Many people see financial planning as a complex and difficult endeavor, especially in today’s uncertain economic environment. Not so, says Diefendorf Capital Planning Associates, (DCPA), a financial management firm, located on the North Shore of Long Island, New York.
 

According to Monroe Diefendorf, Jr., CEO of DCPA (www.diefendorfcapital.com), the firm takes the complexity out of investing, preparing for retirement, and preserving wealth. “Our goal is to strengthen families not just by addressing their financial wealth, but by looking at their total wealth, including their personal and social wealth.”
 

DCPA is constantly searching for ways to become more effective in achieving their goal. This search led them to Soffront Software, the CRM pioneer who has been implementing CRM for the last 17 years.

Taking it to the next level

In 2006, Diefendorf determined that it was time to take DCPA to the next level. “We had taken ACT! to the limit; we were definitely a power user of the software,” he recalled. “But it wasn’t providing us with the tools we needed to manage a growing business. We needed a software solution that allowed us to be more efficient—to automate and optimize our business processes.”

 
Diefendorf researched more than ten different software packages, beta testing each for hours. He found that each of them emphasized a different aspect of traditional financial planning, such as accounting, asset management, insurance, etc. But he was looking for something that did more than just the traditional. “We were looking for something more in line with business process management – something that would optimize our workflow.”

 
During his lengthy search, Diefendorf discovered Soffront Software, a CRM pioneer since 1992. Soffront spans the enterprise with integrated CRM solutions and is designed to readily adapt to a company’s processes, workflows, and users.

 
“Soffront gave us the biggest bang for our buck,” summarized Diefendorf. “Although the software wasn’t specifically built for our industry, we could easily adapt it to meet our needs. It had the processes and workflow we were looking for.”

In 2006 DCPA installed several Soffront modules including sales automation, marketing automation, customer support, and a CRM portal. Three years later in 2009, they added knowledge management and mobile CRM.

Automate and optimize – a quantum leap

Diefendorf explained that when he implemented Soffront CRM, he started to see a whole new way of doing business that he couldn’t see previously. “Soffront is the central nervous system of the business. It forced us to examine all of our processes and workflows, significantly enhancing how we were getting things done. Once we got a better handle on all of the information we were dealing with, we were able to see ways to save time and become more productive in every area of our business. We witnessed a quantum leap in our efficiency.”

 
Using Soffront, DCPA is able to automate and optimize its processes, dramatically increasing productivity. “With Soffront we are now able to manage the workflows for each activity, such as investment trades, receipt of checks, sales orders and service work,” explained Diefendorf. “We can then distribute these activities throughout the global organization in real time.”