How To Improve Customer Service With Act!

Keeping a customer engaged with your business is one of the best ways to keep your business in good health. Once your company grows beyond a few people, consistent customer service becomes more difficult. One person may consistently go the extra mile with customers while others neglect the basics. Find out how to use Act! to improve your customer service and keep customers coming back for more.

Customer Service In The News: Complaints, Competition and Attention

In a world where low prices grab our attention, does customer service matter? The answer is yes. A brief review of the press highlights the consequences of customer service.

• Avoid negative word of mouth. A quick look through your Facebook news feed, Yelp or Twitter will turn out at least a few complaints about companies. In our era, disappointed customers tend to vent their feelings quickly. A British study found: “One in four social media users in the UK has used platforms to complain within the last three months.” Preventing such complaints by improving your service standards is well worth the effort.
• Easier To Do Repeat Business. If a customer has a good experience, they are more likely to do business with you again. Take note of this example from the hotel industry: “When Leslie Ciminello arrives at the Hotel 1000 in Seattle, she knows milk and cereal will be waiting in her room’s refrigerator. Lactose-free milk and gluten-free cereal that is. It is one of the small but significant ways the hotel has kept her coming back.” (Hotels Go to Extra Lengths for the Repeat Customer). If you neglect customer service, you may be left behind by competitors eager to grow.
• Earn positive attention. Would you like your company profiled in The Sydney Morning Herald? That was a benefit American Express earned by providing top customer service. The best part? The customer service in question was delivered to someone who cancelled their service. Gaining good press even when a customer leaves you – that is a significant benefit.

It is clear that excellent customer service makes a difference. How exactly can you improve customer service? Just asking your staff to impress is one approach. What should you tell them to do? You can use Act! to devise the details of your customer service program and continue improving.

Improving Customer Service With Act!

Use the following techniques to improve customer service with Act!. Tailor these methods to the value of your customer. In the Hotel 1000 example above, they are looking for business travellers who spend significant time in hotels. Such customers deserve extra attention.

1) Identify your top customers for extra care

Your employees have limited time so you cannot afford to treat all customers in the same way. Establish a few criteria (e.g. easy to work with and highly profitable) and then make a list. These are the customers who will garner extra time and attention.

Act! Application: Add an ID/Status, Favourite check or other field for your top customer records indicating “Gold Customer” (or whichever term you prefer), so you can find those customers easily with a search.

2) Set up recurring processes to review customer feedback

McKinsey & Co is one of the world’s most successful consulting firms. Client feedback is a core component of the firm’s success. According to Herbert Henzler’s book “Pushing the boundaries: Recollections of a McKinsey consultant”, the firm’s engagement performance review is varied out every three months and includes:

What was the quality of the analyses? Did you make good use of McKinsey resources? What was the client feedback? What was the team members feedback? Which improvements were necessary and how could these be implemented?

By using this process, individual consultants and their management never go long without taking customer feedback into account. For managers, records in Act! will give you additional input to consider in assessing your staff. If your team know you will review Act! as part of your management process, they will be more likely to use it.

Act! Application: Write short Notes or History after each customer service interaction in Act!. That way, you will have the opportunity to provide feedback to your staff.

3) Design long-term customer service improvements

Some customer service issues are trying to improve in an ad hoc fashion. For instance, you may have to use a new vendor to enhance the quality of your packaging. With limited resources, how do you decide where to focus your quality improvement efforts? Take a closer look at Act! for customer service failings and opportunities.

Act! Application: Create a method to list any unresolved customer complaints or those that required management involvement to obtain a solution. Use this information to look for systemic improvement opportunities.

4) Understand why customers leave

All good things come to an end, and that includes customer relationships. When customers leave, ask your staff to find out why they left. Once you collect data for a few months, schedule a meeting to review the findings. Look for ways that improved customer service could make a difference. As a starting point, consider the most common customer service complaints according to Business Queensland:

• Faulty product. It is not enough to understand that the product broke – seek for more information so that you can make improvements.
• Incorrect descriptions of the product. If customers cannot trust you on the basics such as size and weight, how long will they keep doing business with you?
• Poor client service. This can be reduced by implementing a rotation program.
• Slow delivery. Fast delivery service from companies like Amazon have increased customer expectations.
• Inadequate response to information requests. This factor covers inquiries about account status, delivery status and beyond.
• Rude staff. Even if your product is perfect, rude or rough treatment may be all your customers remember.

Your next step:

Meet with your sales team this month to review customer service levels. Use the four points outlined in this article to prepare examples for the discussion. If you find insufficient information in your customer files or disorganised information, implementing Act! may be the solution. Contact an Act! Certified Consultant to help you implement it.

Social Media and CRM – thoughts on how they should connect

I have done a few articles in my blog on how I'd like to see Social Media integrated to CRM (especially ACT!). The two most relevant are ACT! by Sage and Social Media – Social CRM and Thoughts on ACT! 2010 beta (#ACT2010) - The good, the bad and the ugly

But, since those, I have seen the social media sites expand their capabilities and have seen many more people using them for the business connections as well as their social ones.

From a business point of view, this is introducing many issues with maintaining and managing those relationships and the methods you use to communicate with them. So I thought I would expand my view of some of the ways they should integrate. Obviously, as my focus is ACT!, some of the items might be specific to that CRM environment.

Contact importing/sending and syncing

Social Media has meant that people are making connecting with people in a wide variety of social networking sites like LinkedIN, Facebook, Plaxo, Twitter, Google Buzz and others.

But good CRM strategy means that you should be able to centralise all the points of contact. Basically, I think this should just be one way (from Social Media to CRM) – although, some social media platforms also allow you to load your contacts into them to search and see if they exist, then link them. This would be a good option for those platforms that provide this facility.

• Import all (or a lookup) of social contacts/friends from the social media platform
  • Check to see if Contact already exists by email (all email fields) or Contact Name
  • For each Social Media site, there should be a dedicated field to fill in the key that links the CRM contact to their profile
  • As many people use different email addresses for social media sites, when adding the email, it should check if the email address exists. If not, add it to an additional email field
  • Ability to define if the imported contacts are Public (all CRM users), Limited Access (some CRM users) or Private
• Should also import picture field (if available)
• Ability to send a lookup of CRM contacts to the social media network and request to connect or invite the contact if not found
• Ability to sync changes made by contacts on social site to CRM - including a picture field. This can be turned on for all or some social sites. An easy way to keep your data up-to-date

Events/Activities

Many social media platforms (like LinkedIN and Facebook) provide the ability to add “events”. These should be imported as activities in the CRM – with the option to link to a specific contact or to the user’s own record in the database.

Social Media Display

This is to display the contact's social media profile in a tab when you are working with them.

• For each social media platform this requires two URLs and a dedicated key field
• When looking at the contact and displaying their SCRM tab
  • If key field is empty, use first URL for search. Try email first (all email fields). Then, if that fails, try Company+Contact or just Contact
  • Allow user to select a contact (if only one contact auto select - most likely for email match) and link to the Contact in the CRM by adding the necessary data to the key field
  • When contact selected, and the direct key added to the special field and use this with 2nd URL for future views of the contact directly
  • Add a check to see if user is connected to the contact. If not, add a button to add them - this will usually display more data and can also change the link field

Blog/Micro blog

• From the Social Media Display (above)
  • These might be URL with dedicate field from above (Twitter, Facebook, etc) or a web field separate from the web site field in ACT! (for Blog)
  • Should also have the ability to "favourite" an individual post - record it in History
  • For additional power add for Facebook/LinkedIN (Comment, Reply Privately), Twitter (Reply, Retweet, Direct) - so it's like an off-line client
  • Comments, Replies, Retweets, Directs should have option to automatically generate a history
• Email
  • Maybe add ability to read/send emails via Facebook, LinkedIN, etc
  • If Send, also write these to History
• Collection of data for accounts
  • Ability to combine updates on Groups/Companies like is done now for Notes, Histories, Activities, Sales Ops – this allows a Company wide view of their social media
  • Also ability to create Dynamic Groups based on Twitter or Facebook lists and LinkedIN groups

Security

• I haven't really thought through the implications of this... but if all of the above is done, some additional security might be necessary - eg you might be a LinkedIN Contact, Facebook Friend, etc with a contact that others in your company are not and not wish them to see
• What other items might need to be controlled?

As you can see, my view is that CRM (specifically ACT!) should be the centre of all knowledge and communication and this level of integration and functionality makes that a reality for social media

I'd be more than happy to hear any thoughts/comments any of you might have on this

Technorati Tags: ACT,ACT! by Sage,CRM,SCRM,Social Media

What I learned from my last blog post… and what would you like me to blog about?

Let me start by saying that, while I do like speaking, I don’t consider myself to be a good writer. This is the reason that my posts are largely bullet points or PowerPoint posts and tend to be mostly of a technical nature. Fortunately, blogs in the technical arena gain readerships according to the market they target.

As my blogs are targeted in a small niche of ACT! users who want to improve their technical understanding of the product, I don’t chase the volume hits of more professional bloggers. To put this in perspective, I have been typically achieving about 2000 hits per month on this blog (about the same as I get on the main GL Computing web site.

I try to post at least a couple of times a month and my posts do have a fair degree of text contact, which the search engines love to index.

I do promote my posts via Social Media:

• Twitterfeed automatically sends a Tweet on Twitter very soon after an update
• New posts are automatically added to the News section in the LinkedIN ACT! Fanatics Group 
• Networkblogs automatically posts them to the GL Computing Facebook page and to the streams of those who follow either the blog page or are fans of the GL page.
• I also find other similar blog posts and, where applicable, add a comment referencing my post
• Additionally, I use links to the posts when answering forum questions where I have covered the topic in a post.

Currently, about 50% of hits to the blog are from referring sites (mainly forums I post to and the social media links) and only 35% from search engines.

However, last week, I posted about Why I prefer Blackberry over iPhone for Businesses. This was picked up by a couple of journalists and professional bloggers like Neerav Bhatt on his blog: Introduction to RIM Blackberry Mobile Phones: Pros and Cons

Not only did this article receive a lot of nice comments, but it was highly re-tweeted and has so far received about 1000 hits in less than 2 weeks (500 in the first day).

This raises some questions that I’d like to pose to you:

1. What would you like to see me blog about?

   While I intend to keep targeting the ACT! user base, should I keep the focus on product technical posts? Or would you like to see more posts on other topics that might be of interest, such as: mobile computing, social media, general CRM, general sales/marketing or general IT?
   

2. Would it detract from the site if I added some Google Ads or sponsorships?

   As I provide the content of this blog for free, do you think it would be a problem to go down this path? Previously, I had not considered the hit rate to be high enough to make this worth-while and also reasoned that the technical people who read the site wouldn’t be interested in this.

To add one more thing – While I don’t sell to end-users, if anyone wishes to utilise my services for any work related to ACT! or IT, you just need to have your reseller contact me to book some time. I can be available remotely for work at any time of the day as we support (via our resellers) in all time-zones.

Please let me know via a comment to this article, a comment in the ACT! Fanatics Group or privately via our Web Site Contact Page if you have any thoughts on what you’d like to see articles on or if there’s anything I can assist you with.

Technorati Tags: ACT!,ACT! by Sage,Blogs,CRM,SCRM,Social Media,support

Updated: Why I prefer Blackberry over iPhone for business

Now updated for iOS4, iOS4.2 and iPhone4 … would like to add Blackberry 6.0 if I can get a Torch

After many years using Blackberry phones (several 7xxx models and, until recently, an 8100 Pearl) I have reluctantly had to switch to an iPhone (3GS 32GB) in order to test some software.

I thought I would give it some time before posting this blog as I wanted to make sure my issues weren’t just a question of not having found how to perform the functions I was used to.

Having now spent 3 months on the iPhone, I am at a loss as to how anyone would choose this device for business use or if email is really important to them. There are so many functions that I relied on that are just not available on the iPhone. I acknowledge that some of these might be specific to my carrier and some might be due to the actual way I prefer to operate. I have come to use, and rely on, my Blackberry as a virtual office and communications centre that allows me to be fully in touch when on the road.

So I thought I would put together a list and see if any of the iPhone experts can tell me if I'm doing it wrong or if this device is really so flawed and I’m immune to the cool-aid.

Note: For users of Sage ACT! who want to put their ACT! data on their phone, see this: Comparison of various smart phone links for Sage ACT! (4.0 and later)

Hardware

• The device certainly seems well-built and solid… like most of the Blackberry phones (except the Flip). But dropping the iPhone on it’s face (without a protective case) will likely need a replacement
  * iPhone4 has a much harder screen and I haven’t heard of any screen cracks from an accidental drop
• Having to use a pin to insert/replace the sim card just seems odd. Not having this “Ikea special tool” I had to wait a day to get a pin before I could use the device
• As does having no way to replace the battery. This became a real issue when I found how limited the battery life is compares to the Blackberry - about 7 hours in the iPhone compared to several days on the Blackberry. When travelling with the Blackberry, I’d take one extra charge battery and have over a week using it is my sole means of communications
  * iPhone4 improves battery by about 20%, but still poor compared to Blackberry
• Argh! A non-standard USB cable… and they don’t include a separate one for the power supply – so moving the phone from the PC to a wall power means buying another cable or carrying the supplied one with me. I can only see this an an artificial way for Apple to make some extra on the cable.
  * I’ve actually had two break on me
• No slot to use for an additional memory stick seems wrong for a supposedly powerful device. It makes sharing data with other systems and platforms much more limited
• Even with carrying the cable and without ability to use external memory, it has 32GB – but still can’t be used as a memory stick or external drive via USB (except for photos). What a waste! I should have purchased the one with 8GB
  * There are apps that allow it as a drive, but you need to have the cable and it installs drivers that might not be wanted on the other machines
  * The photos are completely unsecured… plug into any PC and connect as a drive.
• Shouldn’t all phone cameras now have a flash and zoom?
  * Flash rectified … zoom also, but very poor – best not to use and zoom on PC later

Setup

• I found the setup to be very easy. Although I am disappointed in having to use iTunes for everything
• There doesn’t seem to be a way to setup multiple devices for a business over the air
  * This can be done now, but not as functional or as integrated as Blackberry BES
• Connecting to my Wi-Fi was pretty easy once I’d changed the settings. My Wi-Fi supports IPSec security which the iPhone doesn’t
• Adding email accounts (Exchange and POP3) was remarkably easy – it was fortunate I have OWA
• No way to roll-out, administer, secure or wipe the device remotely
  * Wiping can be done with MobileMe subscription

Data

• Unlike the US, the iPhone is available here in Australia through all the major carriers. But, unlike with the Blackberry, none of them offer unlimited data. I guess this means more searching for Wi-Fi spots
  * Data limits have improved, but still not unlimited
• But don’t worry US… the call drop-outs and disconnects that people in the US seem to think are related to the AT&T network – they happen here with the iPhone on all networks.
• I’ve found that downloading the same amount of data (email, web pages, etc), the iPhone uses between 5 and 20 times the bandwidth. This might explain why carriers are reluctant to give unlimited data. It also explains why the iPhone is so much slower at performing similar tasks.

Security

• When it comes to security, there is no contest. See the Blackberry Official Statement
• On the other hand, the iPhone has been found to have some major security issues:
  • 4 iPhone Security Flaws
  • iPhone Hack Highlights Windows-like Security Risk
  • iPhone Security Flaw: Using a PIN Won't Help You 
    * iOS 4.2 addressed some 30+ security issues, but they still have a long way to go
• Additionally, the iPhone requires MobileME (additional subscription) in order to remotely wipe a lost phone. For remote-wiping on a BlackBerry, you can do this through BES, BIS or customers can opt for an emergency feature where their phone automatically erases all of its data if it’s been off the network for a set amount of time. This is powerful as it helps protect against someone who steals the phone and pops the sim card before trying to access the data.

Operation and Interface

• No multi-tasking. That means no back-ground sync for databases or the ability to have an application run a task in the background which doing something else in the foreground
  * iOS4 does allow specific tasks to be run in the background (not entire apps like Blackberry)
• This also means you can’t really use it for Instant Messaging with products like Skype, Live Messenger, etc as you can only receive messages when that application is the open one.
  * iOS4 allows this if app re-written for it… but a significant battery drain
• Not even task-switching. Applications close and have to re-open (then wait till they get up-to-date data). I have lost work when checking a received email or answering the phone.
  * iOS4 completely addresses this.
• Why can’t all Settings be accessed from within the applications. Having to check both the iPhone settings application and any option in an application itself just doesn’t make sense.
• The Blackberry menu makes accessing more common tasks faster.
• The scrolling, while pretty, actually makes it slower to get to the actual point you want
  * Still can’t go to a specific page or to the bottom of a large list/doc without a lot of scrolling
• The scroll wheels to set the time or alarm, while a pretty novelty the first few times take more time to set than just typing the digits.
• Maybe my thumbs are a bit big, but even after several months I keep pressing Shift or Del accidently (depending on the side of the screen) - even in Landscape. Worse, even though used to a much more narrow device, I still can’t get the right keys as fast in Portrait mode… but in same apps, Landscape isn’t an option – this slows data entry.
  * After all this time, still have this issue
• In these days of internet shouldn’t the period and @ be on the main layout? Sure it has the same double-space for period at the end of sentence, but this isn’t great for a URL or email address
• The spell check only gives one option… what about other words that are similar?
  * The iPhone spell-check errors have become legendary … hate to make some I’ve seen to a business contact
• The spell check on the Blackberry can also include all the data from the address book – your contacts names and companies. Makes typing much easier.
• Blackberry spell check allows manual adding and customisation of the words. iPhone rarely remembers common words.

Phone

• When you start entering the data in the Blackberry phone, it auto searches the address book (first, last and company name) and as you scroll, shows each contact’s numbers to click and call. With the iPhone, you have to go through additional steps with this
• The “End Call” button is large and seems to be right where my check touches the phone if not using hands free or via headset. This has caused me to accidently mute of hang up prematurely on a few calls
  * Still an issue with iPhone4. If I move my head and some light hits the sensor, the screen turns on and my cheek hits the mute, Facetime or end buttons

Contacts

• It is neat that you can add additional phone/address fields, but unfortunately these don’t sync back to Exchange.
• You can’t sort by Company or even view that field in the Contacts application. While you can search by that field it's a bit harder to find the right contact
• Searching for a Contact means you have to scroll all the way back to the top. With the Blackberry, you just start typing and it will show the contacts that have a matching First, Last or Company Name – no matter where you are in the list. The Blackberry search is also MUCH faster
• When my Exchange server was down, I couldn’t access any contact and they had to be fully downloaded when it was up again… shouldn’t these be stored locally? I haven’t tried to see if I lose all this data if I’m out of radio range.

Email (Exchange 2003 is my Primary server)

• An email received by Exchange, sent via BES to the Blackberry is nearly instantaneous. It can take considerable time to appear on the iPhone unless I open the folder.
  * BES Push much better than ActiveSync
• There is no Home screen notification of having received emails, requiring you to manually scroll through the email folders after having left the device alone or while in a meeting.
  * With 180+ folders and email auto moved to them, this still annoys me – iPhone only notifies of emails in Inbox. The BB has a home notification (irrespective of folder) and an Unread Mail folder (like Outlook)
• When viewing some wide HTML emails, you have the options of the text being way to small to read or zooming it and having to scroll back and forwards each line. The Blackberry method of the user being able to select the font for all emails might make the rendering less accurate, but makes the emails much easier to read and respond faster.
• I have about 180 folders in Exchange with rules that file incoming emails automatically. I had to manually select each folder for Push… and, when my Exchange server went down, other than having no local data. I also had to re-select all the folders for Push, manually! Why doesn’t this get stored?
  * Seems a bit better with iOS4
• The Blackberry Message List allows me to see all emails received (and include SMS in the list if you want), no-matter which folder - like Unread Mail in MS Outlook. But on the iPhone, I have to scroll through the folder list (the 180 I mentioned above) and know the unread figures of each folder to check for any new items. Nothing notifies you which account or folder has the new email.
• File to Email Folders - to file a message to a folder on the BB, I just have to type the first few characters of the folder. The next time I file a similar email, it remembers the folder I users for that user/subject from last time. With the iPhone I have to manually scroll down the list every time
• Blackberry has option to set detailed filters for which email you want (by sender, size, times, etc) so only important messages after hours. iPhone is all or nothing
• No option to set/change Exchange “Out of Office” auto reply
• From the email list on the Blackberry, I can also click and select to call the contact (if they exist in my address book) or to forward via another system (SMS, Facebook, etc). On the iPhone you have to open the email, then go to the Contact to call/SMS and can only Forward via email.

Browser

• While the iPhone does render many pages more accurately, this ironically makes many harder to read … especially pages formatted wide. To get the text large enough to read means scrolling back and forth every line
• When viewing wide pages, you have the options of the text being way to small to read or zooming it and having to scroll back and forwards each line. The Blackberry column view might not display a page as the publisher intended, but makes them considerably easier to read.
• Apple don’t seem interested in Adobe Flash whereas RIM and Adobe have announce a partnership to improve the support for rich content through these technologies - RIM and Adobe to Simplify Delivery of Rich Content and Applications for BlackBerry Smartphones
• The Blackberry menu makes it MUCH easier to copy a URL or even to send that URL via another app – Email, SMS or even non-core apps like Facebook, Twitter, other social media or Instant Messaging. With iPhone, you need to copy the URL, close the browser, open the other app and paste

Notifications and Ringtones

• The Blackberry LED displays in different colours to let you know of an event without even touching the device
• For more detail, clicking once on the keypad will show you how many items you’ve received – separated by emails, SMS, missed calls, Facebook Messages, Windows Messenger IMs or Skype chats. The iPhone will only show SMSs and missed calls until you open each app to check.
• Why do I have to stuff around changing the media formats in iTunes? The Blackberry can use any media file for a ringtone
• The Blackberry also allows different ringtones for each event type. The iPhone doesn’t allow different settings (ringtone, volume, number of repeats, etc) for each event
  * iOS4.2 now allows SMS ringtone, but you can’t change email, Facebook, Twitter, etc
• On the Blackberry you can create different Profiles to set all the notifications to the ringtone, volume, LED use, number of vibrations and how often to repeat. The iPhone doesn’t provide the flexibility of choices let alone the ability to change all the settings in a couple of clicks (eg when you go into a meeting)
• The Blackberry even allows exceptions for specific users … eg having the device in Silent mode except for certain important contacts

Multi-media

• This is an area where, with it’s heritage in the iPod, I would expect it to excel… but even here, there are items better done on the Blackberry. For example, the Blackberry allows you to jump to the previous track, beginning of the current track or next track by holding the volume controls on either phone or headset. Much easier than having to get the device from your pocket and turn it on to make those changes
• While they both play video, the wider screen of the iPhone is an area that it wins. Although I don’t watch enough videos or TV on the device to make this much of an advantage
• It’s annoying to have to go via iTunes to add/remove media. On the Blackberry, you can view it as a USB drive and copy the files into folders of your choosing

Social Media and Instant Messaging

• The lack of background tasks seriously reduces the option for Instant Messaging, which I prefer to SMS in many ways.
  * iOS4 improves this
• It also means when starting up a social media app you have to wait till it updates the information as the applications can’t sync in the background
  * iOS4 improves this
• While apps like Facebook, LinkedIN and some of the Twitter apps I have tested are comparable in the functions, the do miss some areas that reduces their effectiveness:
  • Notifications are only available from some apps… and even then are not reliable (as above)
  • Facebook only shows last Notification on Home screen. To see if you have more, you must go to the app
  • both Facebook and LinkedIN have the ability to import their contacts to the phone… but LinkedIN only as new contacts (I already have most in my address book) and neither can link to a Contact that I might have with a different name from their social media account.
  • The both take some time to sync, but at least on the Blackberry, this happens in the background
    * iOS4 improves this – doesn’t sync in background, but if app already loaded, starts faster
  • The FaceBook app won’t bring in the email address on phone (saying it’s a privacy issue), but this is done on the Blackberry
  • If using Social Media to schedule events, the iPhone can’t sync these with the calendar (the Blackberry does this and in the background)
  • The Blackberry API has permitted some applications to create dedicated fields in the address book to link the contacts to their social media profiles

Software Development

• The requirement for all apps to only install via their AppStore means that developers can’t get selected groups of users to test code before release. While this can be done by “Jailbreaking” the phone this is not something you want to tell users to do.
  Update: I’ve just been informed that it is possible to beta test software, although with an unnecessarily complicated procedure to create an Ad Hoc iPhone Apps Distribution
• The AppStore delivery requirement reduces the possibility for more complex licensing models
• Apple’s certification process seems to be easy for trivial apps (like iFart), but more stringent on more complex products. They also don’t seem to want to tell a developer if a particular function will pass till the product is complete and the money spent.

 

Technorati Tags: Blackberry,iPhone,RIM,Apple,Facebook,LinkedIN,Twitter,Skype,Social Media,Phones,Smartphone,smart phone,iPhone Vs Blackberry,Blackberry Vs iPhone

A couple of useful Outlook tools – #Xobni and #LinkedIN

I hope my regular readers won’t mind if I digress from my usual ACT! related posts and add this article on a couple of free tools I find really useful for Outlook - Xobni and LinkedIN Outlook Toolbar

Both of these tools are useful in finding contacts as well as developing and maintaining your relationships, and so are useful for the types of work that ACT! users like to do. I fact, I believe both of these would be great functions to add to ACT! itself.

Xobni
Xobni is an add-in that indexes your Outlook data and then provides a number of useful functions: Very fast searching across your email file. It’s pretty much instantaneous on my Outlook file, which is over 6GB! Ability to link multiple email addresses to a contact if the contact has more than one address or if their address changes over time Additional information on your contacts from sources like LinkedIN, FaceBook, Twitter and Hoovers. Reports on the times you usually correspond with the contact via email Find other contacts that might be connected from emails between you and the main contact where others have been included in emails To: CC: Sort all emails between you and the contact into threaded conversations – even if the various emails are in different Outlook folders File all attached files sent between you and the contact Auto suggest addresses from your contacts when creating a new email After you install Xobni, your system may run slowly for a day while it creates it’s index. Do not be concerned by this. Once it has completed the index it will speed up your day. Note: If you’d like to see Xobni create a link to ACT! by Sage, please add a vote on this post on the Xobni Community Site
LinkedIN Outlook Toolbar
LinkedIN is a business oriented social network. Their Outlook add-in is a powerful resource for building and maintaining your network from inside your email system. Functions include: Build your network selecting from people you email often Create Outlook contacts by highlighting their info in an email and selecting Grab See suggestions of who to invite based on email frequency Invite with one click to build your network faster – using custom templates Update your Outlook contacts with LinkedIn profile information Receive notifications when your contacts change their LinkedIn profiles See LinkedIn mini-profiles for everyone that emails you Use the LinkedIn dashboard to stay up to date with your network with suggestion of emails you might need to reply to or follow-up Access LinkedIn with one quick and easy click ACT! users should also join the LinkedIN ACT! Fanatics Group

Both of these outlook add-ins are free and Outlook users should give them a try

Technorati Tags: Outlook,LinkedIN,Xobni,SCRM,Social Media,Facebook,Twitter,ACT!

Thoughts on ACT! 2010 beta (#ACT2010) - The good, the bad and the ugly

There have been a number of posts from people on ACT! 2010 (due soon) and as we at GL Computing have been running our production data on the new version for a while, I thought I would posts my thoughts on it so far. Here is a list of what’s new in the up-coming build.

Here is the ACT! by Sage Version Comparison Chart - Compare your version to ACT! by Sage 2010

Note: The following are my personal views on the beta and features may change in the release.

• Welcome Screen – A start-up screen displaying useful help links. This will be nice for new and upgrading users to learn the new functions quickly
• New Look and Navigation
  • While the left-hand Nav bar has some nice functions (Quick Lookup and a context-sensitive list of Related Tasks), it’s less customisable than previous versions and doesn’t allow adding of direct links to the List views or the different calendars.
  • The Top icon ribbon is too large and takes up valuable screen real-estate for little value.

• Customisable Opportunities – these have been given a major overhaul including:
  • The ability to add custom fields to both the opportunity and to the products and services table
  • Personalise the layout of the opportunity like the Contacts, Groups, Companies layouts
  • Track activities, history, notes, documents and other items tied to the opportunity
  • New reports and more security options

• Web 2.0 Technologies – this is a nicer version of the free Contact Web Context Browser
  • See your contacts’ information on a variety of Social Media and other sites, such as: LinkedIN, Facebook, Plaxo, MySpace, their web site, Google, Google Maps, Google News, Yahoo and others. It also allows you to create your own links.
  • Noticeably missing from the default list is Twitter, although it’s very easy to add.
  • For the Social Media sites, the links are just a search based on standard fields. To really work, this function needs to be able to enter a direct link for the contact (once found) to a “system field” and then use this link. If nothing in the field, then revert to the search. In a similar way to how Xobni does for Outlook
  • Additionally, there is no way to store specific “status updates” to these sites to a history or to view a combined feed for a company or group.
  • There is no way to update ACT! contact information from these sites (or at least highlight when they are different), which would be a nice option, especially from sites like LinkedIN.
  • Finally, there should be an ability to post updates from ACT! to the Social Media sites and store the posts in ACT! – this would allow a company to report on and review posts made by staff across multiple sites
  • I had previously posted some of these ideas in this blog post:
    http://blog.glcomputing.com.au/2009/03/act-by-sage-and-social-media-social-crm.html

• E-Marketing – Swiftpage has been incorporated out-of-the box to provide:
  • Better mass/merged emails
  • Survey and web forms
  • Drip marketing
• Reports and Dashboard Components
  • There have been many new reports and nice report selector with option to select favourites – it would be nice if the Favourite Reports were added to the Reports menu, even to a sub-menu.
  • The Dashboard has some new components, including a Data chart (like the previously available Data Chart control) and a Facebook Friends List.
• More Integration
  • The ability to email activity invitations in iCal format (a function missing since ACT! 6.0 had vCal) to users of Outlook, Gmail, Apple iCal, Windows Live, Facebook, GroupWise or Lotus Notes
  • Create an ACT! activity when you accept an iCal meeting request in Outlook
  • Share contacts with the vCard format. Also a nice addition missing since ACT! 6.0
• Administration
  • Create up to 50 remote database simultaneously for easy roll-out of larger sync implementations
  • Support global environments by being able to set the currency when creating the database and allowing different international versions to share the database
  • New Admin Dashboard to see user information, logon and sync status and more.
• Platform support – including SQL 2005 64 bit and SQL 2008 with Premium and Corporate.
  • For a full list of supported platforms, see the ACT! 2010 System Requirements
  • Update: Windows 7 is now fully supported with ACT! 2010

Sage have obviously been very busy over the past year and there are also, as one would expect, many more enhancements and improvements that will improve your ability to use ACT! to assist your business.

Overall, this is been a good beta. The product has been very stable and there is much to entice current users to upgrade, especially the opportunities area. However, I think some of the new functions could have been implemented to provide a better use of the product (the navigation) or more power (Web 2.0 Tab) 

Technorati Tags: ACT!,ACT,ACT 2010,ACT!2010,CRM,SCRM,Sage,Facebook,LinkedIN,Social Media,Twitter,Beta,Swiftpage

New Subgroups for ACT! Fanatics on LinkedIN

New sub-groups have been created under the LinkedIn ACT! Fanatics Group:

• Sales and Marketing for ACT! users
  A group to discuss general sales and marketing strategies and processes, especially as they apply to users of ACT! by Sage

• ACT! and Social Media
  A group to discuss ACT! and Social Media (Social CRM) - LinkedIN, Twitter, Facebook, Plaxo and any others

• ACT! Add-ons
  Group for ACT! users to ask questions of add-on vendors and for add-on vendors to ask users what they would like or to ask each other questions related to the SDK

• ACT! Resellers
  A group for ACT! Certified Consultants and other resellers to discuss best practices for selling, implementing and supporting ACT! by Sage

• ACT! International Advisory Council
  Council of ACT! Fanatics to discuss and evaluate technical issues within ACT! by Sage that effect international users

See the full list in the ACT! Fanatics Sub-groups

Please let me know if you have any ideas for other groups that would be useful to add

Technorati Tags: ACT,ACT!,ACT! by Sage,LinkedIN

Connecting the Pieces of Social Media

This is a first version of a new presentation I’m working on to help businesses get into social media. As uses of CRM products realise the volume of business intelligence that can be gained from these technologies, the vendors will move to incorporate them into the products.

Having access to the information in community forums, blogs, Facebook, LinkedIN and Twitter is powerful both for gaining information about customers and products as well as providing information to the market, reviewing and protecting the reputation of your brand.

Connecting the Pieces of Social Media

View more presentations from Mike Lazarus.

Please feel free to add any comments or suggestions that you would like added.

Technorati Tags: Social Media,Twitter,FaceBook,Blogs,Social CRM,CRM

Social Media and Your Brand

This post is a response to a post on Sage’s ACT! Leadership Blog

The question was: How do you protect the value of your brand when "the creation of value is in the eyes of the consumers?"

Every product will have unhappy users or even competitors posting on-line about them. This is unavoidable, if you don't have any problems, either the product does nothing or you don't have very many users :-)

The most important focus in the current market is for the vendor to properly engage and respond to their users. The number of complaining ACT! consumers has dropped since Sage North America has started talking to their users via their Community Site – something I blogged about previously

The new wave of consumers, the "Millennial generation" (born 1982-2002), are starting to be a larger percentage of the market. But they are much more likely to look for product information and references from on-site forums than vendor sites. The power of communications is in the control of these users and it is necessary to realise this in-order to attract, serve and retain users in this new market.

In these times of social media, it is necessary to meet the user base where they choose, not  simply hope they will come to you. It also requires doing regular searches of the most common sites (like Twitter) for comments (positive or negative) and actually respond to show that they are being listened to.

With the global effect of the internet not fitting into the regionalisation that Sage's corporate structure uses, it is also necessary to encourage the regional OpCos to step up... to take part on this site, to create their own blogs and Twitter accounts. I have been speaking to Aldo in the Sage AU office about providing them some training in social media and helping them get up to speed with efficient ways to utilise these technologies. But they don't always have the resources necessary. Maybe this is one area that Sage Global can assist the regions in?

These steps should not just be looked at to "protect the brand" but, if done correctly, they can be a significant step in enhancing that brand.

This view has additional implications for Sage. As users of their three CRM products (ACT!, SageCRM and SalesLogix) their own user base will be looking for leadership in this area from Sage. It has certainly been positive to hear that Sage is working at integrating social media into the products so that their users will be able to better monitor and enhance their own brand’s reputation in the market.

Technorati Tags: ACT!,Sage,CRM,Social Media,SCRM

ACT! by Sage and Social Media – Social CRM

More and more businesses are starting to take advantage of various forms of “Social Media” and are looking at the advantages of integrating these with their CRM solution to provide a more complete view of their relationships.

Sage themselves have said they are looking at doing more with Social CRM and have asked users for input in what they would like in these links:

• The ACT! user and Social Media
• Are you Tagging with delicious, Diigo or other Social Bookmarking Tools?
• ACT! and the Web - Social Contact Management: Part 1 of 3

I thought I would post a few ideas on what’s possible to do now with ACT! and what I hope Sage will work on in future versions of the ACT! product.

What types of “Social Media” am I referring to:

Yes, there are a number of different types of social media in use. The ones I’m going to discuss are the ones that I’ve found most useful in business at this time:

• Blogs – like this one.
  • A flow of information from the business or staff members to the market usually with the facility for users to comment.
  • Great for providing detailed news and updates that your target market can subscribe to
  • Easier to maintain and update than their web site “News” pages
• Social networking sites like LinkedIN, Facebook or MySpace.
  • Includes a form of micro-blogging through their status function
• Twitter – social media micro-blogging
  • Short (140 character) updates
  • Very fast updates
  • Allows users to update via SMS or smart phone applications
  • Similar to status functions in social networking sites like LinkedIN and Facebook

What does integrating CRM with Social Media mean?

• Viewing recent information posted by contacts
• Updating your CRM with updated data posted by the contacts to the social networking sites
• Storing information within the ACT! database so it can be searched on or viewed later like history
• Enabling the use of this information to improve business intelligence

What Social CRM is possible now with ACT!?

• Ability to attach web pages from blogs and other URLs to Contact records
• For ACT! 2008 and 2009, Sage has provided a free Contact Web Context Browser Control that can display LinkedIN profiles, Google maps and other information in a tab for contact. You get more information on this plug-in and download it from this link
  

What I’d like to see Sage add to ACT!

• Permanently link the LinkedIN profile to the ACT! contact rather than the current method of displaying a search
• Add the same functionality for Facebook and other major social networking sites
• Lookup for those Contacts where the social media profile and the ACT! contact have different information
• A function to update the ACT! Contact record from the LinkedIN or Facebook profile
• Groups that connect to LinkedIN Groups
• Blog tab to display last 5 blog items
• Micro blog Tab displaying last 20 social network status updates and Twitter tweets
• Ability to Save items from the Blog and Micro blog tabs so they remain in ACT!
• Reply to a status or Direct message a contact and save in the History for the ACT! Contact
• Combine and view Blog and Micro blog tabs in Company and Group records
• Keyword search to include Blog and Micro blog entries
• Dashboard to show most recent blogs, status updates, tweets based on various search terms

Please post a comment with what you’d like to see done in this area and how it would benefit your business.

Technorati Tags: ACT!,ACT! by Sage,ACT,CRM,SCRM,Social Media,LinkedIN,Facebook,Twitter