An Online CRM is a one which can be accessed from anywhere and is primarily a multi-user system.

As the number of users in an organization grow, there are high chances many of them are working from different geographical locations; in different branches.

Adding Life To CRM

When you log into the CRM everyday and you see the same screens again-and-again, you get used to it. You pretty much know where the buttons are and the tabs that are enabled.

That’s why we decided to add some life to the CRM with profile pictures. Now you can add pictures into the profile page and have more fun while at work.

Avoid Confusion

When people are working from different geographical locations, there are chances that you might not have met them face-to-face. There is also a possibility of two or more people having the same name with the same spellings.

In these scenarios, if you assign a record to Person A from Chennai, instead of Person A from Delhi, it can cause confusion.

Hence to avoid confusion, now you have the option of verifying the person’s visual identity along with their designation; email address; and other details to confirm the same.

From now add your profile pictures into melssCRM and avoid confusion.

Check out our previous blog on Manage Activities on Google Calendar, Apple iCal, Microsoft Outlook and more.

If you would like to keep yourself informed on the latest features and updates, you can subscribe to melssCRM blog through email or Get Social With melssCRM Team.

Integration With Google Chrome

In one our previous posts, melssCRM and Google Chrome: 2011 – It’s Integration Time we blogged about how you can use our free Google Chrome melssCRM Quick Lead extension to capture lead information from websites.

Now we have something new in store for you.

iCalendar For You

When you are one the move, you want to plan your work and organize accordingly, what better way to organize than to use a Calendar?

With melssCRM Webcal now you can manage your activities by integrating with other applications that support iCalendar format. Some of the applications that support iCalendar format are Google Calendar, Apple iCal, Microsoft Outlook, Thunderbird (Lighting Extension), Evolution and more.

To enable Webcal, go to extensions through the profile link. Click on Enable Webcal – Yes.

You will get a unique link that shall give you access to melssCRM activities on your iCalendar enabled application.

Integration With Google Calendar

For example, if you are a Google Calendar user and would like to manage your activities from it, you can add a new calendar to your Google account.

Once you click on add calendar, your melssCRM Activities are imported into your Google Calendar.

You can now enjoy working with a synchronized Google Calendar while maintaining a track of your activities in CRM.

Check out our previous blog on Clean Data Ensures Better CRM.

If you would like to keep yourself informed on the latest features and updates, you can subscribe to melssCRM blog through email or Get Social With melssCRM Team.

Data Quality Matters

Data is the core-stone of a CRM solution and you need to make sure that the data it contains is clean.

Since information entry into the CRM is done by various people in the organization, it is a herculean task to maintain a standard and improve the data quality.

Image Source: Techwyse.com

When communicating with customers – only when you have clean data in the CRM, you will be able to interact with them efficiently.

Efforts To Improve Data Quality In The Past

We identified that many of our customers faced an issue with maintaining data quality and have duplicate records of the same Account or Lead in the past.

To tackle this, we implemented intelligent suggestions while creating accounts and leads as well in the search.

Merge Duplicate Accounts

Duplication of records is primarily done through spelling checks. However in a real-world scenario – despite having entered the spellings correctly there can be chances of duplication of records.

One such example is the way a company name is entered in the CRM. Lets say, the name of a company is ABKT Acoustics.

Now,

ABKT Acoustics Pvt. Ltd. and ABKT Acoustics Private Limited both represent the same company, but multiple accounts have been created in the CRM.

You can use the Merge Accounts feature to merge duplicate record into the original record that you want to maintain in the CRM.

When you click on the merge account tool from the original account’s view page, it takes you to a page where – data of both original account and duplicate account are displayed side-by-side.

Once you choose the correct information between the two accounts, you can click on Merge button at the bottom and melssCRM creates a unique clean record of the data.

We believe that this simple feature will help you eliminate duplicate records from accounts and make your CRM data clean.

Check out our previous blog on Speed Matters: CRM @ 0.6 Seconds.

If you would like to keep yourself informed on the latest features and updates, you can subscribe to melssCRM blog through email or Get Social With melssCRM Team.

Note:

Merge Accounts feature is available in Professional Edition and onwards.

Behind The Scene Updates

From the last few months, we have been working very hard on improving the speed of our CRM application. We have done a number of internal updates to make melssCRM as fast as possible. To measure the speed, we use Google Webmaster Tools. This tool lets us know that on an average how long does our site take to load. It also gives information on other search engine optimization aspects.

Less Than 1 Second Benchmark

Internally our goal is to achieve a speed of 1.0 second or less. We did numerous tweaks to the code, database queries, caching techniques, front-end HTML code, Java Script, CSS and more, to bring down time required for each page load.

During a recent update of statistics by Google Webmaster Tools, the average time taken by our site has changed from 1.2 seconds to 0.6 seconds. This is faster than 96% of the sites in the world according to Google Websmaster Tools.

We understand that for a web based CRM like ours, speed matters. Our goal is to make the site even more faster and user-friendly. With melssCRM enhanced for speed, hope you get speedy with your CRM operations too.

Check out our previous blog on melssCRM and Google Chrome: 2011 – It’s Integration Time.

If you would like to keep yourself informed on the latest features and updates, you can subscribe to melssCRM blog through email or Get Social With melssCRM Team.

Happy New Year 2011

“The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul. “ – G. K. Chesterton

Quote Source: NewYearFestival.com

melssCRM Team wishes you all a very Happy, Prosperous and a successful New Year 2011.

Google Chrome Integration: melssCRM Quick Lead

One of the toughest activity while doing business development is to generate new leads. Adding to the task of generating them is the routine data entry stuff that needs to be done.

When you are working under tight deadlines and targets, a tool such as melssCRM Google Chrome extension can simplify your data entry work.

How?

In two simple steps you can get started with melssCRM Quick Lead extension.

1. Install the melssCRM Quick Lead extension.

2. Login into your melssCRM account and start using it.

Hope you find this extension useful and speed-up the Lead generation process.

We are working on more exciting new features this season. Watch out!

Check out our previous blog on Social Integration With CRM – Track Tweets In melssCRM.

If you would like to keep yourself informed on the latest features and updates, you can subscribe to melssCRM blog through email or Get Social With melssCRM Team.