"There's an esprit de corps there that you rarely find in any organization, where universally people are friendly and helpful," observes Trey Black, a Great Plains dealer in Tucson. "I went up there for the first time six years ago, and I wanted to prick these people with a pin to see if they were for real."
When employees are that dedicated and spirited, even outsiders take notice. Ray August, a Price Waterhouse certified public accountant in Hackensack, N.J., who annually reviews accounting-software companies for PC Magazine, says: "What is most impressive is the enthusiasm of Doug Burgum's people. I've been to most of the software-development houses, so I have a good basis for comparison. Software is a service more than a product, and the biggest part of that service is what Great Plains does so well -- the coddling of the customer, the technical support, the help along the way. It's really a phenomenal customer-service organization."
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The level of service is enhanced by a singular circumstance: though Great Plains Software end-users number in the tens of thousands, the company knows exactly who every one of them is.
The company began compiling buyer profiles in the early 1980s. Software in those days was full of bugs; to make sure users could be notified for corrections, the company wrote into each module a code that blocked work after 50 transactions. And to unlock the software, customers had to register with Great Plains to get "keys" -- unique, 10-digit numerical sequences. When customers called in for their keys, Great Plains asked some 20 market-research questions. Among other things, it gathered names and information on locations, business sectors, and company sizes.
That system remains in place, and according to Burgum it's never provoked a complaint. "Trying to automate accounting makes for plenty of frustration," he says. "Within that context, registration is a nonissue. If you're spending $3,000 or $4,000 on software, and it's clear this will allow us to update you if there are problems, you see it as protecting your investment."
Surprisingly, no competitors required anything like this. Some, like Real World Corp., in Concord, N.H., made it optional. "We include registration cards in all the software we send out, but we don't enforce it," says Reed Hazen, head of customer service. "Certainly we market to the user identities we have, but we refer them back to our resellers for products and support. At Great Plains, which is geared to deliver support across its whole user base, all those identities are needed, and it has a very workable system."
The difference in tactics harks back to Burgum's goal -- building his business on long-term partnerships. "So much of the industry is focused on making the quick sell, pushing as much product as possible," says Dan Malmstrom, Great Plains' sales vice-president. "Why capture all that data if you're not that concerned about service? But when you know the customer and partner information in this industry, you can leverage it for decades."
Indeed, as Great Plains has grown, it's learned how to exploit its customer list in numerous ways. All customer data are stored in computer banks and are available to everyone in the company. Depending on the need, the data can be manipulated to serve everything from software development to lead tracking to sales. Always, though, the information is used to mutually benefit company and customer alike.
Consider the Great Plains technical-support division. Vendor support is always helpful to software users, but with accounting it's critical. Imagine a panicky construction-company clerk who can't figure out how to cut checks on payday, while anxious workers mill about the payroll shack. You want to get somebody on the phone, pronto.
In 1983 Lori Laub was hired as the first support specialist. Today, as vice-president of customer assistance, she oversees a technical-support staff of about 65. The evolution of that division illustrates how the customer list has built profitability and customer loyalty.
Until 1987 Great Plains sold its products mostly through retail stores. Those stores were "box movers," seldom equipped to support the merchandise. As hardware grew more powerful and software more complex, customers needed high-quality local installation. Great Plains adjusted by shifting distribution to value-added resellers -- accounting firms, computer consultants, and software installers. They could walk a newly automating company through the increasingly intricate process. But until that channel developed, Great Plains itself was the sole lifeline for customers in distress. From the start, Burgum wanted to offer the best support in his sector. Sales and market share, he felt, would rise accordingly. At first Great Plains handled all questions for free. But in 1984, as call volume and support costs grew, the company began charging for help.
Since Great Plains knew who its customers were, it was able to market support contracts. The $50 standard plan, good for a year, entitled a subscriber to four free calls, with a fee for each additional one. The $150 premium version allowed for unlimited telephone support. Anyone not on a plan paid on a per-call basis. To encourage customers to sign up, Great Plains offered plan subscribers 30% discounts on major software upgrades, plus free updates on incremental improvements, like moving from Version 5.0 to 5.1.
Still, snags remained. "We had this policy of returning all calls the same day," Burgum remembers. "We'd fight to get them all done by 7 p.m. central time, but you'd end up leaving a lot of messages for people. That wasn't good enough. Given the pressures of accounting, the right answer a day or two late is the wrong answer."
Moreover, the two-day overhang on callbacks made life miserable for the support specialists. Customers harangued them. "You'd literally start the call the second or third day with their yelling at you," Burgum says. "You can't get good people to take those calls."
Lori Laub, however, proposed a rather bold solution, which Burgum backed. Starting in 1987 Great Plains guaranteed response times to customer calls. The client would get a return call within one or three hours, depending on what the contract cost. If a deadline was missed, the customer got a $25 coupon good for products and services. "We weren't sure we could do it," Laub says. "Nobody in our sector had ever tried it." It got frantic at times, but overall the system performed well.
