Microsoft CRM Implementation: Employee Time & Billing ? notes for Consultant

Procedure.  MS CRM is flexible in the sense that you can create and attach activity to virtually any object ? Account, Contact, Lead, Quote, Order, Invoice, etc.  If you have your consultants do just that ? it will help (all the documents and info will be in CRM), however it would be no structure and you would be spending your time digging CRM in the search of historical information.  Remember Lotus Notes Domino?  Where you could also keep attaching and expanding lists and tree-like structure?  You need the procedure and the procedure will help you structurize the data in MS CRM

Structure.  The structure, deployed for employee time management should be like this.  Customer (Account) should have Contracts.  Each Contract should have contract lines (where you can allocate the budget per line), then each line should have Cases (when you fulfill the contract ? you assign your consultants to the cases, such as install software, fix bugs, replace old server with the new one, etc.).  And finally, consultants should log cases, such as appointments (if the date and time is known) and tasks (if the date and time is now known, however you know the deadline)

Scenario.  Customer ABC has ERP Implementation contract.  This contract has two lines: Software Installation (24 hours budget) and User Training (40 hours budget).  You activate contract, open two cases for Installation: SQL Installation and Client installation.  You assign SQL case to John and Client case to Bill.  You book John for Monday onsite visit (appointment, from 8am till 4pm) to install SQL, for bill you create task ? install clients for Nancy and Marilyn (you ask Bill to stop by next week, but you leave him to schedule and decide on the date).  When John finishes installation, he opens MS CRM, appointment (either web or outlook client), goes to the appointment->action->close appointment (action Close Appointment->Completed) and 8 hours are logged toward SQL Installation case.  When finally you close the case ? you decide on the number of billable hours (you will be shown the actual and budgeted time).

Reporting.  You will probably need two reports: consultant/employee time, were you should be able to see budgeted, actual, written off time ? here you evaluate consultant performance.  The second report is Project status.

Feel free to call us in US & Canada: 1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918, Latin America: S?o Paulo 55-11-3444-4949, Europe: Deutschland (0177) 8349 806, help@albaspectrum.com

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Office, Alba Spectrum Group ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ) serves corporate clients in the following industries: Oil & Gas, Healthcare, Manufacturing, Tools & Machinery, Pharmaceutical, Mining, Services, Non-Profit, Advertising & Publishing, Distribution & Logistics, Transportation, Consignment, Food & Beverages, Restaurants Supply Chain, Textile, Building & Construction, Real Estate, Engineering & Project Management.

 

Microsoft CRM or Siebel

 by: Andrew Karasev

Siebel is traditional CRM market leader, however and mostly due to recession 200-2003, Siebel lost sizable portion of CRM market to new tiger, such as Microsoft CRM. Microsoft CRM s recent (2001) CRM answer from Microsoft and attempt top get market share from traditional vendors: Siebel, Oracle, Onyx. Now it is targeted to the whole spectrum of horizontal and vertical market clientele. It is tightly integrated with other Microsoft Business Solutions products such as Microsoft Great Plains, Solomon, Navision (the last two in progress).

We would like to give you Microsoft CRM selection advise, based on our MS CRM consulting practice, going back to its inception in 1999. This article is written in FAQ style for beginner level

1. What is your industry how strange it may look close to 40% of our clients or so-called orphan clients who needs help with Microsoft CRM customization are freight forwarding, transportation companies, who needs either improvement in Exchange-CRM connector or MS CRM integration with their freight forwarding system, where they would like to see on the fly resent shipment info. And also to mention freight forwarding companies are usually large (more than 50 CRM users)

2. How comfortable you are with Microsoft technology in-house support The old-days idea of Apple computer was to make computer absolutely intuitive and working for housewife. Now we know that this is not realized so far. If you compare MS CRM with Siebel you will see that MS CRM requires y0u to have Microsoft Certified people in staff. Everyone knows that Microsoft is so innovative that each product requires daily service packs and patches

3. Do you have Great Plains, Solomon or Navision CRM is usually integrated with ERP system and if you are looking at MS CRM you should benefit if you have ERP from Microsoft Business Solutions (Great Plains, Solomon, Navision, Axapta or Small Business Manager - SBM)

4. Operating System Philosophy - Microsoft likes clients who have no UNIX/LINUX/IBM/Apple etc inclination and staked on Microsoft Windows 2003/2000/XP/Longhorn, preferably staying on Intel platform (No AMD Athlon 64)

Have fun in selection and decision. We are here to help you: 1-866-528-0577

About The Author Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies USA nationwide Microsoft CRM, Microsoft Great Plains customization company, with offices in Chicago, Phoenix, Los Angeles. San Francisco, San Diego, New York, Atlanta, Denver, Miami, Toronto, Montreal, Madrid, Moscow (www.albaspectrum.com), he is Dexterity, SQL, C#.Net, Crystal Reports and Microsoft CRM SDK developer. akarasev@albaspectrum.com

#BREAK#

Microsoft CRM Modification overview for IT specialist

Microsoft CRM Modification overview for IT specialist

 by: Andrew Karasev

Microsoft CRM is now on the scene and it is increasing its market share, due to the Microsoft Business Solutions muscles and marketing strategy. It is tightly integrated with other Microsoft Business Solutions products such as Microsoft Great Plains, Solomon, Navision.

If you are programmer or database administrator who is asked: how do we modify Microsoft CRM read this article and you will have the clues for further research.

1. Microsoft CRM SDK this is software development kit with C# and partly VB.net code samples it is supported by Microsoft Business Solutions technical support. It is based on web service calls, if you are C# .NET developer you are excellently positioned to do this type of customizations. This is the preferred modification scenario and this should be easily upgradeable customization. VB.Net examples will be available soon.

2. Legacy SQL Data integration. This is also easy and safe. If you have SQL database, sitting on the same or linked SQL Server you can create ASPX .Net application and simply integrate it into CRM. You can place it on the navigation bar or menu in isv.config please refer to MS CRM SDK

3. Legacy ASP integration this is somewhat more sophisticated. You have to deploy HTTP handler to be a middle party between CRM which is .Net based and ASP which is legacy IIS. The trick is you have to have INI file with security settings to penetrate into MS CRM with proper credentials, calling web service.

4. Microsoft Exchange Programming. Microsoft CRM has Exchange connector which moves CRM incoming email to MS if it has GUID in its subject. You can alter this logic (for instance - move email to CRM if it doesnt have GUID but it is from the sender who is contact or account in MS CRM). Refer to MS Exchange SDK onsyncsave event handling. Then simply apply some MS CRM SDK programming - you need some COM+ objects creation and VB programming experience.

5. Direct SQL touch in #4 above I described you the scenario with MS Exchange handlers this would be ideal world if MS CRM SDK does the job. But in real world this is not always true you have to do direct flags correction in CRM database (like making Activity closed, moving email attachments/octet streams, etc). This is not supported by MBS technical support but you can rescue to this technique if you have to get job done.

6. MS CRM Customization tool this is rather end-user tool and we dont describe it here read the manual. Weve described above the options to use when this tool doesnt do the job

7. Crystal Reports - feel free to create Crystal report - tables and views structure is self explanatory. Try to avoid the temptation to create your own SQL view or stored procedure in MS CRM database, instead - create custom database and place your view and stored proc in it.

Happy modifying! 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 Microsoft CRM, Microsoft Great Plains customization company, based in Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston, Atlanta, and Miami and having locations in multiple states and internationally (www.albaspectrum.com), he is Dexterity, SQL, VB/C#.Net, Crystal Reports and Microsoft CRM SDK developer. akarasev@albaspectrum.com

 

Microsoft CRM Selection

Microsoft CRM Selection

 by: Andrew Karasev

Microsoft CRM is recent (2001) CRM answer from Microsoft and attempt top get market share from traditional vendors: Siebel, Oracle, Onyx. Now it is targeted to the whole spectrum of horizontal and vertical market clientele. It is tightly integrated with other Microsoft Business Solutions products such as Microsoft Great Plains, Solomon, Navision (the last two in progress).

We would like you to give you Microsoft CRM selection advise, based on our MS CRM consulting practice, going back to its inception in 1999. This article is written in FAQ style for beginner level

1. What is your industry how strange it may look close to 40% of our clients or so-called orphan clients who needs help with Microsoft CRM customization are freight forwarding, transportation companies, who needs either improvement in Exchange-CRM connector or MS CRM integration with their freight forwarding system, where they would like to see on the fly resent shipment info. And also to mention freight forwarding companies are usually large (more than 50 CRM users)

2. How comfortable you are with Microsoft technology in-house support The old-days idea of Apple computer was to make computer absolutely intuitive and working for housewife. Now we know that this is not realized so far. If you compare MS CRM with Siebel you will see that MS CRM requires y0u to have Microsoft Certified people in staff. Everyone knows that Microsoft is so innovative that each product requires daily service packs and patches

3. Do you have Great Plains, Solomon or Navision CRM is usually integrated with ERP system and if you are looking at MS CRM you should benefit if you have ERP from Microsoft Business Solutions (Great Plains, Solomon, Navision, Axapta or Small Business Manager - SBM)

4. Operating System Philosophy - Microsoft likes clients who have no UNIX/LINUX/IBM/Apple etc inclination and staked on Microsoft Windows 2003/2000/XP/Longhorn, preferably staying on Intel platform (No AMD Athlon 64)

Have fun in selection and decision. We are here to help you: 1-866-528-0577

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

Is Your CRM System Destined To Fail?

Its time to put your trusty CRM software to work; to let it earn its keep. You're about to blast an email out to several thousand potential customers. First you run a search of people and companies you want to target. You soon realize somethings wrong when your list is far smaller than anticipated. A quick check reveals many profiles have not been filled in or are missing email addresses. Further inspection shows numerous records are incorrect; others are riddled with typos. And thats just for starters. With a sinking feeling, you realize this email blast isnt going to happen anytime soon.

Time for some damage control or preventative maintenance

Fortunately one of the most common reasons cited for the high failure rate of CRM systems - poor data quality - is also one of the easiest to avoid. Your CRM software is only as good as the information it contains. As the old programmers motto goes garbage in, garbage out. So how can you avoid incomplete, incorrect, irrelevant or out-of-date and generally unfit-for-use data from permeating your CRM software?

You need to gather your key CRM users together and write a standard guideline document, defining the CRM system rules of use.

10 questions that should be addressed:

1. Identify who has what rights to the system; who can Create, Insert,
Modify or Delete records? Forward this information to your system
administrator to record.
2. Decide on a procedure to check for any duplicates before creating a
record. Depending on what de-duping or data scrubbing features your
system has, this might require some simple searches before starting a new
record.
3. Do you allow abbreviations or acronyms? For example: IBM, or I.B.M,
or International Business Machines Inc. A policy on ensuring consistency
of input will help to avoid duplications in future.
4. Are records going to be created in Upper and Lower case and when are
CAPS acceptable?
5. By when do you expect records, notes and so on to be created or
updated? Same day, on return to the office?
6. Is the primary address of clients to be created as a postal or a
physical address?
7. Make sure everyone checks spellings if they are unsure. When in
doubt, ask the client or Google it.
8. Make rules for creating new tabs or Custom Objects (as
salesforce.com CRM calls them.) Every time a new Custom Object is needed,
it should first be approved.
9. Ensure that email addresses are put in correctly. Basic but common
mistake!
10. Set up procedures, if not supported by your crm software, of how to
create records from inbound emails.

Once your document is finished, get everyone to sign off on it. As
standard practice, ensure that document is handed to all new employees at
your company.

How do I reinforce this as time goes on?
Try this: select a couple of records - both good and bad - every week, to
put on the overhead at staff meetings. Make sure you dont unduly
embarrass anybody but watch this become the light-relief highlight of your
meetings! People learn best when having fun!

What if your database is in one unholy mess?
Has the rot set in so deeply that your database needs a complete overhaul?
Turn this seemingly insurmountable task into an opportunity to you. This
is an excellent excuse to re-establish contact with your clients and let
them know you care.

Importantly, help your staff understand what you need from the data to
facilitate more accurate marketing and reporting and hence the success of
your business and their careers.

By creating a sense of pride and ownership in the company database, you
are nurturing the essential process of buy-in, necessary for the success
of your CRM initiative. Dont compromise this critical tool by allowing
your CRM software to be infected by inferior data.

David Cowgill is a Senior Marketing Manager in San Francisco. His coverage area focuses on the technologies that facilitate managing CRM analytics and lead generation.

For further information contact:
David Cowgill
CRM Blog Founder
http://crm.blogs.com

CRM -- Turning Customers Into Clients

Estimates that 20 percent of customers account for 80 percent of total revenues in some businesses is a wake-up call! Finding new business a climate like that is expensive, and often unrewarding. As Barry Stamos points out in 'Best' Customers: More Profitable Relationships (Email Marketing Newsletter), Why spend resources attracting new customers until optimizing the profitability of your client relationships?

Estimates that 20 percent of customers account for 80 percent of total revenues in some businesses is a wake-up call! Finding new business a climate like that is expensive, and often unrewarding. As Barry Stamos points out in 'Best' Customers: More Profitable Relationships (Email Marketing Newsletter), Why spend resources attracting new customers until optimizing the profitability of your client relationships?

More Bang for Your Buck

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is organizing and maintaining strategic connections with clients and customers to turn that sorry 20/80 stat on its ear.

Successful CRM is about competing in the relationship dimension explains Bob Thompson, CEO, CustomerThink Corporation, Not as an alternative to having a competitive product or reasonable price- but as a differentiator. If your competitors are doing the same thing you are (as they generally are), product and price won't give you a long-term, sustainable competitive advantage. But if you can get an edge based on how customers feel about your company, it's a much stickier--sustainable--relationship over the long haul.

Putting Clients First

Service is a client-centric activity, but theres plenty in it for you, too. For small-business owners (SBOs) and independent professionals, developing and managing healthy client relationships and providing superior service increases cross-selling and up-selling opportunities, and can spin off endless chains of high-leverage qualified referrals. Building on your client base also increases profitability, by cutting front-end marketing time and costs; but its the quality of those relationships that affects persistency, enhances your professional reputation, and can lead to future business from your hard-earned clients.

Technically, of course, when you make a sale, you dont have a client, you have a customer. A customer is someone who buys from you once; a client is someone who will buy from you, again and again. Clients who trust you and your expertise will come to you (and maybe only you) for your products or services. A client relationship is one in which both the buyer and seller agree that the first transaction was not a one-time event.

Client Relationship Management goals are clear:

Being seen as confident, competent professional;

Proactively servicing your existing business and providing extra value;

Meeting additional needs as clients situations change, and

Earning prestige recommendations or introductions to other qualified prospects.

The buyer must accept Client status, however, its not a label that can be stuck to the buyer by the seller. Client relationships must be cultivated and nurtured to stay healthy. To borrow a line from former New York City mayor, Ed Koch, simply asking clients, How am I doing? is a great way to find out.

CRM is typically characterized by continuous contact, shared expectations and mutually beneficial relationships evolving over time. The post-sale period must be carefully managed. Thank-you messages are courteous and business-like; progress reports may be useful in some situations.

Make a point of contacting clients informally several times a year, in addition to holiday messages and regularly scheduled service contacts. It can add up, but todays SBOs and independent professionals have a really simple and powerful way of delivering much more value to clients with less effort, since virtually all client service contacts can be automated.

E-Communications Its Expected!

People have come to expect email service notifications and other communicationseverything from thank-you notes, birthday and holiday greetings to cross- and up-selling messaging. If youre not using automation technology and a Web presence to the max, youre at a disadvantage (because your competitors are!).

At the same time, a lot of businesses are slow to acknowledge customer inquiries and service requests. Business research firm, Jupiter Research (http://www.jupiterresearch.com), found that nearly one-third of companies either took three days or longer to respond to customers' email inquiries or never responded at all. Bad on them!

But that can all be fixed with automated messaging built into e-mail systems. Meeting basic customer service needs in these ways improves persistency and client loyalty.

Just as understanding the people you're looking for makes it easier to find more of them, a markets unique make-up can help you tailor appropriate client communications. As consumers become increasingly sophisticated, so does the benefit of targeting client communications, not just promotional messages, to their needs, interests and buying behaviors. With today's technology you can readily customize client communications to each market segment.

Smart CRM Another Way to Succeed

CustomerThink Corporations Bob Thompson: Said another way, you can succeed with CRM by being SMART: Define a customer-centric Strategy; use appropriate Metrics ; ensure your organization is Aligned with your objectives; Redesign work processes as needed; and use appropriate Technology tools as enablers. But it all starts by putting your customers first and creating a better relationship with them than your competitors offer.

Want More? Send questions and comments to w.willard3@knology.net.

Bill Willard has been writing high-impact marketing and sales training for over 30 yearsbut as Will Rogers put it: "Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there. Through interactive, Web-based "Do-While-Learning" programs, e-Newsletters and straight-talking articles, Bill helps small-business owners and independent professionals get the job done.

Microsoft CRM Implementation fundamental CRM principles revision

Microsoft CRM is relatively new player on the now becoming traditional CRM software applications market. We would like just to mention shift in the technical conception Microsoft CRM is committed to Windows and Microsoft components: Exchange, Active Directory, SQL Server, etc (while traditional CRM applications, such as Siebel were biased toward multiplatform compatibility: Unix, Oracle, Windows, SQL Server) and move up to business logic paradigm shift.

There is high-tech wisdom and it is always applicable to traditional industries, such as auto makers. Dont try to be too innovative on the market, rather have your competitors build the market niche and then move in. It is rather safe not to purchase the car of the new line, just introduced this year, even if it comes from such a respectable manufacturer as Toyota. The same in software industry we have unlimited trust and greatest respect to such CRM makers as Seibel but I guess we have to admit companies like this had to be pioneers on the market and had to create the market, being a little bit premature, however savvy in the long term market prediction..

Microsoft seems to be allowing the enthusiasts to create the market niche and then move in with its own or purchased and beefed up solution. In the case of MS CRM it seems to be from ground up MS development and very excellent fit to Microsoft Business Solutions business strategy.

Microsoft CRM application conception in our opinion was substantial simplification in CRM functionality and making IT group to support it, by deploying all the recent Microsoft technologies.

Bullets to emphasize:

1. Microsoft CRM is for MCSE / Microsoft oriented IT departments Microsoft CRM would be be-loved system for IT specialists. If you are MCSE+I - CRM will recruit all your MS Exchange, Active Directory, MS SQL Server, Windows domain security, Windows 2003 Server, Web publishing and HTML knowledge and experience. This is completely opposite to earlier Apple Computer believe - that computer systems should be easy in service and completely intuitive. MS CRM is kind of intuitive for end user, but not for its administrator.

2. Microsoft CRM - is not CRM - but rather simplified CRM - if you do remember old days whitepapers about CRM in general, or even it's predecessor - Lotus Notes/Domino - these papers were full of predictions about the future and were written for top level company executives, not for regular computer specialists. This was probably why so high percentage of CRM sales failed in implementations. Microsoft CRM has the highest ever rate of successful implementations, because it is not a CRM, but rather popularized version of it - it just does the job - as cheap and reliable car.

3. Transportation Companies - about 30% of our clients in the States are transportation and freight forwarding companies. This actually proves the hypothesis that MS CRM is very simple solution - these companies usually do not have extra money to spend on their computer system, but need the solution for its sales people to instantly see the cargos, plus have simple customization, allowing them to integrate with legacy system.

4. Movement down to small and tiny companies this is completely new trend for CRM market. We know the examples when 5 employees companies make a decision to implement and have surprising success in Microsoft CRM implementation.

Happy implementing!

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies USA nationwide Microsoft CRM, Microsoft Great Plains customization company, serving clients in Chicago, California, Colorado, Texas, New York, Georgia and Florida, Canada, UK, Australia and having locations in multiple states and internationally (www.albaspectrum.com) You can reach Andrew at 1-630-961-5918 or 1-866-528-0577. He is Dexterity, SQL, C#.Net, Crystal Reports and Microsoft CRM SDK developer.

help@albaspectrum.com

CRM - Customer Relationship "Management" Is a Myth

Now that Peter F. Drucker has passed on, I feel almost duty bound to share some of his insights with you, little observations, pointers and gems that simply aren?t in his books or popularly known.

I had the pleasure of studying with the management sage for two and a half years. Much of the MBA I did at the Drucker School of Management, named in his honor, in fact, was in classes with Drucker, himself.

And I had the pleasure of serving as his informal chauffeur on Saturdays, when many of our classes met.

So, we talked.

He was fond of admonishing us to ?invest in the customer? and specifically, to ?invest in the customer relationship,? because it is one way to get clients to select and to prefer us, a very valuable habit.

But to my knowledge Drucker never called the process customer relationship MANAGEMENT.

In fact, on many occasions he said relationships are fundamentally UN-manageable.

His fondest example was one?s family. He said, ?You can?t apply management principles to your family; they won?t work.?

When I told him about the arrival of my first daughter, he reminded me of this notion and then asked: ?Is she ruling the roost??

?Yes,? I replied, ?She has us all at her beck and call.?

?That?s the way it should be,? he beamed.

If you?re managing a person, you probably have something different than a real relationship, like an employment contract, or some other sort of business commitment or alliance.

But interpersonal relationships have their own dynamics. Power, for one thing, is shared. We cannot order a customer to come back and buy again, just as we can?t order our relatives to love or respect us.

We can use persuasion, guile, charm, guilt, and incentives, but we can?t MANAGE that outcome as we can manage a salesperson, say by telling him he has to hit his quota this quarter, or hit the highway.

If we aren?t managing customers what are we doing?

We?re NEGOTIATING relationships. There is give and take, concessions are made, and equities are balanced out, if not in the short run, then in the longer term.

All of this is fine, you might be thinking, but what practical difference does it make if we call it CRM or CRN, for negotiation?

Management is a term that signifies superior power and resources.

When we interact with customers we are facing the opposite of being in power. We?re relatively powerless, providing we?re operating in a competitive marketplace.

Customers have choices. They can more readily and inexpensively say ?no,? and walk away from a deal.

When we consider customer transactions and the residue of doing many of them, it would be more advantageous to see our counterparts as ongoing negotiation partners, but never as friends, peers, or family.

In non-business interpersonal relationships, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts; in business, there are only parts, no enduring ?marriages.?

The sooner we straighten out the otherwise mystifying rhetoric ushered in by CRM, the better off we?ll all be.

Dr. Gary S. Goodman is the best-selling author of 12 books and more than a thousand articles. His seminars and training programs are sponsored internationally and he is a top-rated faculty member at more than 40 universities. Dynamic, experienced, and lots of fun, Gary brings more than two decades of solid management and consulting experience to the table, along with the best academic preparation and credentials in the speaking and training industry. Holder of five degrees, including a Ph.D. from the Annenberg School For Communication at USC, an MBA from the Peter F. Drucker School of Management, and a law degree from Loyola, his clients include several Fortune 1000 companies along with successful family owned and operated firms across America. Much more than a ?talking head,? Gary is a top mind that you'll enjoy working with and putting to use. He can be reached at: gary@customersatisfaction.com

The Secret To Building Good Customer Relationships

While it may be your first reaction to make new sales or pursue bigger clients, the truth of the matter is that you should be paying attention to your existing customers as well. The secret to getting sustainable repeat business is to follow up with every customer, and an effective follow-up begins immediately after the sale. You should give the customer 24 to 48 hours and then phone them up just to say thank you and find out if they are pleased with what they purchased.

1. Educate Customers

Intentionally make a habit of pointing out to customers what excellent service you provide. Failing to constantly and repeatedly get in your customers face highlighting your over-the-top service is equivalent to losing customers. If you want to talk with customers in store, be sure to use a newsletter. It is a good idea to have an online newsletter as well.

2. Keep it personal

Instead of sending an e-mail, send a handwritten letter. Or at least follow up and leave them a voice message. Failure to be in constant communication is equivalent with the customer percieving that they aren't getting any additional service at all.

3. Be Aggressive About Collecting Data

If you need to collect data, be aggressive about it. Most people won't want to take even a moment of their day out to tell you about your business. Keep things simple and short - ratings should be out of 5 or 10 and never require a written response. The total time needed to do the survey should be under 30 seconds. You should give incentives to the customer such as a chance to win $1,000.

4. CRM in Business

The use of internet sites and specifically e-mail, in particular, are often touted as less expensive communication methods in comparison to traditional ones such as telephone calls. These types of technologies service can be very helpful, but it is completely useless to a business that cannot reach its customers. Some major companies believe that the majority of their clients trust other means of communication, like telephone, more than they trust e-mail. Clients, however, are usually not the ones to blame because it is often the manner of connecting with consumers on a personal level making them feel as though they are cherished as customers. It is up to companies to focus on reaching every customer and developing a relationship.

It is possible for CRM software to run an entire business. From prospect and client contact tools to billing history and bulk email management. The CRM system allows a business to maintain all customer records in one centralized location that is accessible to an entire organization through password administration. Front office systems are set up to collect data from the customers for processing into the data warehouse. The data warehouse is a back office system used to fulfill and support customer orders. All customer information is stored in the data warehouse. Back office CRM makes it possible for a company to follow sales, orders, and cancellations. Special regressions of this data can be very beneficial for the marketing division of a firm/company.

For more great customer related articles and resources check out http://makemoneycentral.info

Improving Your Customer Relationship Management With Blogging Technology

Before I address the following questions: What is a blog? and What can a blog do for your business?, let me pose a few "What if . . ." questions to you.

Keeping in mind that before your prospects and customers buy from you, they need to know you, like you, and trust you. In other words, they need to know, whether overtly or covertly, that they have a trusting and ongoing relationship with you. What better way to accomplish for them to get to know you, trust you, and like you than with a blog?

Now, here are my "What if . . ." questions:

* What if less than two minutes after creating and publishing your blog, it were to be promoted to thousands of prospects without any extra effort or cost on your part?

* What if your blog gave you immediate access to hundreds of international prospects?

* What if you had immediate access to hundreds of prospects in your city, state, or country who had interests and hobbies similar to yours?

* What if every time someone clicks on a hyperlinked keyword in your Profile that describes your hobbies, occupation, industry, favorite books, movies, music, or artist, your blog pops up?

* What if every time you left a comment on someone elses blog, you could leave a hyperlink to your website, blog, or email? (a mini no-cost commercial!)

* What if whenever someone enters your name or business name (completely or partially) into a major search engine, your website or blog pops up in their search results?

* What if every time you post content on your blog, it would bypass the spam filters and instantaneously appear on your subscribers desktop without any extra effort or cost on your part? (- an excellent opportunity to get your sales, special messages, or time-sensitive announcements into their hands, or actually in front of their eyes!)

* What if your satisfied customers had the opportunity to place their self-generated testimonies on your blog? (Although some will take the initiative to do so, others might need encouragement. That's all right. Just make an incentive opportunity of it! Offer some incentive for their efforts.)

By now you should be beginning to see the powerful marketing potential a blog offers you. These are just some of the powerful customer relationship management features a blog offers you.

But wait! There's yet more!

* What if you were to combine these powerful features with other online and offline efforts such as a blogathon, teleseminar, webinar, online articles, and others?

* What if doing so would enhance your customer relationship management?

* What if doing so would decrease returns and refunds?

* What if doing so would increase sales?

Think about it! I realize that successful marketing and sales are still high-touch entities; however, I also realize that when you combine your high-tech efforts with your high-touch efforts, you're bound to be successful!!!

Now to answer the original questions, What is a blog? and What can a blog do for your business?:

A blog, short of web log, is an interactive web-based journal that encourages participation from viewers. It looks like and does everything a website does and more! A blog serves as an excellent supplement to your website and other marketing efforts. Entries, called posts, are published by date on the page according to your predetermined quantity and are archived in the margin according to your predetermined frequency.

A blog offers your business countless marketing options. Specifically, a blog:

* gives viewers, prospects, customers, and subscribers who might have had difficulty in the past immediate access to you.

* helps to reduce your time spend distributing emails and other messages.

* improves your content delivery rates by 100%.

* improves your search engine rankings.

* publishes constantly fresh content.

* bypasses spam filters completely.

* improves your online visibility.

* enhances your web presence.

* generates more visitors.

and more . . .

So, if you don't already have a blog, I only have one question for you: What are you waiting for? !?

Don't let this cutting-edge technology, this powerful marketing tool, pass you by. Online companies are popping up all over the internet offering you free blogs. My recommendation is that you grab one, or two or more! Most, if not all, are extremely easy to create, but may be time-consuming, according to your already hectic schedule, to maintain.

If that's the case in your situation, you might want to call in outside help. Consider the high school computer techie next door, or the college-age computer-major son or daughter of a friend who could always use a few extra bucks.

I leave you with this wish: May you always be successful in looking for and using new and creative ways to maximize your earning potential.

Remember: When you maximize your potential, we all win! When you don't, we all lose.
Etienne A. Gibbs, MSW, Management Consultant and Trainer, conducts lectures, seminars, and workshops, and writes articles about helping you maximize your potential for individuals, schools, small businesses, non-profit organizations. Reach him at http://www.MasterBlogBuilder.com.

What is Customer Relationship Management (CRM)?

 Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a phenomenon that is becoming a major discipline within business. CRM can be traced back to the airlines attempt to gather information about their customer flying habits in order to stop their high-fare airliners choosing low-fare carriers, however, the concept was invented even further back, when the shop owner knew all his customers by first name and they knew his name.

In 1998 The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) in conjunction with Andersen Consulting published the result of a CRM survey of different companies around the world. The survey revealed a new heightened focus on CRM as a discipline, where companies increased their customer focus and using a process approach to customer relationship management. This was a market shift from the traditional transaction-based and functionally managed approach where the relationship with customer was divided up and dealt with by different departments. The EIU report also showed that between 1994 and 1997 the spending on customer relationship management software and services grew from $200 million to $1.1 billion in the USA. The EIU report is one of many investigations that indicate a growing interest in CRM and some literature concerning CRM even postulate that companies will have to adapt it to survive.


Several researchers define CRM differently. Couldwell defines CRM as:

Customer relationship management is a combination of business process and technology that seeks to understand a companys customer from the perspective of who they are, what they do, and what they like

and Hobby, defines CRM as:
A management approach that enables organisations to identify, attract and increase retention of profitable customers by managing relationships with them".

However, I have found the following definition of CRM, to be the most adequately:

"CRM is a business strategy - an attitude to employees and customers - that is supported by certain processes and systems. The goal is to build long-term relationships by understanding individual needs and preferences - and in this way add value to the enterprise and the customer".


This definition places the strategy of adding value to the customer in the focus, whereas the first mentioned definition gives technology and processor first priority. As the chosen definition explains, the systems and processes are vital support elements in creating value for the customer. The second-mentioned definition is found to be somewhat thin and practical useless but it notice an important aspect of CRM, that the organisation has to learn how to listening to customers. In the definition, CRM is defined as a business strategy. This is an important aspect, as CRM is not to be seen as a concept or a project but as a business strategy, which affects all parts of the company.

CRM is about identifying, retaining, and maximising the value of a companys customers. CRM is a sales- and service business strategy where the organisation wraps itself around the customer, so that whenever there is an interaction, the information exchanged is relevant for that customer. This means knowing all about that customer and what the profitability of that customer is going to be. CRM is an effort to create the whole picture of a given customer, bringing together consistent, comprehensive and credible information on all aspects of the existing relationship, such as profitability information, risk profiles and cross-sell potential.


To keep customers satisfied and make them return, CRM, as a strategy, is not a new phenomenon. Every company wants profitable and loyal customers. The new aspect is that companies start to measure this profitability and loyalty and use this information to segment customers and develop strategies for approaching these customers.


However, before implementing CRM, companies need to have some basic foundations settled. First of all, the basic quality of the products has to be in order, i.e. if the product does not live up to the expectations of the customer, he will not be satisfied, hence loyal for long. The typical strategies prior to CRM are quality control systems such as Total Quality Management (TQM). Secondly, companies also have to know more about their customers before implementing CRM. I.e. they have to evaluate, which customers are most valuable in terms of profitability, loyalty and future expectations. Thirdly, the companies have to have the necessary technology to enable the employees to access information about customers in order to offer customers the best service. Finally, CRM needs full support from the management of the company to stand a chance of success.
Rasmus Nielsen has specialised in CRM for several years and been consulting to various companies in Denmark and Australia on the topic.
Rasmus also holds a M.Sc. International Business Economics