Tammy Ven Dange of Roundbox Consulting chats with Tim Hunter, Head of Client Experience at SwiftFox about their all-in-one CRM platform.
In this interview, we learn about:
00:00 About SwiftFox
03:08 SwiftFox clients
05:16 About SwiftFox CRM
06:12 SwiftFox CRM functionality
10:05 Supporting CPD Requirements
11:09 SwiftFox Ideal client size
12:25 Strengths of SwiftFox
14:55 SwiftFox Roadmap
18:27 How to find out more about SwiftFox
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Tammy regularly helps Not for Profits make IT investment decisions. Let her know if you need some help.
Tammy Ven Dange is a former charity CEO, Association President, Not for Profit Board Member and IT Executive. Today she helps NFPs with strategic IT decisions as an independent consultant. She does not take commissions nor sign partnership arrangements with vendors.
Video Transcript with SwiftFox (Minor modifications have been made for clarity)
Tammy Ven Dange – Today I welcome Tim Hunter, the head of experience of SwiftFox CRM. Tim, thank you for joining me today.
Tim Hunter – Thanks so much for having me on, Tammy.
About SwiftFox
Tammy Ven Dange – So Tim, tell me more about SwiftFox.
Tim Hunter – SwiftFox, here at SwiftFox, we used to make originally bespoke software for each and every single one of our clients. So typically it would be really large organisations coming to us with, you know, a big long requirements document. And we would work through that, and we would build software almost from the ground up, for each and every single client of ours.
Then we realised, “hold on a minute, there’s so many features that have got universal benefit across the different clients that we are supporting.” So we started our SwiftFox journey with the vision of bringing a few bits and pieces together.
So the first idea was let’s bring people together, so that if an organisation has got, say a communications team or a member management team, or a finance team, let’s see if we can bring all of these, these guys into the one platform, rather than having a disparate array of different tools in an organisation.
The second idea that I think a lot of software companies are embracing these days is that we just want it to be simple and easy to use. So that the tools we make are intuitive for staff, and so that you don’t need to get in touch with a third party implementation consultant if one wishes to change template in an email automation, for example.
And then the third was that, unlike a lot of the platforms we’d built historically, we wanted to move to the cloud. We wanted to make sure that all of the data is hosted in Australia for our Australian clients. And naturally that it’s always evolving with the times, that there’s a very proactive roadmap, which I’m sure we’ll touch on today, and that we can maintain data security and cybersecurity as our foremost goal is, you know risks in those areas continually change.
Then the last kind of core value in bringing SwiftFox together was this idea of partnership. We wanted to make it such that we wouldn’t be outsourcing the implementation to a third party, we wanted it so that we would do all of the implementation with our clients. We’d be able to make sure that it was gonna be a seamless process. And that then, once they’re set up for long-term success, if they need a hand with the way that things have been set up then or having to phone someone that’s saying, “Hey, look we’re gonna have to charge you 50 bucks an hour or whatever it is to change that template over, or to publish that new page on your website.”
So I think having a partnership-style approach with each and every one of our clients no matter whether they’re a massive organisation, or a really small one, I think is, is vital for us.
Tammy Ven Dange – And when did SwiftFox start?
Tim Hunter – So, the company was originally started around 25 years ago now, and that’s when we started building the sort of bespoke systems, and then the SwiftFox platform sort of started five years ago.
More About Tim Hunter
Tammy Ven Dange – Okay, great. And then, how did you get involved in SwiftFox Tim?
Tim Hunter – So, despite my broad Australian accent, I am actually from the UK, and I came out to Australia a few years ago with my wife, who is a touch more Australian than me.
My background was a slightly unusual combo. I did work in technology, in sales for several years, but I’d also studied theoretical maths. I was really lucky I got the opportunity to join SwiftFox as a data manager, working with clients, particularly in the research space. But it became quickly apparent to me, and I think possibly to the team as well, that my real passion was in working with people.
And so the team and the leaders here supported me to move into a more client-facing role. Now I’m really privileged to be the head of client experience here at SwiftFox, which is a a role I really love.
SwiftFox Clients
Tammy Ven Dange – And so tell me more about the types of clients that you have right now.
Tim Hunter – Yeah, so there’s, there’s four key areas that we’ve noticed that SwiftFox has been able to support exceptionally well. One of those is, of course, membership organisations, be they unions or professional associations. The second is not-for-profits and those looking to receive donations. And the third is those who are looking to campaign or advocate for change. And then lastly, we’ve got a fair few professional service firms that we work with, and those who are looking to deliver an exceptional client service as well as grow their revenue through their business development efforts. So those are sort of the four key groups of clients if we have to put them each into a different basket.
About SwiftFox CRM
Tammy Ven Dange – So is that all within the same type of CRM platform that you offer?
Tim Hunter – Yeah, absolutely. And again, that goes back to that idea of universal benefits across the different platforms, and the different client bases that we, that we work with. So for example, we know that everyone needs to be sending beautiful emails that look great on a wide variety of devices. We know that everyone needs to manage some amount of financial data, whether it be receiving dues, or whether that be about receiving donations, and then sending out tax receipts, whether that be about managing events, whether that be even our accountancy clients who are needing to connect in, not just with a finance platform, but also their practise management platform that is managing someone else’s finance platform, for example. So for those reasons, we’ve realised, let’s bring, let’s bring everything together.
Tammy Ven Dange – I’d love to ask you more questions about the finance piece in a second. But from a typical CRM perspective, especially in the members or the association space, I deal with a lot of clients in that. I’d like to just touch on some of the functionality around that. So, can I assume you guys do membership management?
Tim Hunter – Yeah, absolutely.
Tammy Ven Dange – Yeah. And would that be for corporate and individual members, or is it restricted?
Tim Hunter – No, so the way that we have our membership, the way that we work with our membership system clients, and those that are looking to manage members is that we will work with them on what their rules are gonna be. So whether it’s, you know there’s gonna be some automations that we need to set up to so, okay, cool, organisations are gonna be members, and maybe people are also gonna be members as well. And maybe there’s gonna be a great level of overlap between those two different types of membership.
And so, from a member management perspective, going back to the way that our organisation started, it’s about sitting down with the client and working out what they need to to manage, and then making sure that the platform works for them. So there’s no member requirements that we’ve, that we’ve been sent, where we’ve had to turn someone away.
Tammy Ven Dange – Can you manage events within your CRM?
Tim Hunter – Yeah, absolutely. So we have a whole group of communication tools such as, you know, for sending out emails and newsletters, managing say, marketing automations, having phone calls, sending and receiving text messages, event management programme management, and naturally all of the finance elements that would go along with that, as well as the website work and the digital advertising that many organisations need.
Our communication toolkit, we find, again, it really supports organisations, whether they are a association, whether you are a professional service firm, whether you are a small nonprofit looking to just receive a few donations here and there. All of those tools and we have found have been able to provide benefit to the organisations that we support.
So we’ve had the philosophy of let’s not do different sort of packages, where it’s like you’ve gotta opt into, say, the communications tools package or the collaboration tools package, or the finance tools package. But instead, if you’re a SwiftFox client, you’ll get access to everything, and we would hope that there’s gonna be benefit right throughout the system to support your organisation.
SwiftFox CRM Functionality
Tammy Ven Dange – You mentioned the financial tools a few times and that’s not something you commonly hear about in CRMs. In fact, a lot of CRM suppliers I find do not think about it enough in terms of-
Tim Hunter – No.
Tammy Ven Dange – How that might work, can you tell us more about that functionality?
Tim Hunter – Every single organisation will have typically a different bank. Some of them will have different payment gateways that they’re using, some, you know, such as Stripe or Fat Zebra, or Easy Debit for example. Every organisation is gonna have some accounting software, and as I said, maybe even some sort of professional grade accounting software over the top.
And so we’ve built SwiftFox in such a way that whatever the financial requirements are, and whatever financial systems and processes are are currently in place, SwiftFox can be connected to what you’ve got going currently. And that means that as part of choosing SwiftFox, an organisation doesn’t need to move all of their sort of direct debit processes over to a different platform. It means that they don’t need to change the way that they’re doing their, sort of audits and those types of things. So it’s, it’s all about having the flexibility to manage a wide variety of different requirements, but in a way that again, is just sort of simple.
Supporting CPD Requirements
Tammy Ven Dange – Okay. And let’s talk about some of the other requirements of those types of organisations. Some of them have certification or CPD requirements. Can you support that as well?
Tim Hunter – Yeah, absolutely. So we have our, what we would call our action centre, and within our action centre we can add in any of the sort of almost the mini apps that are gonna be required, where some parts of the platform managing an email, for example is gonna be universal across all of our clients. But managing, say, CPD and those types of things, there may be a specific sort of process associated with that for each of our clients.
And so we use the action centre for those types of processes. And when an organisation approaches us and says, “Hey can you help us with X, Y, and Z?” We can have a look at the work that we’ve done previously using the action centre, and leverage our experience so that it doesn’t cost a bond to set stuff like that up for our clients.
SwiftFox Ideal client size
Tammy Ven Dange – Is there an ideal size client and an ideal type of client for you that, that you look for when you’re trying to find fit for your software?
Tim Hunter – We’ve found that firstly, from a pricing perspective for smaller organisations that do need something very simple, we can get them up and running very, very quickly and at very low cost. So some organisations have paid, you know a couple of thousand dollars, and they’ve had sort of a pretty quick implementation plan. They then get a dedicated account manager to support them after implementation and beyond.
And then because we’ve come from a background of building bespoke software, naturally there are really large organisations as well that do get in touch and say, “Hey look, we know that you’ve got all of this stuff as your core functionality and this is how it kind of works, but we also need X, Y and Z to be sort of added, or as either development or configuration for us as well.” So we do find that, you know we love supporting both small and large organisations, and we wouldn’t sort of have a preference either way, or half of our clients would be very upset with me.
Strengths of SwiftFox
Tammy Ven Dange – Okay. So if we were thinking about your CRM versus perhaps others, what do you think the strengths of SwiftFox?
Tim Hunter – I think it’s the philosophy of bringing all of the tools together. So you’re not having to integrate SwiftFox with the, say, a different text messaging platform or a different calls management or sort of VoIP platform, you’re not having to connect it into a different email platform. You can just use all of the tools as they are out of the box without needing to configure 12 different integrations. And part of that was because we wanted to support smaller and smaller organisations throughout the journey, but part of it has also been about wanting to make it so that you can then start to really use the data to its full advantage.
So when we sort of talk about wanting to get better targeting within a, within a campaign for example, where if we’re making all of the calls sending all the text messages, managing all of the events within the one platform, we can use all of that data, and all of that insight to achieve stronger outcomes. And so yeah, I think it’s just the sheer volume of features and the fact that they’ve been put together in a way that is intuitive and easy to use
Tammy Ven Dange – When you say campaigns, you’re also talking about social media too. Is that right?
Tim Hunter – Yeah, absolutely. And so what we, and it was a, it was a bold move. We did think about it carefully, you know, do we describe, how do we describe ourselves? And for us, we’ve, it’s quite simple, really. We’ve realised that everyone has an audience, whether you are a large professional service firm looking to convert your prospects through to clients, whether you are a membership organisation looking to sign up more members and also decrease the rate of members that are leaving your organisation, or whether you are looking to get more revenue through donations for your cause.
We’ve realised that, you know, everyone needs the campaign. Everyone needs to talk to their audience in a particular way and often in different ways, depending on where someone sits within that audience, so as to achieve the change that they’re looking for. And so our experience in delivering membership platforms, research platforms, campaigning software, and a whole lot of bespoke membership systems, bringing all of that, that experience together in the one spot, it’s, “Oh no, everyone campaigns, every organisation is running campaigns all of the time.”
SwiftFox Roadmap
Tammy Ven Dange – And is there anything on the roadmap you’d like to share?
Tim Hunter – In terms of the way that we put our roadmap together, it’s quite an exciting process. So each of our clients, even if you are paying just, you know, a couple of hundred bucks a month for a simple, a simple setup or you are really large enterprise client of ours you will have a dedicated local account manager from the team that I’m really privileged to lead.
And the way that it works is that most of our account managers would expect to meet with their clients once a month once implementation is complete, sometimes more, sometimes less, depending on if there’s, you know, a quick issue that we need to hop in and help with. And through those regular meetings and those regular check-ins our account managers work with our clients to see, “Okay what additional features and tools are you asking for? What additional things can we be bringing into this platform that’s gonna help you to eliminate further subscriptions, bring even more data together, or what AI tools could we add that are gonna bring values to our clients now and into the future?’
So that process of kind of almost continually consulting with our clients means that when we do hear from say, “Oh look, we’ve had the same feedback a couple of times now. Oh cool, we should integrate with Microsoft Word and have, you know generate word button on a person’s profile so that you can generate a Word document,” for example those types of things that do that.
That’s an example of something, again, it’s gonna support you no matter whether you are an association or a large professional services firm, or a campaign organisation. We need to be creating documents, we need to be sending out documents in a seamless way. So yeah, that’s the way that we put our roadmap together, is through that kind of continual consultation process.
But then, in terms of key work that we’re working through at the moment, we’ve got a whole series of additional automation features that we are working through so that you can do a whole lot more in terms of automatic targeting of different segments within a database, and stuff around our Swift Predict toolkit.
So for a lot of associations, for example, we’ve realised, hold on, if we’ve got all of this data in the one spot and we’ve got all of someone’s say call history, all of our text message communications with them, we can see all of the events that they have attended, and we can see their financial information and we can see when they’ve stopped making payments, or when they have given a larger donation, or whatever the the case may be.
These are examples of data that can feed into the AI Swift Predict toolkit and provide real-time insights to be able to say, “Okay, of all the members that we’ve got, these are the ones that are most at risk of leaving, of all of the donors that we’ve got these are the ones that are most likely to donate more next year. Of all of the clients that we’ve got, these are the projected revenues that we could expect, or these are the clients that we really should be spending more time, from an account management perspective. So, it’s about using all of the tools that we’ve got in the one spot, all of the data that we’ve got in the one spot to provide even more insight.
How do you find out more about SwiftFox
Tammy Ven Dange – If people wanna find out more about SwiftFox, where should we send them?
Tim Hunter – So they could certainly check out our website. You can search SwiftFox CRM in Google, and you’ll be able to find us pretty quick.
Tammy Ven Dange – Perfect. Tim, thank you so much for your time today, really appreciate it.
Tim Hunter – Thanks so much for having me.