Best business contest winners - Home Office Computing's annual contest - Cover Story

Home Office Computing, July, 1993 by Rosalind Resnick

Every year HOME OFFICE COMPUTING invites readers to enter our Best Business Contest. Entries are received in each of the seven categories listed here and winners are chosen by our own editorial team. Although each contest category had a different set of requirements, common qualities emerged such as drive, determination, innovation, and business savvy. Turn the page to discover for yourself why these entrepreneurial pioneers topped our list.

Creating a Customer Haven

When it comes to customer service, few companies--large or small--try harder or succeed as well as Haven Corp., a software publisher that designs programs for mail-order businesses.

While many companies fend off customer complaints on a daily basis, Haven is swamped with letters that read like fan mail. "We really bought more than software. We got a support team we feel is on our side," wrote one customer.

It's no surprise to Haven's founder and president Bruce Holmes that his customers are so loyal. Holmes, 46, has made customer service an obsession. As he wrote in his contest entry, "Our goals are to keep adding new customers to our family of software users, to give top-quality service to our current clients, and to build the strongest product in our market."

If a customer calls the company to suggest a new feature for a program, employees enter it on an electronic wish list. If a large enough number of people request that feature, Haven will try to include it in its next upgrade.

The company offers first-year, toll-free tech support and hosts annual get-togethers for its customers in party towns like New Orleans. Haven also sends out customer satisfaction surveys on a regular basis. "We expanded the index of our manual as a result of a recent survey," says Holmes.

"If there's anything we're proud of, it's the way we treat our customers," he says. "Our motto is, "The best customer support on the planet,' and we really try."

The company's support efforts reach far beyond its software. Haven is involved in coaching the chess team at a local school, and he helps with mailings, money, and computer support. At Christmas, the employees donate presents and a turkey dinner to a needy family.

A major source of Haven's sales has always been referrals. In 1992, for example, referrals accounted for 20 percent of the company's $862,000 in revenues. Customer testimonials have proven to be an effective and economical marketing tool to recruit new customers.

"But we're not just sitting around relying on referrals," says Holmes. In 1992 the company launched a direct mail campaign using specially designed postcards/brochures. Haven also runs classified and display ads in computer and direct-marketing magazines.

Software upgrades from single-to multiuser are another important source of revenue as are the annual technical support (including free version upgrades) payments of $200 to $500.

Haven's software isn't cheap: Mail Order Wizard costs $1,895, with multiuser versions selling for more than triple that. To attract start-up businesses with limited capital, Haven sells WizKid, a scaled-down version for $695. Haven also sells a mail and list program. Software documentation, a quarterly newsletter, and advertising copy is produced with Ventura Publisher.

Holmes didn't set out to start a software company. In the early 1980s he traveled around the country demonstrating a physical fitness/body awareness program that was based on the teachings of an Israeli fitness guru named Moshe Feldenkrais. He also sold supplementary audiotapes from his home.

Before long, Holmes, a math major in college, realized he needed to automate his growing business. Unable to find a good and affordable software package specifically designed for a mail-order company, he decided to write his own. Holmes used profits from the Feldenkrais business to finance the software company; he sold the first Mail Order Wizard in 1987.

Today Holmes has 18 employees. When he entered our contest, he was running the company from his three-story Victorian house in Evanston, Illinois, where he lives with his wife, Diane, and three young children. But, like many other successful mail-order businesses launched from home, he had to move to an office building in February, which gives the company more room to grow. "Progress caught up with us," Holmes says. "I never looked far enough into the future to imagine 18 people working in my home."

But he does foresee a way to keep his company on the competitive edge--by expanding into other areas, such as retail, contact management, telemarketing, and shipping. "These businesses play off our strengths and will serve as a buffer against changes in the market," he says.

SNAPSHOT

RESIDENCE: Evanston, Illinois

BUSINESS: Haven Corp,, publisher of software for the mail-order industry

1992 REVENUES: $862,000

EQIUIPMENT: Ten Gateway 486s, nine Gateway 386s, and four XT computers; Apple LaserWriter, Hewlett-Packard LaserJet II and III, one IBM Proprinter. and three Okidata dotmatrix printers; Sharp UX-180 fax machine; Panasonic FP 1670 copier; six Intel SatisFaxtion modems