Hey there! This is my second piece on my email parser journey, specifically around freeing your data. In case you missed the first, please take a second to check it out!
Where is most of our data?
I have worked in electronic document management my entire life. Most data, unfortunately, is locked away!
As a SharePoint consultant for the past 13 years, I have seen how companies store documentation and the valuable data within and how they use documentation every day. Despite the wealth of cloud-based file-sharing systems, most companies sit with a large file share of documents that quickly become unmanageable, unsortable, and unsearchable.
In other cases, the data stuck inside these documents is stored within systems. But like many software provider offerings, it’s usually trapped inside these systems, unable to mix with other data.
The first and most common example is that of CRM. Many businesses, over time, end up with various customer systems. In fact, at a large Telco I previous worked at, they could count 21 customer management systems across their online and offline offerings. Many businesses will receive leads across various mediums (phone, online, word of mouth), and there are some great tools to capture that information. However, marrying that data into one leading CRM like Salesforce, for instance, usually is a more significant problem to solve.
Another example for smaller businesses may be the following: You may run an online shop with a string of physical outlets. Customer details may exist in Shopify, your online provider, and another POS system across your physical stores. Your customers have a set of behaviors (e.g., buying products) that exist as a set of transactions both in your POS system and your online Shopify store.
Having one view of your customer (and their data) across all of your systems would make your view of the customer powerful (you can market to them more individually if you understand all their purchasing behavior)
Moving data between systems
Most of the time, the only way to make your customer data powerful is to hire a developer to synchronize data between systems. But as you know, the costs for this route can really mount up. Especially now as small businesses, and increasingly larger businesses, move to a multi-system SAAS model where vital customer data is spread over multiple systems. Even with a full-time developer, keeping these multiple systems in sync becomes a costly job.
There are a few options to help out in this scenario. Companies like Zapier and CloudPipes have cropped up to assist companies in moving data between various systems. Zapier allows companies to act on a trigger with different actions through triggers and actions. For instance:
1. Extracting data to Salesforce
Trigger: New customer in Shopify
Action: Add them to Salesforce
2. Extracting data from Excel
Trigger: Receive a new excel report via email
Action: Add it to google sheets.
Another option that most systems provide is to receive email alerts (e.g., SharePoint and Office 365 when a new file is uploaded or WordPress when you receive an email inquiry) or manually exporting data via CSV and Excel.
Here at Parserr, we help several businesses automate their contact inquiry workflows by syncing those inquiry emails from WordPress and syncing them directly to their CRM:
Another common requirement from our customers is extracting information from documents and forms. For instance, we can extract an Excel sheet of customers in Shopify and synchronize them to Salesforce.
Increasingly there are more ways to free your data and make it work. To automate manual data entry between internal systems, increase efficiency and accuracy and cut internal costs. This holds true for the data flow between internal systems and the data flow between you and those companies you work with every day.
Moving data between companies
Many companies use Parserr every day to automate data flow between themselves and their suppliers and buyers. This is where Parserr really plays a huge role.
Because of security and system constraints, modern-day systems tend not to communicate between companies except via email and other related documents (e.g., email attachments like PDFs and Excel documents)
Every day Parserr scans hundreds of purchase orders which flow into various systems like Xero or other inventory management systems. Because purchase orders often contain important information such as the items delivered and dates, processing this information accurately is most important to a thriving business.
Another area we can help businesses is with manual form processing. Schools and other education providers process many PDF forms every year from potential candidates. Entering this data into education provider software is tedious and time-consuming.
Final Thoughts
In a world that is increasingly about more time every day, isn’t it time you automated your manual tasks and ensured the accuracy and future of your business?
