Apple isn’t the only company that thrived during the pandemic

During the pandemic, Aria Benefits not only held its own, but business growth more than doubled to almost 20% during the last year. An important ingredient was a customer relationship management and productivity app called Daylite.

“We used to think high single-digit growth was great,” said founder Robin Bailey. “But the pandemic challenged us to doing business differently and Daylite’s been a key part of that.

“Any small business that runs on Macs and other Apple devices should take a good look at Daylite.”

How the Daylite customer relationship management app fuels growth

A relentless innovator who co-hosts an entrepreneurial profiles podcast with a global audience called Starting With One – Success Leaves Clues, Bailey is a devoted Mac user.

Three years after he and his colleagues adopted the Apple computing platform in 2005, he encountered Daylite, a business productivity and customer relationship management (CRM) software application that he says is “a total game-changer I could not do without,” especially since his company decided to go virtual in response to the pandemic.

The main value of Daylite is that it helps businesses of one to 100 people manage more clients, close more deals, and finish more projects. Daylite helps teams share information, next steps and details to keep everyone in the loop. This means instead of information silos, your teams can collaborate and get the context they need to respond and push deals, projects or next steps with clients forward without wasted time or interruptions.

Daylite provides an edge on keeping relationships fresh

Based in Oakville, Ontario, Aria Benefits serves over 100 client companies that have from 15 to 500 employees.

According to Bailey, in the early days, Daylite was primarily a benefits renewal tracking tool for them. “Daylite alerted us to the date of an upcoming renewal, and with its excellent Apple Mail integration we could see all the communication we’d had with the client over the past year,” he said. “Simple things like noting a client got a puppy are right there, and that can be a friendly starting point into a conversation. Ultimately our business is all about trust and relationships, so Daylite gives us an edge on keeping those relationships fresh.”

Bailey said that the global COVID-19 pandemic prompted him and his colleagues to dive deeper into Daylite. “We honestly thought business would really slow down, so it was time to do more than scratch the surface of our CRM,” Bailey said.

Daylite Mail Assistant automates deliverables

“The first thing we turned on was the Daylite Mail Assistant,” said Bailey. The Daylite Mail Assistant, or DMA, automatically scans the email addresses in the “To” and “cc” fields. If the person is a prospect and Aria Benefits has had no prior correspondence, in two clicks Robin or one of his colleagues can store that first email as a piece of history in the Daylite database.

DMA then searches for additional contacts or objects associated with that prospect. If another person at the prospect’s firm has been in contact about a benefits plan and been identified as an open Opportunity in Daylite, that Opportunity and all of its related history will appear and can be linked to the most recent prospect. DMA can also display upcoming Tasks and Appointments with prospects and customers, and add new ones if required, providing a handle on deliverables to anyone at Aria Benefits who needs to know.

Activity Sets is another Daylite feature Bailey discovered and now relies on. “If we identify someone as a prospect, we can automatically schedule the next two years of follow-up tasks that can turn them into a customer. Daylite then leads us through those touch-points, and everyone in the company has access to where we are on the way to closing new business.”

Everyone knows where they are on the way to closing new business

Bailey says the Delegation functionality in Daylite is “another game-changer.” Delegation is one of the most productivity-enhancing and exciting features in Daylite. It is the process of assigning a deliverable to another user. These can be Tasks, Projects, Appointments and Opportunities. The person delegating the deliverable can be kept up to date on changes made to the deliverable item. Using delegation effectively reduces the need for email forwarding, cc’ing and bcc’ing, which can fill up everyone’s inboxes and leads to important activities falling through the cracks.

“Instead of staying locked in email all day I can delegate Tasks out of email, and then my assistant and I can focus on those Tasks as they are scheduled,” Bailey said. “When something’s done, she checks it off in Daylite and we both know it’s taken care of. It’s so much more efficient!”

For the macro view of his business, Bailey says that instead of living in a sea of email, he lives in his Daylite calendar, where he can view his business activity at a glance and focus on whatever needs to get done. He also says he appreciates Daylite’s new integration with Zoom and Microsoft Teams by iOSXpert.

“When I set an appointment I can trigger a call in either Teams or Zoom depending on my client’s preference – whatever they’re comfortable with, and it all gets tracked in Daylite,” he said.

With help from Daylite, business has doubled over the past year

Bailey said a passion for the right fit and note-perfect execution describes his approach to employee benefits plans at his company.

“Well-designed benefits plans enhance people’s lives,” he said.

Supercharge your business with Daylite CRM. Download Daylite now and get a free 14-day trial.

This post is presented by Daylite.