CRM | Sales | Marketing Insights by Lindsay Garrison
Converting data from an existing CRM system looks like a daunting task. In reality, with sufficient prep, you may be able to do it yourself. If you don’t have time (or your time is better spent elsewhere) there are professionals who can help you. Unless you have a pristine database, proper conversion prep is time consuming. But, don’t defer cleansing the data until after the conversion – the prep time is nothing compared to the effort needed should […]
Zoho Corp has added breadth to their suite of application over the last couple of years, expanding to nearly 30 applications in 2013. The recent depth that’s been added to their flagship CRM product is an exciting development. Based on price, ease of use, and capabilities, Zoho CRM has been a smart choice for the SMB market. It’s great to see them moving up-market to support the more complex requirements of the […]
It’s not enough for your CRM solution to fit your pocketbook. If it doesn’t fit your needs, no matter the cost, it’s not a good investment. In fact, the lowest price is a lousy deal if the solution doesn’t bring sufficient value to your business. You should expect basic capabilities in any CRM solution: track leads and prospects, manage sales opportunities, maintain contact histories, generate/record emails, and build business reports. In […]
As the importance of customer relationship management (CRM) has grown, so have approaches to implementation. CRM is a multi-billion dollar industry that grew from basic contact management (DOS-based ACT!, 25 years ago) to complex systems that provide a 360 degree view of the customer (SAP and Oracle), to evolutionary social CRM platforms like Nimble. There are numerous deployment options, from on-premises, to SaaS and cloud-based solutions, to custom solutions. Software-as-a-Service SaaS (software-as-a-service) democratizes technology for small to […]