with the problems remote collaboration has, so finding the right software that makes distance team working easier is more than a necessity. However, it seems that she has made her choice, selecting a CRM Project Management tool that enables her team and herself to operate from the same system, being able to see the same info in real time. She actually gives us the following example: “If a client happens to call and whoever answers the phone updates a file, whoever is working on that file sees instant updates etc., not to mention that they can pass tasks from one to other easily.” A system like that is totally the backbone of any Small Medium Business in order to stay organized, manage operations and sales, as Kelly emphasizes.

It’s a fact that the evolution of enterprise Project Management and CRM field has created a new business environment where CRM Project Management Methodologies and Software are used extensively. The CRM and PM trends for 2015 pave the way to cloud solutions that integrate Agile Project Management and CRM, providing communication and collaboration functionalities such as emails, campaigns, tasks management, productivity measurement, social media integration for engaging customers and Business Intelligence reports for data-driven decision making.

On the other hand, some people who totally disagree with all the different CRM combinations phenomenon and prefer to continue using different software for each process. Michelle Salomon, marketing director at Mobilize , prefers separate apps “because sales has completely different needs than marketing and product” and Ben Hoehn, Marketing manager at The Predictive Policing Company, seems to agree with this, as they use various applications for all different business processes. Salesforce for CRM, Leadsius for contact gathering and marketing automation or Google Analytics and Mailchimp for analytics and reporting.

To sum up, whether you are a Swiss army knife application fan wanting to remember only one password for your business app, or prefer to have the full potential of a CRM stand-alone system or even an independent Project Management software, your actual business methodology and processes are going to show you the best solution. So, all you have to do is sit down, specify what your business needs are and start getting advantage of the softwares’ free trials!

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– Shiv Singh

Customers are as crucial for the business as project management for delivering results within budget and on time. Let’s consider it for a while…

The existence of customers allows business to survive.

Customers’ demands lead business to its change and consequently to its development.

Customers’ loyalty enables businesses to thrive…

For every time we want to achieve a goal we devote time and effort to build a plan and accomplish this plan. Actually we always perform project management … even intuitively sometimes!

Nowadays, the evolution of enterprise Project Management field has created a new business environment where Project Management (PM) Methodologies and Software are used extensively. Technology is also used in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) “to organize, automate, and synchronize sales, marketing, customer service, and technical support”[1]. The CRM and PM trends for 2015 pave the way to cloud solutions that integrate Agile Project Management and CRM, providing communication and collaboration functionalities such as emails, campaigns, tasks management, productivity measurement, social media integration for engaging customers and Business Intelligence (BI) reports for data-driven decision making.

Each of the three phases of CRM, namely acquisition, retention, and expansion of customers can be considered as a single project and/or to be divided into sub-projects. For example:

• Organizing e-mail Campaigns for leads generation and following-up
• Creating and managing opportunities, from approach, to offer, to closed deal
• Getting customer feedback exploring social media to identify whether your business meets their needs and proceed to the required changes or improvements
• Build strong relations with your customers to retain and increase the commitment to your products/services that will lead you to new customers/markets (through their B2B and B2C business networks).

Moreover, customers can be considered as Projects Stakeholders. Having classifying them based on the value they bring to your company, you are able to prioritize your projects and allocate effectively and efficiently your tangible and intangible resources and business effort among these projects. Eventually, you will be capable of bridging the gap between sales and development. In other words to achieve the golden rule of making business!

Therefore, integration of organization’s departments is feasible by linking each project to a customer. Doing so, the various project teams will be consisted of members from several departments fully responsible for a customer.

However, there are some challenges that need to be addressed before you achieve this new CRM – PM loving mantra. These are:

• the development and establishment of a customer-centric culture,
• the selection of the suitable software that meets company’s specific needs
• the continuous employees training necessary to utilize the selected software in alignment with the new culture.

Do you think that you can deal with these challenges? Keep Calm and Sales On!

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer_relationship_management

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Fahd Khan is a cloud Business Development manager at ZSAH Managed Technology Services. ZSAH (http://www.zsah.net/) is a leader in the provision of Private and Hybrid Clouds architects around business-need. Zsah delivers cost-effective, high quality managed IT services to a range of UK businesses, operating across multiple sectors.

Cloud Technology is constantly changing, so how does this affect cloud CRM and what does the business owner need to be aware of?

Cloud technologies are changing however in relation to cloud CRM products it is very stable.  This is one of the benefits of using a cloud based CRM product, thanks to a number of leading companies and due to the rapid increase in cloud technology CRM’s have been more and more consistent whilst becoming easier to tailor for a variety of business use.  In the past business owners had to be very weary of the type of CRM they needed and the various issues their specific business and CRM requirements would need.  There would be a lot of back and forth with the developer in testing and siphoning out all the glitches, however in today’s market this is not as much of a problem and business owners need to simply ensure that they are subscribing to a well-established CRM product with a good name for itself in the market.

Do you have a few key best practices regarding CRM use?

With our CRM we are consistently making changes in house, and what we would advise any company that is editing and tailoring their CRM around their business is to ensure every change is recorded to avoid and keep any problems that may arise with the system to a minimum.  Although it varies from company to company it would also be best practice to keep training on the CRM for staff as a regular and consistent process. The benefits of thisoccurs in two ways, the first is that your company and its processes will run more smoothly as your staff familiarize themselves and make good use of your CRM and all its features and secondly, as your CRM develops and your team becomes more proficient in its use, you could find yourself receiving beneficial feedback that could lead to further development within your cloud CRM.

Cloud CRM is thought to be the best solution especially for small businesses, do you agree? Why?

Without a doubt cloud CRM is definitely the way forward for any forward thinking SME’s.  It has countless benefits from helping staff work faster and more efficiently to putting your business on a level playing field with the bigger enterprises.  Expensive and high quality CRMs that only enterprises could afford are now a thing of the past thanks to the leaps and bounds that the tech industry has been making in recent years.

What are your expectations for CRM in the next five years?

I believe in the next five years the core CRM industry will remain somewhat unchanged; however there will be a major focus on mobile CRMs.  With the evolution of cloud we will see complex CRMs being developed into user friendly and efficient products to be used just as well on a mobile as they are on your desktop or laptop.  Just as we can now work on the move and office hardware as well as software is on the cloud, this will also play a big hand in allowing companies to be able to enable their staff to use their mobiles for CRM related work.

 Given that CRM is fully saturated in the cloud, what are some of the other areas that will be next for the cloud technology?

The cloud industry is making some of its biggest impact in the medical and life sciences industries.  Whereas before scientists and doctors had to manoeuvre different departments and deal with a lot of red tape in order to receive anything from scans to test results, now thanks to the cloud these processes are speeding up and a lot of research and results are becoming available almost instantaneously.  Due to the sheer speed of the advancements in this industry it is hard to predict where it is headed but there’s no doubt that we have a bright and exciting future to look forward to.

You can follow Fahd at @therealfahdkhan or check his LinkedIn page at  https://uk.linkedin.com/in/therealfahdkhan . ZSAH can be found in Twitter with the handle @zsahLTD and in LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/zsah .

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The result? You cannot keep your clients in the loop and up to date on their projects and deliverables as there is no cross departmental connectivity and visibility. And if you (the CTO) thing that you’re going to remedy this by building a third custom in-house app able to connect the two systems then you are flirting with money and resources loss. You have to comprehend once and for all that this is not a problem of systems interconnectivity per se but of data incompatibility which leads to misinformation and high response times.

No wonder, many CTOs are finding peace of mind in new cloud CRM Project Management and Business Intelligence capabilities and vice versa, as by having an all-in-one software (and I repeat here ONE) you force the necessary visibility across depts and teams. The benefits are:

• All customer strategic information from lead approach to project completion in ONE system
• Once separated teams are forced to collaborate as they handle tasks such as customer follow ups, budgeting, planning and reporting
• No key customer-project information is lost
• Productivity can easily be measured
• And obviously, you pay and maintain one instead of two+ systems!

Dave Kramer, Founder of AllProWebTools, simply highlights the obvious: “Combining a project management app with CRM works because it recognizes that the projects you work on for a customer are part of your developing relationship with them. For example, at AllProWebTools, we work on a lot of diverse projects for our clients. One client might have one of us working on writing a blog post, another working on his website, and a third developing a marketing campaign for him. Our software combines project management tools and CRM, so when we clock into that client, we leave notes about what we got done in the CRM. Our CRM vendor has a feature called the Workflow Timeline, which is a live feed of updates: new orders, client notes, and project notes.

The status of each individual project is clearly shown on that client’s page of the CRM. It’s great for transparency with the client – who can request a copy of their relationship timeline – but it’s also great for project managers and account managers, who can make sure everything is getting done according to schedule.”

Alessandra Ceresa, marketing director of GreenRop, advocates that project management and CRM software are a match made in heaven. She backs up her argument with the following two great points:

1. Be able to associate projects and tasks with particular contacts. People are responsible for completing the tasks within a project, correct? So, why wouldn’t you be able to associate your projects with people within your CRM. You can assign tasks to them, track their progress with these tasks. This is a great way to measure hours, progress, and more if you integrate the two

2. Be able to accurately relay project information to a customer. When you associate your projects with customers you can efficiently show them the progress of the project, as well as the team members associated with the project. It is also important for people assigned to that project to be able to view the contacts behaviors and activities, and see if any of those actions affect the outcome or progress of the project.

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Another problem – most of us do not associate the word ”creative” with ”selling”. As they say, “Creative people wear berets and read The Village Voice. Salespeople wear ties and read “The Wall Street Journal”. Unlike very popular stereotypes, sales people do create things like demand for products and services, they create customer satisfaction and increase wealth. The nature of sales process, is, in fact, very creative. Invisible but very big army of hard-working ants create demand where it does not exist. Just imagine that sales people create messages (sales pitch) using various media that influence on the audience (prospects) and it is all about exploration of new territories and fighting for new ways of thinking. On the other hand, a big amount of sales people are nothing more than harvesters of existing business – they take orders, fill our paperwork, collect their commissions and go home. And they never break the rules. You need to live in this world then, balancing on the sharp razor between formalities and looking for new ideas. Pretty challenging but a bit pathetic though.

Take a deep breath and look around – your business has already invested in customer relationship management tools and you want make the most of all these CRM best practices. This system, which is used to collect and organize customer data, can often integrate email campaigns, documents, jobs, faxes, scheduling, and sales funnels or profit spreadsheets. Everyone needs to use it in order to make it a successful and usable tool for your company. The first step is to see it a successful and usable tool for the company.

You should follow these 5 CRM – Sales best practices to make this happen.

1. Use all the features of the software instead of resorting to other ones. Yet, Excel,  Microsoft’s classic spreadsheet program, is a favorite of sales teams everywhere, but you’ve invested in the CRM tool, so you may as well use it. Encourage everyone to ditch the Excel documents and any others that are part of your own online software that you use and pay attention to highlight the ways your staff simply can relax more and unify all information easy for a quick report to be generated.

2. Process all new leads using the CRM system. Once you believe your staff knows how to use the CRM system effectively, insist on processing every new lead using these tools. The transition period from other office technology can be stressful, but it is the best to integrate the system immediately. Talk to the most active users to share their experience and use also other CRM vendors to analyze the statues of leads. This is where you find the creativity without losing the leads or just forgetting them.

3. Try online software that engages the customer directly.
Because CRM best practices focus on the client, consider direct engagement as you refine your usage. Find out things like if your customers like the updating their information with you or giving you more details in their profile. In this social media age, you will likely find that many customers respond to this level of engagement. When you know what your clients already like, run an email campaign or call them to renew or offer something new. With powerful set of tools, you feel free to create!

4. Collaborate inside before you make a sale. Do not feel isolated with lists of leads and contacts. There is no place for embracement anymore, if you discuss online with your team the current offers, issues, project and latest events, the latest do influence on decision making. Ask first what has been improved and what the similar leads en-counted. With this valuable feedback, you will discover what you need to make your sales process as ideal for your company as possible.

5. Cross-reference with different social media profiles.
Some CRM include features to upload your all media channels and you can easily track social media buzz about a company and/or its products. If this applies to you, your CRM best practices should include bringing clients and social media together at every juncture. As client relationships grow, collect details from their social media profiles to help foster long-term relationships.

By following these unified rules you will understand in a short period of time that you need to make your sales team more productive. By having a powerful online cloud software you will demonstrate a commitment to your business’s success. Even you run a business just on your own, you will have plenty of space to talk with your muse and never get worried about routines. Be sure, your effort is already rewarded when you just contemplate about a proper choice for the project management, collaboration and CRM tools.

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