Sales Automation Blog



             


Wednesday, March 19, 2008

CRM Offshore Software Development

CRM stands for Customer-Relationship Management, and adopts the basic of self-service channel such as the Internet.
CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is a business strategy built around the concept being "customer-centric". The main goal is to maximize revenue through improved customer satisfaction and focused interactions at each customer touch point.
The above can be achieved by understanding the needs of the customer that based on their purchasing patterns.
Customer-Relationship Management Customer-Relationship Management follows the principal of customer interaction,
allowing each customer to let you know how he or she wants to be treated.
CRM is a mechanism to make the supplier more aware of customers' buying habits and frequency at which he/she buys.
CRM solutions can improve efficiency of sales, marketing and services by making the supplier more attuned to the needs of the customer.
Some features to be recognized while achieving the customer satisfaction are:
1) Customers own their own information
2) Customers need total accuracy and at times won't understand the viewpoint of the supplier
Advantages of CRM Solutions.
CRM solutions provide a technology to enable your customer services, sales and marketing efforts by allowing a 1st-time visitor to visit the site again,
repeating the visitor to subscribe to a newswire so that we can tell him/her what we're doing to the site, subscribers and commentators to submit contributions
so that we broaden and deepen the content we provide and subscribed members of the site to purchase product and services
and provide us with funds. Typical CRM functionality includes the following:
1)Visitor login and account maintenance
2)User profiling and user agendas
3) Customer tracking and unique customer record
4) User reporting
5) User feedback and suggestions
6) Site relevance and content optimization
For more information log on to www.a1technology.com , an offshore outsourcing company

The author of the article is John Parker, A-1 Technology, Inc, an offshore outsourcing company

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Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Microsoft CRM Typical Customizations

Microsoft CRM was designed to be easily customizable. Microsoft CRM Software Development Kit (MS CRM SDK) which you can download from Microsoft website contains descriptions of the objects or classes, exposed for customization. It has sample code in C# and partially in VB.Net. In Visual Studio.Net you can analyze all the classes, used by Microsoft developers to create MS CRM - you will discover that most of them are not documented in MS CRM SDK. Microsoft will not support your customization if you use undocumented class or do direct SQL access to CRM database.

Let us describe you - programmer, software developer typical cases of MS CRM Customizations.

1. Integration with SQL Server application. If you have legacy system on MS SQL Server - let's say you are transportation company and have in-house developed cargo tracking database. Now in MS CRM you want lookup the shipments for the customer (or account in CRM). This is SDK programming and calling SQL stored proc to retrieve cargo info. Instead of SQL Server you can have other database (ORACLE, MS Access, PervasiveSQL to name a few) - you can access multiple Database platforms via ADO.Net connection from your .Net application, which is easily integrated into MS CRM Account screen.

2. Email capturing in MS CRM. You have customer with email Bill@customer.com. Now you want all the emails that you receive from customer.com domain to be attached to Bill who is account in CRM. This is more difficult customization - you have to create MS CRM SDK web service, that one will be creating email activity and call it from COM+ application - Microsoft Exchange event handler (ONSYNCSAVE database event sink). This example maybe complicated with the following requirement. Imagine that Bill, instead of answering to your email (sent from CRM and processed by CRM-Exchange connector) sends you new message from MS Outlook. Then this email will not follow into MS CRM (because it doesn't have GUID in the header and so is ignored by CRM Exchange connector). If you want to capture these emails - you have to do it in Microsoft Exchange event sink. There maybe scenario when you want to capture and analyze in the sink all the outgoing emails - this is even more complex - y!

ou have to place the sink on transport event.

3. ASP Application integration. You have legacy ASP application, where you capture orders from your customers and you want these orders be transferred to the CRM as activity. Here you understand that ASP doesn't deploy Active Directory security - and the best way is to create HTTP handler and call it from your ASP page. This HTTP handler in turn will call MS CRM SDK web service with predefined (web.config) Active Directory credentials.

Some cautions. Never create your custom SQL objects (like stored procedure, SQL view, table) in MS CRM database. Instead, create your own database and place your objects there. When you see the first caution - you will never try to alter existing CRM objects, like adding new field to the table.

Happy customizing! if you want us to do the job - give us a call 1-866-528-0577! help@albaspectrum.com

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies USA nationwide Great Plains, Microsoft CRM customization company, based in Chicago, California, Texas, New York, Florida, Georgia, Minnesota, Oregon, Arizona, Canada, UK, Australia and having locations in multiple states and internationally (www.albaspectrum.com), he is Microsoft CRM SDK, Great Plains Dexterity, SQL, C#/VB.Net and Crystal Reports developer.
akarasev@albaspectrum.com

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Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Sales Force Management and Leadership: Increase Profitability By Understanding Your Sales Team

Have you ever closely examined why some people are wildly successful at selling, meeting and exceeding every goal placed in front of them, while others lack either the self motivation or certain key skill sets to get them to their next level of growth and performance? After all, they all have the same product, the same tools, and the same compensation structure. They?ve all been through the same sales management-training program. In my experience of 25 years selling, building sales organizations and leading and managing thousands of salespeople, the answer has to do with the fact that virtually all sales? organizations are comprised of four different kinds of salespeople:

1. The Performers ? The Top Producers

These high achieving sales executives are the best at bringing in the numbers, but chances are that you spend a fair share of your time cleaning up her messes. Seems like they?re either sky-high or down in the dumps. When the performer is down, they are out of their selling zone, and productivity comes to a standstill. But when the performer is up, look out world!

2. The Professional ? Another Top Producer

This top producer is very consistent, a total team player, even tempered, patient, and consistently bringing in the numbers. Professionals are also part of the elite members on the sales team, but they seem to be missing some opportunities that would catapult them to super stardom if they made some slight changes to their selling game. Instead, they stick to self-proven conservative approaches.

3. The Caretaker ? Stuck In A Major Comfort

These are the sales executives that are simply stuck in their lackluster comfort zones -- giving you a solid month about every third month, or giving you about seventy percent of what they have all the time. They have the potential, but they?re consistently mediocre. You just can?t get them to perform the difficult tasks that it takes to produce at top levels with any regularity. Worse yet, they?re passive aggressive. You say to yourself, ?If I could only wake them up, they?d be right up there with the best.?

I was giving a speech on ?Four People, Four Paths? to a leading company in the California real estate industry where I was emphasizing the importance of knowing exactly who you are. While I was quoting my book The Four Kinds of Sales People and explaining in detail the struggles and breakthrough opportunities for each of the four kinds of sales people, a woman in the audience yelled out, ?Oh my God, I?m a Caretaker!? The crowd laughed and I congratulated her on her honesty and pointed out to her (and others who were not so forthright) the tremendous opportunity that existed if she made the conscious decision to change and begin doing the difficult things that it takes to produce top results on a consistent basis.

4. The Searcher ? The One That Belongs In Any Career But Sales

All sales leaders have made some bad hiring decisions that result in sales reps that just don?t belong in sales. They perceived a sales career to be easy and they were wrong. Producing top sales is hard work. These misfits are consumed with fear, and if truth be told, they honestly hate sales. They have no real intention of making the necessary changes to be successful. You?re better off helping them find more fulfilling careers.

My point is that while the individual make-up of sales forces may vary, there are always only four kinds. Management?s goal is to get the best to keep getting better while building a team with as many top producers as possible. That means management must influence those that are ?stuck? in their comfort zone to break through to the next level. That means management must perform the unenviable task of helping those that don?t belong to find other career paths. In my experience, management gets too preoccupied with these two challenges and neglects the opportunity to get their top producers to reach for their next level of achievement. They have more potential. That?s why they?re the best. And can be even better.

If you want sales to improve, particularly in highly competitive sales environments, then leaders must create a growth-oriented atmosphere that thrives on constant improvement, regardless of market conditions. By the way, that means leaders and managers must also be striving to break through to their next level as well. Sales is about creating and sustaining momentum, and then creating even more of it. Consistently.
Breakthrough mentor and sales guru, Chuck Mache, has more than 25 years experience in selling, managing, building and leading sales organizations regionally as well as internationally. Use his transforming knowledge and expertise in building heavy-hitter sales organizations, by buying his book, "The Four Kinds of Sales People" today at http://www.thefourkindsofsalespeople.com/PR/ and increase your organization?s productivity and profitability.

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