Understanding the value of maintaining good customer and partner contact information is critical for this the community-based organisation providing a wide range of services to enhance the lives of individuals, couples, families and communities.

1. Relationships Australia
Victoria develops more
more efficient business
processes with Sage CRM
Sage CRM
Customer Success
Government funding requires
reporting and good data
While clients may pay for some
services, many of RAV’s programs are
partially or fully funded by the
Commonwealth Government’s Family
Services Program. In return for the
funding, RAV must provide frequent and
comprehensive reports detailing
information such as the number of
clients accessing funded services,
attendance rates and of course, how
the money is spent. RAV’s financial and
CRM (customer relationship
management) systems are critical to the
process, providing much of the data for
these reports.
In addition, the CRM system holds a
wealth of vital information about clients,
from contact data to the services being
accessed.
If there is one organization that
understands the value of maintaining
good customer and partner contact
information, it’s Relationships Australia
Victoria (RAV).
Originally known as the Marriage
Guidance Council, the community-
based, not for profit organization
provides a wide range of services that
aim to enhance the lives of individuals,
couples, families and communities by
helping them build strong relationships.
These services include relationship
counselling, family dispute resolution,
family violence prevention, telephone
counselling, courses and multicultural
programs.
RAV employs approximately 200 staff
and operates from 12 centres in
metropolitan Melbourne and regional
Victoria.
Customer
Relationships Australia Victoria (RAV)
Industry
Not for Profit
Location
Victoria, Australia
Solution
Sage CRM and Sage
300 ERP
Solution
Sage CRM was implemented to
streamline the appointments process
and reduce demands on administrative
time, helping to drive productivity
across the business.
Results
Sage CRM has changed the way RAV
do business with significant benefits
seen across client record visibility,
report-preparation and the reduction in
data double-handling. RAV are now
able to see a person’s entire history in
one easily accessible place.
Challenge
RAV required a new CRM system to
replace its legacy database that could
align with its financial system, and allow
it to manage its business processes
effectively.
‘We’ve now got a robust,
integrated CRM platform
in place as a base for
future sustainability’
Anthea Tsekrekos,
Project Officer,
RAV
sagecrm.com

2. ‘We’re capturing a lot of
data and we need it all,
so it is certainly very rich
in that way. The other
system didn’t have
anything like this depth.’
Anthea Tsekrekos,
Project Officer,
RAV
Creating more efficient processes
“We looked at our business processes
and tried to articulate them into the new
system processes. It was a big
overhaul,” Tsekrekos says.
For almost over a year she analysed
RAV’s processes, investigated ways of
creating more efficient workflows. For
example, rather than the old practice of
clinicians relying on administrative staff
to follow up with clients to arrange
future appointments, she recommended
clinicians organise appointments on the
spot, using the calendar functionality
being deployed with Sage CRM.
Although a simple change, Tsekrekos
realized it could streamline the
appointments process and reduce
demands on administrative time.
On completion of the process review, an
external consultant was brought in to
help document the recommendations in
a technical CRM system specification.
Following this, Tsekrekos called upon
MicroChannel Services, an award-
winning business solutions and
technology provider. “We’d used
MicroChannel Services to support Sage
300 ERP for well over a decade, so we
took the technical documents to them
and they developed our Sage CRM
system.”
The first of RAV’s 12 sites officially went
live with the new system in October
2011. Other sites gradually followed. By
the time the last site went live in May
2012, approximately 200 staff – from
clinicians to administrators – were using
Sage CRM on a regular basis.
Three years ago RAV was presented
with a potential dilemma. The
organization’s client database would no
longer be supported by the developers.
Rather than being concerned by the
news however, RAV management
embraced the opportunity for beneficial
change.
Anthea Tsekrekos, RAV Project Officer
explains, “The database had had its
day. It was antiquated so we took the
opportunity to find a system that would
comprehensively satisfy our current
needs and provide us with options for
future business needs.”
Aligning financial and customer data
One area that Tsekrekos was
particularly interested in was aligning
the future CRM with RAV’s financial
system. “Our financial accounting
system was – and is – Sage 300 ERP.
With our old CRM we were always
doubling up work. Client financial
information would be entered then
Finance would run different reports, put
the information into Excel and then
input it into Sage 300 ERP. We thought
it would be the ideal situation if the
financial information could be captured
in our CRM and go straight into Sage
300 ERP.”
Support was another major
consideration. “We didn’t want a small
system. We’d been locked into a
two-man show with our old system. It
used such specialized coding that there
were not many people in Australia that
could work on it. We wanted a solution
with a reputation; something with a
bigger skillset in the market to draw
upon.”
Tsekrekos started her search with Sage
where she was introduced to Sage
CRM, a customizable software solution.
It not only met her requirements for
integration with Sage 300 ERP but
provided them with room for growth.
With modular features and a familiar
environment, the planning for the
changeover began immediately.
Sage CRM
Customer Success
sagecrm.com

3. The success of the project was also
greatly helped by the support offered
from MicroChannel Services. “The staff
there had the knowledge and skill we
needed, and I think when we were
looking around for someone to develop
our CRM, they shone. They could read
our technical specs, interpret them and
design the solution. That’s very rare.
They developed our new diary as an
add on to Sage and it is working
brilliantly. I love it. Plus they were able to
guide me along the way as to what was
the best option for each component we
were designing.”
An optimised future
“There will always be future changes to
the system,” Tsekrekos says. “There will
be opportunities to optimise features or
maybe change the way certain things
are done. We are an evolving business,
always tendering for new work. There
will be new programs to implement and
this will affect the way we do things and
the information we gather. What we’ve
achieved so far is just the first stage
but by deploying Sage and working with
MicroChannel Services, we’ve now got
a robust, integrated CRM platform in
place as a base for future sustainability.”
A place for everything
Probably the biggest change at RAV
has been the ability to attach
correspondence and reports to
individual client records. “The CRM
contains client information such as the
programs that person may come in for,
their personal information, letters,
clinical information and practitioner or
clinician notes, the sessions they attend
and closure. We can look at a client
record and see a person’s entire history
with us,” Tsekrekos explains.
Reports about government funded
programs are automatically generated
and uploaded from Sage to the Families
Services Program, reducing data
double-handling and the amount of time
required to prepare reports. It’s a major
benefit because, as Tsekrekos
observes, “We have to comply with the
funders. If we don’t, we won’t receive
funding.”
Given the importance of RAV’s CRM
data, the switch from the old database
to Sage CRM was always going to be a
big project but Tsekrekos believes the
journey has been well worth it. “Sage is
looking good. We’re capturing a lot of
data and we need it all, so it is certainly
very rich in that way. The other system
didn’t have anything like this depth. It’s
a nice system,” she confirms.
Sage CRM
Customer Success
sagecrm.com

4. About Sage CRM
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customer interaction count. It is used by enterprising, growing companies seeking new ways to interact with customers, leverage the power of social media
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have already grown to several hundred employees, Sage CRM can help accelerate your business success.
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