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Chess.com has over 180 million users around the world. If you type “chess” anywhere in Google, their website will most likely appear in search results.
Chess.com has two websites: one for adult chess players and another one for kids. ChessKid.com, their scholastic extension, has built a safe community for over 10 million children around the world—and they’ve also been a customer of OnePageCRM for almost 10 years.
We spoke with Mike Klein, Director of Content for ChessKid.com and Senior Journalist for Chess.com, about how the company has grown its B2B business over the past decade.
ChessKid.com serves both B2C and B2B markets. While many parents purchase individual memberships for their children, ChessKid.com also works with B2B customers that include chess academies, school districts, and even entire countries.
The team at ChessKid.com reaches out to organizations to sign up large numbers of children. To easily manage their B2B operations, ChessKid.com needed a CRM system.
Nearly a decade ago, in the company’s early days, Mike Klein, with his extensive background in chess education, was tasked with building partnerships and communicating the value of ChessKid.com to potential customers.
In the early stages, when ChessKid.com was still a small project, Mike managed clients using just a pencil and paper. As operations grew, the CEO of Chess.com suggested Mike switch to a digital solution. By 2015, he sent Mike three different CRM systems and asked him to choose one.
“I just liked OnePageCRM’s layout better. I wasn’t seasoned enough as a salesperson to really understand all of the sales tools and tracking elements. OnePageCRM had the easiest-to-understand layout — and it had all the features that I needed. We just never looked back. We’ve been with you since 2015.”
Initially, Mike was the only salesperson on the team but has recently transitioned into a managerial role. Over the last ten years, the company has grown significantly, and they have since hired a sales team. Back in 2015, ChessKid.com together with Chess.com had about 50-60 employees. Today, they’ve grown to over 700.
ChessKid.com has salespeople based in Latin America, Eastern Europe, and other parts of the world — all using OnePageCRM. As the sales team grew, OnePageCRM scaled along with their skills and business needs. Recently, they brought on a trained salesperson with a background in educational technology sales. This new addition helped the entire team rediscover some of OnePageCRM’s functionality, particularly the sales pipeline.
“We’re getting even more use out of OnePageCRM than we ever did.”
In ChessKid.com, OnePageCRM also facilitates better communication between the accounting and sales teams. The accounting department wants to stay updated on sales projects, and OnePageCRM provides the solution for this.
A few years ago, Chess.com, which primarily focuses on adult users, also ventured into the B2B world. When they began searching for a CRM system to manage and expand their B2B sales, Mike recommended OnePageCRM.
Over the last 10 years, the company has seen many changes, including adjustments to its pricing. However, ChessKid.com also has many loyal customers, with a history of interactions that spans many years. That’s why it’s so important for new salespeople to know if a customer was grandfathered into earlier rates.
All this information is recorded in OnePageCRM.
“I’m moving out of sales, so historical records in OnePageCRM have been hugely beneficial. When I relinquish my contacts to another salesperson, they can read all the notes — and sometimes those notes go back 10 years.”
Mike has built strong relationships with several customers over the past decade, so they might feel more comfortable when talking to him rather than a new salesperson. As Mike transitions these accounts to new salespeople, he leaves detailed notes after each customer call, tagging new salespeople in OnePageCRM. He often advises if it’s better to reach out to a customer at a later time (if now isn’t the best moment) or shares any other key updates that might affect the customer experience.
“Those are really important things to be able to communicate to another salesperson. There’s that human element involved, and the Next Action feature, along with the notes, has been key.”
Analyzing past interactions is only one side of the coin. Maintaining historical information also helps predict future performance.
For example, OnePageCRM has a Sales Forecast feature and an interactive dashboard, both of which can help in planning sales activities—and the team at ChessKid.com understands this very well.
“As we attend more educational technology conventions, we’ll start marking which leads came from those conventions to track our return on investment over the years. This is a feature we’re going to be using a lot more in OnePageCRM moving forward.”
Another aspect Mike appreciates about OnePageCRM is its customization. When setting up their account, the team added custom fields for usernames on ChessKid.com. These custom fields help provide context when salespeople are talking to customers.
Mike explains, “This has been really important to us because otherwise, there’s a disconnect between their OnePageCRM contact and their ChessKid account.”
Without that custom field, the team would have to search the website manually, trying to track down the client’s username and identify which ChessKid account they own.
ChessKid.com has several salespeople using OnePageCRM, and they’ve divided their customer database based on account size and geography. They serve two markets: the chess market, which includes chess academies whose entire focus is chess, and the mainstream school education market.
Some sales team members are more proficient in one market than the other, but there’s no internal competition. With OnePageCRM, the team can easily segment these markets and pass on customer accounts to each other, if needed.
OnePageCRM is designed to encourage businesses to take action. With its unique Action Stream and Next Actions, it provides a simple way to manage customer interactions. It also sends an email every morning with the upcoming tasks for the day. Mike considers this one of the best features of OnePageCRM.
“I do like that every morning when I wake up, my email pings with a list of my actions for the day, including the overdue ones. I’ve loved that feature—it really helps set the agenda for the day.”
In today’s world, it’s too easy to get distracted. OnePageCRM helps businesses and salespeople stay laser-focused on their growth journey—and stories from companies like ChessKid.com show what a big difference a simple CRM system can make.
