We Blog CRM

The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ASCI) recently released their annual e-business report, and Google came out the preferred Internet Portal and Search Engine, scoring a telling 9 points ahead of the next runner up. The quality of Google’s search results isn’t the sole factor in its popularity—their web presence is near inescapable given the number of applications bearing its name. With the proliferation of Google Apps, it is worthwhile to consider the effects on CRM systems, and to what extent the two are competitors.

With Google’s cloud computing capabilities and impressive number of applications—including the “holy trinity” (spreadsheets, documents, and calendar)—it is often the preferred method of managing customer relations for small businesses. It cuts down on overhead costs, and smaller businesses are not as easily deterred as larger ones by the security issues of the Google cloud and the occasional outages.

In some cases Google may not appear to be a major CRM competitor, but many CRM platforms have added Google integrations, both at the small-business and conglomerate levels. Salesforce.com has been integrating with Google since 2003, and in 2008 announced Salesforce CRM for Google Apps. The scalability granted by the cloud makes this platform to accessible by businesses of all sizes, though the aforementioned security and outage issues prevent many large businesses to relying on Google Apps for their CRM needs.

Zoho recently launched a sign-in integration with Google, and taken with Salesforce’s own integration, it is obvious CRM providers acknowledge the power of Google Apps even if they don’t fear it. These integrations are certainly smart, and some providers are taking their recognition further and adding in-cloud platforms—Salesforce has Service Cloud, and Microsoft announced Azure almost a year ago—to cover all bases.

It’s tough to say whether Google Applications will act as a serious competitor to large-business CRM systems, given that its current shortcomings would most likely not be easily fixed without changing the attractive price point. With some segments Google Apps it presents a challenge, but otherwise it is a tool for circulation.

Presentations at the annual TechCrunch50 conference just ended, and there were two Web 2.0 startups that could make wonderful improvements to enterprise software.

Threadsy. Given the surge in social network integrations into industry platforms, Threadsy could prove a very popular—and easy—way to merge the various yarns people are so anxious to integrate. Looking at over 40 social networking applications, Threadsy creates two streams: one is an “inbound” feed (emails, @ replies on Twitter, etc.), and the other is “unbound” (Facebook news feed, Twitter, etc.). Users can send emails, update profiles, and browse pictures from the application. Considering the number of networks Threadsy taps into, security issues could arise, but it is certainly a promising communications aggregator, and was a runner up for the conference’s grand prize.

Crowd Fusion. Crowd Fusion takes features from wikis, blogs, and more to create a unified content management system. Where other applications lack structure, Crowd Fusion provides it. The team’s presentation included a demo of creating a blog post. Crowd Fusion provides a feed reader and live search integration, and can suggest to the writer both potential topics that have not already been covered by the site, and related blog posts to link to within the entry. Topics covered in the entry (for example, a product discussed on a gadget blog) can be logged to the site’s database with a tagging widget that makes tags from actual landing pages within the site—this database of landing pages is not only useful to the audience, but also attractive to search engines. Finally, these landing pages can be designed for viewer interaction, creating strong relationships between user and site.

With the declining economy many CRM providers are offering separate parts their popular platforms to give clients cheaper ways to manage their relationships, and in the process they are creating systems that will surely continue growing after the recession.

Earlier this year, Sugar CRM launched the on-demand Sugar Express, which offered sales, marketing and support features, as well as price points for up to five and ten users per year. Operating on SugarCRM’s Open Cloud computing platform, Sugar Express is great for small businesses, but still offers enough bells and whistles as to be an economical solution for bigger businesses looking to cut back.

Salesforce.com is also following the small-business lead, and recently deconstructed its CRM platform to offer small businesses with one of the platform’s most touted convenience: contact management. The Contact Management Edition stores and manages contacts accounts in the cloud for a humbling $9 per user per month. It integrates with email systems to track conversation, and runs pre-configured and customized reports.

These simple sparks could set a new blaze in the industry—the Content Manager Edition will also be automatically available with integration with Google Apps (including Gmail), and is thus even more than a small-business CRM solution.  A partnership with Google will provide Salesforce.com with a portability that will definitely put pressure on other CRM providers to develop comparable platforms.

Not even two weeks into September and Microsoft Dynamics has announced specialty accelerators for its CRM platform—there will soon be Education, Insurance, and Non-Profit templates—as well as a social networking accelerator.

Using xRM, the new development platform for relationship-tracking applications, three new mission-centered Microsoft CRM templates were created: the Education and Insurance models are catered to those industries, as is a Non-Profit model that is also intended to increase the efficiency of membership workflow within member-driven coalitions.

Another feather in the Microsoft CRM cap is the Twitter Accelerator, which is a medium for business professionals to monitor and analyze their customers’ conversations on social networking sites. Integrating Twitter, the accelerator offers a dashboard for real-time status updates. Additional social networks are to be introduced in future releases, but for now Microsoft CRM aims to boost users’ sales databases by connecting with micro-bloggers, thereby getting a handle on both customer insights and the people driving conversation.

Results International recently announced its new “Virtual Media Commentators” feature. With this feature, visitors to a company’s site are greeted and can turn these prospective customers into actual sales. Virtual Media Commentator allows companies to customize the greeting that its site visitors will listen to.

With this new technology, it should greatly encourage many visitors to take the leap from potential customer to a sale. Research has shown that customers tend to waver in their decision making, requiring multiple trips to a company’s website before deciding to make the investment. However, with virtual media commentator, visitors are immediately greeted and welcomed to the site to create a more trusting environment for these visitors. Rather than just plain boring text to greet the visitors, site visitors are welcomed in with customized messages to create a more trusting environment for their customers.

Results International provides its CRM customers with a number of cool features. Its new Virtual Media Commentator feature allows companies to change messages to keep their sites fresh for new customers. With this new technology, more site visitors can be converted into sales quickly.

With an increasing focus on customer service and enhancing the customer experience, Results International has developed the solution to help companies differentiate themselves from the rest of the pack. For more information on this exciting new technology, contact a Results International Sales Professional today.

Amcom Software chose TechExcel as its CRM provider for its many customer service locations in Minnesota, New York, Florida, and Australia. With TechExcel CustomerWise, Amcom can provide improved customer service to its many loyal customers.

Amcom Software provides its solution for thousands of organizations around the world in industries where communication is critical. Amcom decided upon TechExcel CustomerWise to optimize its many communication processes and consolidated its previously disparate systems into one standard application. Amcom had previously used several different help desk solutions to address its customers’ needs. With the consolidation of all processes into TechExcel CustomerWise, Amcom should see an immediate boost in both productivity and customer service.

With TechExcel CustomerWise, Amcom will continue to grow as they retain existing customers while continue to attract new ones. TechExcel CustomerWise provides Amcom with the solution it needs to facilitate their continued growth.

The growing popularity of major social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn has caught the attention of many CRM providers. What draws users to these sites could be extremely important in the design of future CRM applications. The ability to mirror these popular sites and create similar features could result in an extremely popular CRM application.

Social networking sites enable easy and quick communication amongst different users. This easy interaction facilitates social interaction and could potentially enhance customer service. The ability to integrate some aspects of social networking seamlessly into a CRM system could lead to a much more interactive type of system with enhanced customer support and superior customer interaction capabilities.

With the integration of social networking features into CRM packages, companies may see immediate benefits such as faster support times. The social networking framework facilitates easy and quick communication at a very low cost. This allows companies to stay on top of issues and allowing customers to be kept in the loop on the status of their issues.

With social networking come a lot of other extra features that may seem extraneous, but can add to the overall customer relationship experience. With personalization features such as user profile management, customers and employees have a face and personality behind them, allowing relationships to grow stronger.

Social Networking has grown extremely popular recently. The ability for CRM providers to adapt and implement some of the features that make it popular could be vital in determining who succeeds or fails in the future.

All the continued technological innovations have made it much easier to use CRM Software. With all the continued improvements, CRM Software has become much more readily accessible and has simplified and automated many of the tedious processes which previously had consumed a lot of time. The introduction of mobile CRM has only made it easier for employees to stay connected to the company’s CRM database from wherever they should be. But, can this be necessarily considered an improvement?

Mobile CRM makes it possible for employees to stay connected around the clock. This allows employees to handle issues as soon as they arise. However, this lack of separation from work and home can create a stressful environment for employees. The usage of mobile CRM within a company raises the level of support expected from employees. This added pressure on employees can create more frustration for employees. Utilizing mobile CRM can lower the morale of employees as they feel like they are working continuously, even on their own time. This may lead to lower employee productivity during work hours. The same amount of work may actually end up being done spread out over the course of the whole day.

Being able to access CRM Software via employees’ cellular phones also has other issues. Security becomes a huge concern. With hundreds of employees running around with cellular access to critically sensitive CRM databases, it may be hard to keep track of who is accessing what from where. If an employee loses his/her cell phone, security could be compromised as access to CRM databases can be easily reached via the phone. Customer information could be compromised, leading to hundreds of angry customers. This raises an issue of whether or not it becomes reasonable for employers to allow employees to carry around this critically important and confidential information.

The introduction of all these new technologies into CRM Software has made it much easier to utilize CRM Software within your company. However, some of these new technological innovations may have tradeoffs which you may need to take into consideration prior to implementing a new solution or new update. It may be wise to analyze the potential benefits and consequences of all these new innovations as failure to account for some of the possibilities can lead to some disastrous consequences.

As technology continues to improve at a rapid pace, these new technologies are forcing companies to keep up with competitors. As newer software offerings are introduced into the market, these new offerings threaten to give competitors the edge they may need to succeed in today’s worsening economy. It has become more and more essential for companies to pursue some type of business software in order to keep pace in today’s rapidly changing business environment. 

A CRM Software is often a very popular choice for many companies, but the wide variety of options to choose from as well as the different pricing options make an already difficult decision in today’s economy even more difficult. The worsening economy has discouraged many companies from diverting funds to an investment which may in the long run benefit the business. However, with the current economic outlook so poor, many companies are delaying their implementation of a CRM Software platform in order to survive today. However, failing to implement the proper technology now can prove to be costly in the long run.As company budgets tighten, the need for an inexpensive CRM software solution becomes even more important. CRM Software packages that often carry high upfront costs are quickly eliminated leaving a limited selection of choices which may not necessarily meet the company’s requirements for an updated CRM platform. This may discourage companies from looking into other options that are capable of performing as well as the more expensive options at lower costs which often causes companies to fail to look at another potentially beneficial solution.

Open Source CRM can be the answer to many companies’ needs in today’s trying economy. It can allow companies to improve upon inefficient operations while providing features that can greatly improve employee morale. Also, the investment into an open source CRM platform is minimal as there are many free options available. Although Open Source CRM may not be 100% free, the investment made in the product is limited and can be quickly changed if it is found that the solution does not meet the company’s needs. This flexibility can allow a company to try different options at a low or no price. Although the functionality many not be as advanced as the more traditional CRM offerings, Open Source CRM is definitely catching up.

However, be aware that there are limitations to Open Source CRM offerings. With the lower price and flexibility comes some costs. Limited support is available to Open Source CRM Software which can be a problem for some companies. Also, functionality is not as advanced as the more expensive CRM counterparts. But, if your company can adjust to these minor limitations, Open Source CRM can provide the best rate of return for your business. For a cheap and efficient alternative to CRM Software, strongly consider adopting an Open Source Version.

As the economy continues to struggle and companies continue to look for ways to cut back on their budgets, SaaS Software has become an increasingly popular option for many struggling companies. As companies look to scale back on expenditures, software providers are providing the options that allow companies to do this. CRM providers are looking to continue this trend as companies such as Oracle expand into the On-Demand CRM software market.

Although CRM Software has been provided in SaaS format, it has not been as prevalent among CRM Software providers as other industries. However, companies such as Salesforce.com have shown that on-demand CRM providers can survive in an intense CRM software market by providing companies with the flexibility and ease of use commonly associated with SaaS Software.

 Oracle has recently jumped on the bandwagon as it takes on Salesforce.com in the On-Demand CRM marketplace. Currently, with a limited number of On-Demand CRM providers, there is definitely room for more providers in the marketplace. The expanding repertoire of companies to include SaaS CRM software will definitely be beneficial for many companies as companies will have more options to select from and find the solution that fits their company best.

Oracle’s new offering looks to add a host of new options to compete with the already popular Salesforce.com CRM offering. With more customization options as well as more flexibility in pricing plans, Oracle hopes it can succeed and establish a strong customer base in the SaaS CRM market.

The future of SaaS CRM Software looks bright for providers and users. As SaaS Software continues to grow in popularity, this opens up an opportunity for On-Demand CRM providers to establish their presence within this new, yet rapidly expanding market. The introduction of more SaaS CRM providers will simultaneously provide companies with more benefits as companies will benefit from the increased competition among CRM Software providers which will increase product quality while drive down price.

As the SaaS CRM Software market continues to grow, companies should expect better and far more innovative options that once could only be dreamt of.