The Follow-Up Builder inside of ResponsiBid brings with it some very powerful option to add to your marketing strategies.  By having access to the ResponsiBid Follow-Up Builder, you still have access to all the powerful marketing strategies offered from your ServiceMonster account.  Between the two accounts, you are truly empowered to be a wonderful marketer in making sure your customers are well communicated with.  For working within the ResponsiBid Follow-Up builder, please not the following:

New Status Functionality

Now when you go to Settings, Followup Builder, you will see some new options in each status.  As you look at each status, you will see a settings toggle along side each status name.  If you click on that toggle you will see where you now have the opportunity to control how each status interacts with ServiceMonster:

The Open Status: When you click on the Open status, which is the first status assigned when a new profile is created, you will see some options to set the Customer Type, Order Behavior and Order Type.  Since this is a new profile, you would set this Customer Type to Prospect, the Order Behavior to Stay Connected and the Order Type to Estimate.  This terminology matches the functionality within ServiceMonster so that the status can specifically assign important classifications within your Service Monster Profile. (Stay Connected will either create a new order if one doesn’t already exist for a customer, or it will stay connected to any orders already present)

Pending Status:  When a customer picks a package but fails to schedule, they will be assigned to the Pending status.  The control in Pending status would justify you changing the Customer type to Customer, due to the fact that the customer has now indicated that they wish to proceed with the service that was provided to them in the estimate.  The Order Behavior would be set to Stay Connected, which is to say that we wish to remain connected to the original profile.  The Order Type will be set to Estimate, due to the fact that the job is not yet scheduled

Scheduled Status:  When a job needs to be scheduled the status is changed to Scheduled.  Now in the controls, the Customer Type will remain as a Customer.  The Order Behavior remains as Stay Connected, due to the fact that we are still advancing within the same sales cycle for this customer. The Order Type will be set to Work Order due to the fact that we no longer are dealing with an estimate, but rather an actual work order.  There is a new option that presents along with the Work Order Order Type and it is called Appointment Type.  The Appointment type allows for two options Work or ReWork.  Work indicates that this is a new bid.  Re-Work would indicate that we are editing an existing bid.

Closed Status:  The Closed status is used when the job is finished and fees collected.  In this status you only have two options, one for Customer Type, which will remain as a Customer and the Order Behavior which should be set to Disconnect.  The Disconnect action will tell ServiceMonster and ResponsiBid that this job is now complete and it will be re-set, disconnecting it from the previous estimate given, allowing it to be re-connected to a new estimate when the customer returns for more services.

Declined Status:  The Declined Status is used when a customer receives a quote but at some point decides not to pursue it.  In this status you have two options, one for Customer Type, which you will set to Prospect, as this individual is no longer a Customer but rather a prospect you hope to get back in the future.  The Order Behavior is set to Disconnect, because you need to disconnect from the current estimate, making this profile ready to reconnect to a new estimate, should the customer return.

Visit Status:  The Visit status is assigned when you are gathering a customers information, but it is determined that you need to do a site visit in order to finish the Estimate.  To assign this status, from the Call Screen you will select the Visit for Bid button which will not only assign the Visit status to this customer, but it will also allow you to immediately schedule the visit through the CrewCal system within ResponsiBid.  This is a function which not all our CRM connections allow for, so it is pretty sweet that the ServiceMonster connection does allow for it.  In the Visit status your control options are for Customer Type, which should be set to Prospect, as this profile is not yet a customer, as we are waiting for a site visit and subsequent estimate to be given.  There is an Order Behavior option which should be set to Stay Connected and the Order Type should be set to Work Order, since there is work involved in giving the estimate and this will need to be scheduled.  The Appointment Type is set to Estimate, as that is what we are waiting to provide the customer once the site visit is complete.

Waiting for Next Step:  This is a custom status that you will need to add for use in your ServiceMonster Connection.  When a customer decides to cancel and you don’t know exactly what your next step will be in that moment, you can use the Waiting for Next Step status with controls for Customer Type, which should be set to Customer, considering they are still a customer, but the Order Behavior should be set to Disconnect, as you no longer should be connected to the current estimate on file.  Should this customer come back for more services later on, the status would be changed from Waiting for Next Step back to Open or whatever appropriate status is needed at that time.

Furthermore, the Waiting for Next Step status should be integrated into your Connection settings for Service Monster.  After you have set up your Waiting for Next Step status in the Followup Builder you will want to go to your Connections and make sure you have some settings in place:  Go to Settings, Connections and look for the ServiceMonster connection portal.  Open up that section and look for the step that says Set the Status to.  This step tells ResponsiBid what to do when an appointment gets cancelled in ServiceMonster.  With the Waiting for Next Step status being created in your Followup Builder, we recommend setting the status in this step to Waiting for Next Step, as it will keep the Customer Type as a Customer, but in the Order Behavior setting it will Disconnect from the estimate that is attached to the newly cancelled appointment.  Now this customer will be there waiting in this status, ready to start from scratch when they return.  This functionality is what we refer to as a two way synchronization.  Certain actions within ServiceMonster will directly affect the profile for that same customer inside of ResponsiBid, as explained above in Waiting for Next Step status functionality.  In this way both systems will perform optimally from a customer management and nurturing perspective, minimizing any need for duplicate entry throughout the process.