melssCRM was launched in August last year and has been constantly improved since then. Upon interacting with users, we have found that they have got used to the interface and would like to get additional features that will allow them to do their work even faster. We had earlier done some improvements on usability to reduce the amount of typing and working with few clicks.

As the title of this blog suggests, the key focus is on shortcuts. During our recent update, we have launched two new keyboard shortcuts – F and N.

When the cursor is not on any text box or input field, if you press F on your keyboard, a search box opens up. You can type the search query in the search box; choose the module from the dropdown list on the right side and search/open the particular item.

Similarly, if you press N on your keyboard, a new window pops-up on your screen which helps you create new items.

How do you like these features? Do you have any suggestions on them? We would love to hear it.

One-Click Data Backup

Data is the core entity around which your business evolves. As the size of your organization grows, the data becomes interdependent and complex; thereby the importance of data increases exponentially.

Given the fact that we take multiple backups of your data, store it in geographically different locations, take necessary precautions while upgrading or doing maintenance activities – from a data security perspective there is no need for you to take a backup. However, we believe that as owners of your data you may have needs to keep a backup copy of your data at your own premises; say for offline reference or as part of the data management procedure of your organization.

To facilitate this, in the latest upgrade we have added a new feature that enables you to download a copy of your entire data onto your machine.

Custom Reports

Each business is unique and along with it comes a different metric to measure. We provide more than 50 pre-defined reports. However due to the intrinsic variations in every business, the need to customize a report comes in.

Based on the feedback received from our customers we have implemented Custom Reports. These dynamic reports will help you analyze your business’ metrics better.

For example if you want to generate a list of complaints that have been pending for more than 10 days in the month of January, 2010, you can get it by customizing your own report.

Note: One-click data back up and Custom reports can be used only when the related permissions are enabled.

We do not rely on your individual data backup copy for restoration purposes.

Related Articles:

Can I take a backup of my entire data?

How do I Customize my own report?

The term Ready-made dates back to 15th century. When the concept was first launched, probably people would have been quite apprehensive about it. Later when they realized the amount of time and money it can save, ready-made became the way of life.

Specific needs and requirements keep evolving day-by-day and as every concept matures over time, every now and then people want some level of tailoring to the ready-made products so that it fits their requirements seamlessly.

When melssCRM was first launched it was a ready-made product with some level of customizability. Over these months we have received some feedback/feature requests from our customers and upon analyzing them, we decided that the best way to address these requests is by allowing them to tailor their requirements into melssCRM.

We have launched a new feature – Custom Fields. Custom Fields allow you to add new fields into the CRM. You can also decide whether they should be mandatory fields or not.

Primarily we allow four types of fields:

1. Text

2. Date

3. Number

4. List

For instance – our customers wanted to capture the costs associated with each activity; mainly the travel costs, so that they can calculate the total cost of support calls including the travel allowances.

By including costs associated with travel, they can better analyze three things:

1. The total cost of each support call.

2. Whether the customer is a profitable one or not (by summing up the total support cost against each customer and comparing it with total amount received from the customer minus the base cost).

3. Predict the cost of each support call (average of the support call cost).

This example would specifically apply to the support/service-oriented industry. However, if this example or a similar case applies to a different industry, we would like to hear from you.

If you want a step-by-step procedure on how to add custom fields into melssCRM, please click on the related links.

Related Links:

How do I add Custom Fields?

A CRM is an application with which you work day-in-day-out. Over a period of time you get so accustomed to it that you start feeling – “Is there a faster way to do this?”

Yes. Now there is.

We have analyzed the routine patterns in which customers use melssCRM through regular one-on-one sessions and based on the valuable feedback, we have now implemented a new feature – Next Steps, to boost the speed with which you do your routine job.

Next Steps

Next Steps is a simple suggestion tool that will be displayed on top of the screen every time you save a record (Accounts, Contacts, Opportunities, etc).

When you click on Next Steps, it gives you list of steps that you can do next.

A bonus improvement to this feature is that if you simply wish to view the saved item, you can directly click on the item name – which is now a link. On clicking the name, you will be taken to the view page of that item.

Marketing and Sales are two sides of the same coin. Many a times it’s hard to understand fine line between them. In a nutshell, it can be put as:

“You do marketing to Sell more and you sell more through Marketing”

Though in theory this looks so closely knit, it is not the case how Marketing and Sales departments function in an organization. They are generally considered two different entities and lack a distinct communication channel. As a result, they function independently rather than being inter-dependant. This uncoordinated effort creates a situation where “Leads” (prospective customers) are stuck in the pipeline instead of being converted into customers.

If the front-end customer facing departments (Sales & Marketing) of an organization act in an uncoordinated manner, it complicates the way in which the Relationship with the Customers is handled and leads to inconsistency of the brand.

Implementing a well-defined Customer Relationship Management (CRM) strategy along with a CRM Solution will help the organization reduce the gap between Sales and Marketing functions.

Understand the Marketing Process and align it with the CRM Solution

From the beginning i.e. generation of the Lead to conversion of a Lead into an Account (Customer), capture every possible detail like Lead Source, Region, Industry, Campaign, etc so that whenever you deal with the Lead, you can pitch in such a way it makes sense to them. In other words, identify the key customer touch points.

Define the Sales Life Cycle and integrate it with the CRM

Sales can be the ripple effect of Marketing efforts or could be a need based direct sale, either ways when the Opportunity knocks, the sales process begins. It can involve various processes right from registering the Opportunity through winning the order. All these processes need to be mapped with the CRM solution to optimize your sales process.

Once the Marketing and Sales processes are aligned to the CRM solution, the gap between these two processes is minimized. However, the effectiveness will depend on the appropriateness and the amount of information that is fed into the CRM solution.

“You don’t close a sale, you open a relationship if you want to build a long-term, successful enterprise.”

– Patricia  Fripp

Compliment the marketing efforts with better tracking

Define the channels through which you are going to pursue the marketing efforts. Flag the leads with appropriate lead sources (marketing channels) to get an insight on which form of advertising really works for you. Encourage the sales/marketing team to ask questions on how the leads got to know about your organization or the offer you are currently promoting. Feed all data into the CRM Solution.

Analyze the Trends

Analyzing the information and deriving patterns out it will really help you understand the scheme of things. You can track information such as the number of activities (like phone calls, meetings, etc), number of quotations, average time span to clinch a deal (or open a relationship according to Patricia Fripp). These parameters help you find out traits that lead to a successful sale or proved as hindrances while dealing with customers; provided, the sales/marketing team feed the interaction details within the CRM solution. Feeding the interaction details becomes even more imperative when you conduct a campaign, else you risk loosing the leads generated out of the campaigns.

Be creative and definite on the status updates

Instead of using only few standard status updates like Lost Lead or Junk Lead, you can use status like:

• Attempted to Contact
• Contact in Future
• Contacted
• Not Contacted
• Pre Qualified

These statuses should be supported by additional interaction details in the form of notes/description, so that when you further evaluate the leads, you can identify the real reasons behind delay in conversion of the Leads. Based on that you can create new statuses like:

• Cost Factor
• Evaluating different products
• Lacks domain knowledge – Skeptical
• Waiting on Boss

Counting on the appropriateness of these updates, the marketing department would be able to position the product/service better and address these concerns with different approach.

Market better based on available information

For instance, the leads that are flagged as Cost Factor will be motivated by an attractive discount, whereas leads that are flagged Lacks domain knowledge – Skeptical will be interested in attending a conference/seminar to gain insight about the industry. Likewise leads that are flagged Evaluating different products might respond well to effective follow-up or a festive offer so that he cashes in on the best deal.

“I have never worked a day in my life without selling. If I believe in something, I sell it, and I sell it hard.”

– Estée Lauder

Sell it and Re-Sell it hard

It is a proven fact that it costs approximately four times more to get a new customer than to serve an existing customer. So it is highly important that you do not forget your existing customers and try to tap opportunities that exist in that segment.

You may wonder how “Selling and Selling it again” is related to reducing the gap between Marketing and Sales”?

When you Re-Sell the products/services to your existing customers they will provide valuable feedback about the drawbacks with your products or services / support given to them after sales. This will be meaningful feedback that can be fed into the CRM Solution and you can work on improving them continually.

Better products/services means it is easy to market and sell, thereby a sort of intangible harmony will exist between the two departments and gaps will be reduced.

Related Links:

http://www.valerierice.com/news/22.04.09.pdf

http://www.columbiabusinesstimes.com/5388/2009/08/07/smart-thinking-advertising-selling-two-sides-of-the-same-coin/

When you enter the Billing address of an organization, you know that the Shipping address is also the same. So why type the same address twice?

Use Copy Address to copy the Billing address to Shipping address and vice versa.

This feature is available in the Accounts and Contacts modules.

In one of the previous posts – Set Target and Analyze Performance, we discussed on how you can set target and analyze performance on an organizational level. Now we have improved this feature to identify the performance on an individual level. The managers/management of the organization can now easily identify the performance levels of each employee. This is particularly useful in scenarios where you analyze the performance of teams to forecast growth in near or long term.

Note the name in the dropdown and the difference in the pattern of charts. This differentiates the performance of two different people. For privacy and security reasons, you can only view yours and sub-ordinates’ performance.

Me

My Sub-Ordinate – Akshara Kashyap

Related Links:

How can  I add a widget to Dashboard?

How can I set Sales Target?

Password Policy

Online Security – the biggest concern for any enterprise. Critical information of the customer and organization is stored online and they need to be well protected. Brute force password cracking is one of the oldest methods to hack a password. Moreover hackers are finding new ways everyday to break the toughest of security measures.

Theoretically an ideal solution would be to educate your employees about the threats of password cracking, believe that everyone uses a safe password and they renew it periodically. However enterprises cannot run on beliefs, they need to be sure about their online security.

melssCRM now introduces a feature – Password Policy to address this issue. It allows you to:

1.    Enforce Password Policy
2.    Maintain Complexity of Passwords
3.    Password Expiry Period
4.    Maximum Invalid Log-ins
5.    Lockout Period

To know more about melssCRM Password Policy, read on:

What is Password Policy?
How do I set Password Policy?

Suggested Reading on Online Password Security:

Non-Technical

http://security.fnal.gov/UserGuide/password.htm
http://www.psynch.com/docs/password-management-best-practices.html

Technical

http://code.google.com/p/browsersec/wiki/Main
http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/
http://www.info-svc.com/news/2008/12-12/

Reminders

One of the key benefits of a CRM is – it automates your business processes. This enables the cyclic business process to run smoothly.

Does that mean the benefits should be limited to the business alone or could it be extended to the humans who use the CRM Solution?

We think humans are the most important part of the CRM cycle and every benefit for the business should be translated as a benefit to the humans as well. In short, make melssCRM user-friendly.

Forgetfulness is human nature and to ensure you remember it, is your duty.

Reminders are an integral part of our routine life. If you want to make a call or catch up with someone, you set a reminder. On receiving the reminder, you are most likely to complete the task that you set a reminder for.

Now we have rolled out a feature to set Reminders on Leads, Accounts, Contacts, Opportunities, Activities and Cases. Prior to this, there was a provision to set Reminders on Activities alone, it has been improved and implemented universally across different tabs. You can set multiple reminders on a single item as well. Reminders can be set either while creating a new item or after it has been created.

Adding a Reminder for an existing item

Adding a Reminder while adding a New Item

For detailed explanation on How to add Reminders, visit the following help sections:
Leads, Accounts, Contacts, Opportunities, Activities, Cases.

“Consumers understand that they have a choice, but they have no idea how to decide.”

– Sergio Zyman

In a fiercely competitive world, businesses need to continuously improve their Customer Experience to gain their loyalty and retain customers. To stay competitive, it becomes imperative for you to invest in a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Solution. Before you invest, you need to be aware of certain factors that will determine your CRM success.

#CRM needs vary from business-to-business. Unless you thoroughly evaluate the functionality of a CRM it will be difficult to determine if that CRM Solution is a perfect fit for your business needs.

+Precisely for this reason, going for a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model is the best option. Most SaaS solutions work on a pay-as-you-use basis. Which means that you are not bound by contracts or long-term licenses. Adding a feather to this model is the free trial editions or free users or both. You don’t have to pay to evaluate a CRM.

#Alignment with standard industry processes, that can be configured to your business requirements.

+On demand CRM offers industry-accepted processes by default, clubbed with best practices; that can be integrated into your business processes with effortless ease. This enables you to improve the way your business functions.

#Enterprise Class Support – There should be more than one channel to communicate with the CRM provider.

+In general you should be entitled to Online Help, Email Support and Web Chat. Worst case you should be directly able to contact for some human assistance.

#Businesses keep evolving day-by-day. What you did not require when you buy the CRM will become a necessity somewhere down the line. In such scenarios, scalability of the CRM Solution is most important.

+The biggest advantage of SaaS model is that it is Flexible, Agile and Scalable. As your business needs evolves, an On Demand CRM Solution is flexible enough to swiftly provide you with features, which you need that are pre-built or agile enough to build features based on your request. There are options to upgrade from one edition to another that takes care of the scalability.

#When your business grows, you deal with large volumes of data; and the data exchange also takes place rapidly. Large volumes of data means increased infrastructure requirements and increased data exchange equals increased network traffic. Infrastructure can also be associated with the hardware upgrades.

+On demand CRM Solution is hosted on the Cloud (internet) and is designed to handle large volumes of data and traffic. There is no hardware requirement on your part as such, except for fully functional computer with an active Internet connection.

#No matter what, your business must go on. Your customers should not be affected. If there is an unforeseen event or a natural calamity that cannot be controlled by humans, there should a mechanism to prevent data loss and the smooth functioning of the CRM Solution.

+Typically, your data is backed up at least once a day and is stored in geographically different locations. This eliminates the risk from natural calamities or events that are specific to a geographic location. Also the servers have a back up in more than location to avoid any loss of continuity in business.

#The stability of the CRM Solution is critical for your business. If the CRM system goes down, your business comes to a halt. This will apply for most businesses. In that case, how fast the CRM is up and running again will count. Usually, this occurs due to poor maintenance.

+To tackle this problem, CRM Solution goes on regular maintenance. This regular maintenance is planned well in advance and is intimated to the customer before hand. This allows the customer to plan accordingly and function. By and large this maintenance is performed during non-business hours or on holidays.

#The difference between manually regulating your business and using a CRM is that it automates your business processes. Reports can be generated almost effortlessly and it gives your business tangible benefits.

+CRM Solution is a tool to automate your business processes. It gives you various types of reports that can be analyzed to gain insight into your business and leverage your business practices. These reports give key performance metrics of your business and individuals.

“I never get the accountants in before I start up a business. It’s done on gut feeling, especially if I can see that they are taking the mickey out of the consumer.”

– Richard Branson

#When you regulate your business manually, you are dependent on the individual’s capacity to judge and analyze prospects, opportunities, etc. You tend to take decisions based on gut feeling. In the absence of an efficient individual you are left nowhere in this competitive world.

+A CRM Solution enables you to take decisions based on the available data and the past trends. Decision will be based on logic and not gut feeling. Your business is also not dependent on an efficient individual. Also the close integration of the CRM system with your business processes keeps you informed and helps you make rational commitments while dealing with customers.

#Return on Investment (ROI) of CRM Solution needs to be analyzed carefully before investing. It can vary from business-to-business and industry-to-industry. No two businesses are the same; hence comparison should be avoided. Instead independent ROI estimates can give you a better perspective

+Solutions that work on a SaaS model are generally on a pay-as-you-use basis. The cost of buying a hosted CRM can be easily calculated before hand and sensible decisions can be made. Moreover there is no upfront investment and therefore it is risk free.  The time taken for deployment is near zero, except for initial configuration to suit your business needs. The cost associated with deployment time is also reduced, thereby giving quick returns.

“Faced with the choice between changing one’s mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everybody gets busy on the proof.”

– John Kenneth Galbraith

#Usability is a key factor, which will influence the acceptance of CRM. The more usable the system is, the more readily the employees in your company accept it.

+CRM Solution gives special attention to design, usability and the overall aesthetics of the system as it is designed to serve a wide range of customers across industries.

There is one factor that is independent of evaluating a CRM – Top Management’s Commitment. It determines the success of any CRM implementation regardless of the CRM Solution.

On a final note, a CRM Solution needs to be carefully evaluated to see if it is in cognizance with your business needs. Once you found the right matrix of functionality, reliability and usability; it’s time you go CRM!

If you think there are other factors to consider before buying CRM, do share it with us.

Import – The Smart way to upload data

Interoperability between different applications is one of the keys to user friendliness and usefulness of the system. For a system to be interoperable between different applications, it should allow Data migration. Data migration has its inherent problems like misspelled names or entries, redundant data and so on; thereby leading to inconsistent data.

When entering large amounts of data, multiple entries and other human errors are bound to happen. Controlling them seems possible, but practically it may be difficult.

In such a scenario, what should you do? Should you manually check each entry after it is uploaded? Should you leave it the way it is?

While the first option does not seem possible if there is huge amount of data, the second option is not what you are looking at.

This situation can be easily tackled by using the bulk import option.

Leads, Contacts, Accounts, Products, Cases – All these have an Import option on the right side of the screen.

For step-by-step guide on how to import your data, click here.

Some value additions to the import process

We know the problems that redundant data can create. In order to avoid this, melssCRM automatically checks for redundant entries within the system and displays entries that are redundant while you upload the import file..

Also it checks for redundant entries within the CSV file to avoid duplication of data.

Note: Only if you have permission to import data, you will be able to see Import links. For further information contact your Administrator.

Custom Field Selection in Reports

Generating reports is quite a simple task. Specify the parameters and the system generates reports for you.

Sometimes you will require reports for different purposes, which need information that is not available in the standard report format. You know that the data field you want in the report is available in the CRM but you are unable to generate it because there is no such parameter to get the data onto the reports.

melssCRM has now introduced Custom Field Selection in reports. All you have to do is select the data fields in the report and generate it.

For step-by-step guide on how to customize your report view, click here.

melssCRM Team continuously works to improve the usefulness and the usability of melssCRM. We hope that this feature will be of great use to you. If you feel there can be improvements made to the existing system or you want a new feature, you are always welcome to give suggestions in the comments section.