What is the Difference Between CRM & Contact Management Software?

We currently live in age where short attention spans and busy schedule lead us to make poor assumptions and differentiations about certain technical terms. A good example is the use of “CRM” (Customer Relationship Management) to describe all Contact Management Systems out there on the market today. In fact, there is a big difference between a CRM Software and a Contact Management system. Many software vendors use these two terms interchangeably and 85% of business owners in Canada and USA aren’t able to tell the difference.

This post explains the differences between Contact Management and CRM systems in hope that it will help you make the right purchasing decision for your business.

What is CRM Software?

CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management and can be used to describe the way organizations handle their customer interactions. One example of a common CRM strategy is the rewards card program offered by Starbucks, the popular coffee chain in North America and Europe. The store gives its customers a free card that gives them access to points and discounts when they swipe the card during checkout. Many CRM software and/or service packages exist to help companies manage customer relationship processes. Computers have greatly enhanced the customer relationship management processes because the key to a good CRM is uncovering and storing information about customers. The more a company knows about its customers, the better it can manage those relationships.

What is Contact Management System?

A contact manager is a software system that enables its users to store and find contact information, such as names, addresses, birth dates, and telephone numbers. Sophisticated contact managers such as InfoFlo provide calendar sharing features and allow several people in a company to access the same database. Essentially, Contact Manager Systems are focused on building relationships with individuals, such as your contacts, while CRM systems are typically focused on selling to or servicing a company.

About Carmel Vison

Carmel Vision, a Toronto based CRM software development company, is focused on delivering a powerful management infrastructure that is designed to collect, search, and archive all content, contact and communication activities that take place in a typical office. We understand and listen to all of our customers’ needs and strive to give excellent quality at affordable prices.

Our flagship product, InfoFlo – is a central management system specifically designed to combat one of the biggest technical challenges facing any professional organization, how to efficiently organize, archive, filter and search the vital information that bombards our desktops on a daily basis. Our infrastructure allows all office activities to coexist together under one umbrella, making all critical information readily available at your fingertips.

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How To Use Hashtags and Twitter For Prospecting

Do you find it hard to find quality prospects on Twitter? Do you want a better way to engage you followers in order to increase your Twitter ROI? Twitter is an ideal social media platform that gives you access to a targeted audience and relevant conversations but first you have to cut through the line. Collectively, its home to more than 500 million active users and 1.6 billion search terms every day. That’s a lot of people and some of them simply have to be potential buyers.

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Why use Hashtags as a Prospecting Tool

Twitter is a noisy platform that relies on real-time news and information for growth and engagement. As a business owner who wants to stay afloat in an ultra-competitive industry, you know how important it is to have conversations with the right people. But finding the right people and starting those meaningful conversations on Twitter is challenging when there are millions of tweets being sent every hour.

The principle of hashtags is to create a clickable link to a threaded conversation around a certain topic. They also are used when searching social networks, so you can track such things as conferences and events. By using Twitter wisely, you can take part in the most relevant conversations as they happen, spot opportunities before your competitors do, build relationships, deepen customer trust and make a name for yourself.

Finding Relevant Hashtags

There are as many hashtags as there as tweets but the difference is that you can use hashtags to filter out the tweets that aren’t relevant to you. How do you know which hashtags to use and follow? Does your research using quality Twitter marketing tools, such as HashAtIt.com and Hashtagify.me .

Spend some time talking to experts who know your customers best; that is customer service reps, sales representatives and account managers who have Twitter accounts and are actively using it to find prospect. Make a list of the most commonly asked questions or challenges voiced by your customers and other individuals interested in your services/products. If you notice that your current customers and prospects have the same set of questions or challenges, create an FAQ page on your website and share it on Twitter. It is likely those issues are common throughout your industry. It is a safe bet there are more than a few Twitter conversations around those issues.

With your list of pain points typed up and pinned to your office wall, you are ready to find relevant hashtags. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. There are hundreds of hashtags already in place that you can watch and use. To discover relevant hashtags, search for keywords related to the conversations, questions and issues you want to find. The easiest way to do that is by using the search function at the top of your Twitter homepage.

Carmel Vision, a Toronto based CRM software development company, is focused on delivering a powerful management infrastructure that is designed to collect, search, and archive all content, contact and communication activities that take place in a typical office. Customers are drawn to our InfoFlo software because they are tired of spending effort trying to “figure out” the complexities of traditional Customer Relationship Management software products. Traditionally customers are stuck deciding between an overpriced, feature rich CRM or a cost conscious CRM with very limited functionality. With InfoFlo contact management system you can have the best of both worlds and get a feature rich CRM at price point that is fair and also includes free upgrades for life.

Share this article on Twitter by hashtagging #CRMSoftware. Don’t forget to also follow us on Twitter.

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The Power of Bluetooth 4.0

Wireless technologies have been revolutionizing our domestic life since the invention of home radios. Since then every new kind of wireless technology and every new application has brought us more innovative changes to the home than their predecessor.

Television used to receive its signal wirelessly, which enabled it to be adopted in the 1950s at a speedy rate. As the use of cable TV became widespread, transforming a wireless signal into a non-wireless one, wireless remote controls added to the comfort and luxury.

Cordless phones also added convenience to the way we communicated over the phone. Wireless garage door openers and other special-purpose wireless devices enhanced our living standards subtly. You probably have a Wi-Fi network in your home and around the office, which you use to connect computers, laptops, smartphones and possibly your Smart TV to the Internet.

In addition, you probably heard of the wireless tool – Bluetooth. If you use a wireless headset to speak on the phone when driving, or a wireless keyboard or mouse with your laptop, you’re most likely using Bluetooth.

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Now a brand new technology, nothing like what we’ve seen before, is changing the way we live, the way we work, and the we interact with each other. It’s the Bluetooth 4.0. It is also not something that you can buy in-store.

How will Bluetooth 4.0 be different from its predecessors? The real benefit of Bluetooth 4.0 is energy efficiency. Designed primarily for devices that collect information frequently, either as much as five times a second or just once every hour, the standard is optimized for long battery life. In fact, users may see longevity increase by 5 to 10 times depending on the purpose of your usage. Experts argue that traditional wireless mouse and keyboard using the new technology could last between five and seven years before needing a change in battery–likely outlasting the life of the product itself.

With performance like this,  Bluetooth 4.0 will be making a big impact in the personal fitness and health market. Already there are bushels of gadgets designed to track users’ daily activity, whether it is on a treadmill, hike, or in the office. The Fitbit Wireless Trainer, Nike’s new Fuelband , Motorola MOTACTV to name a few.

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6 Tip to Reduce Your Business’ Carbon Footprint

It’s now more important than ever before to be conscious of our impact on the environment. Businesses all across the world are taking the necessary steps to reduce their carbon footprint and make a conscious effort to preserve our scarce resources. Have you taken steps to make the shift over to a more environmentally-friendly office? If not, here are a few tips to get you started.

 

carbon footprint

 

Encourage online payments

It may not seem like a big deal, but the paper used to send out cheques, envelopes and (late) payment notices adds up at the end of the day, especially when you are business with 100+ employees and 1000+ customers . You can make a small but highly impactful difference by making it easy for your customers to make payments online through a secure online portal and for your employees to receive direct deposits instead of printed cheques.

 

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!

It’s time for us to put our education to good use. Schools all across the world are encouraging eNewsletters, litterless lunches, the reuse of paper, proper recycling etiquettes, and the like. So why shouldn’t this trend continue into the workplace? Recycling produces less landfill and lowers the cost of waste disposal.

Here’s a quest for you and your employees: place a used (clean it) coffee cup in the lunch room beside the microwave or vending machine. Every time someone drinks a pop have them take the tab off before chugging it into the recycling bin. Those tabs can be used to create a wheelchair for someone that needs it.

 

Create electronic versions of important documents

Need to invoice customers or send out reports? Why not create electronic versions and email them or make them accessible via the web, rather than printing and mailing them? You’ll conserve paper as well as economize on things like ink and postage. As well, your customers will appreciate the convenience, in case they lose the important document. Check out this document management software tool for more information.

 

Communicate via email

If you’re still using papermail for all client and employee correspondences then its time to upgrade to emails, messengers (i.e. Skype) and CRM software systems with reliable after sales support. That will cut down your stationery consumption by more than 40%. If you’re still hung up with CRT monitors, replacing them with LCD and LED screens will bring in some major savings on your energy bills. Traveling isn’t always needed for attending meetings, so economize by communicating through email, Skype, and GoTo meetings.

 

Take a tablet or netbook to meetings

Rather than using notepads for taking notes during meetings, take notes on your tablet or laptop. When you need to access it, you can do so at the click of a button, without having to flip through the papers.

 

Unplug/Turn Off Office Equipment When Not in Use

Turn off and/or unplug office equipment, lights and electronic devices when they are not being used by employees. As well, encourage all employees and customers to take the stairs instead of the elevator. Make sure that the last one out of the office turns off the lights-just like they do at home.

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How To Effectively Correspond Through Emails

Last week, we attended a workshop on developing effective communication skills in the workplace. The purpose of this workshop was to teach forward thinking companies to use emails to get more of what they want and to raise awareness about common errors businesses make in this commonplace communication form. Here is a brief summary of what our Contact Management Software Specialists learned from attending this very informative professional development seminar.

 

email marketing

Common Pitfalls:

The first common mistake highlighted in the workshop was the sending of emails only when something is REALLY needed. The purpose of an email is to build relationships before you need something – urgently. That means not waiting until the last minute-procrastination is not a very productive way of doing business. It’s recommended to send multiple emails with shorter lengths than to send one bulky email that is over one page long to read when printed.

 

The first common pitiful leads us right into the second one – forgetting that there’s a human reading the email on the other end. All emails should have the proper introductions. Whether it is hello, good morning, how are you, you are using valuable warm-ups cues to soften the serious nature of the email.

 

Improving Business Practices:

There were two valuable lessons we learned from this workshop and we thought we would share them with our readers and customers.

1)      Scheduling Emails in Advance – Arranging for emails to be sent in 24 or 48 hours gives you (and the clients) time to breathe between non-urgent tasks. It also sets the pace for future communication whereby your client no longer expects you to reply right away. The more structure and parameters you give to the form of your messages, the easier it is for the clients to know what to expect from your business relationships.

2)      Keep Emails Short and Productive – Every business should commit to making every email message 5 sentences or less whenever it is possible to do. Setting the limit to the amount of words you write ensures you stick to your aims/goals. This brings us to the first pitfall we identified in this article – sending emails only when it is urgent. It is recommended to send more emails throughout the day, rather than one big one. Remember, the person who’s reading the email is human too and has other priorities.

 

Use these suggestions as the starting point to creating e-mail etiquettes that will help you and your team stay productive, proactive, and professional.

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How to Beat the Competition with Price

When you are offering a quality solution to a company’s office management problem and it comes with a reasonable price, you have an offering that most software companies can’t compete with.

Enterprise management software comes with a high price tag and is usually very expensive to implement, especially when you have to buy additional modules to run the office the way you want and every module is costly.  The trend towards ERP systems that operate every aspect of your business is what I see most companies lean toward as a complete office management solution.  The fact is that if you want to spend thousands of dollars implementing and learning how to operate the system that you most likely won’t use in its entirety, then you have to make a long-term decision about what works best for every department in your company and ensure that you’re ready to experience long-term budget constraints.

competitor

Every department in your company requires function-driven software like accounting, inventory, purchasing, human resources, and sales systems that integrate with each other seamlessly and offer reporting and tracking of the companies information.  Accuracy and time-sensitivity in real-time business operations is what drives managers to consider high-end business systems to drive their business operation.

Although many managers that I talk to on a daily basis choose the path that leads to the purchase and implementation of a company-wide software system that runs their entire business, there are just as many managers that are scratching their heads and trying to figure out the best way to save money now that they have spent their entire budget on monthly/yearly subscription fees and long-term contracts along with implementation fees, service contracts and training costs.

What you have in the end is a very expensive system that works great to fill the basic need of accounting and capturing the most pertinent information, which is a customers contact, billing and purchase history information.  Everyone just uses the system for what they need it for.  Most employees use other software programs to help them manage their workload because the module that is intended for their specific department is designed as a work-flow solution that processes information as a whole instead of an easy-to-use solution that aids in the day-to-day operability of each individual employee.  Individual software modules like InfoFlo CRM software is intended to make an employee’s job easier and gives them more time to spend performing their actual job function rather then getting stuck in the workflow system and producing less results.

Sales people are the companies bread-and-butter.  We are the ones that initiate and build relationships with buyers that want to make the best purchasing decisions for their company.

The last thing a sales person wants to do is become stuck in a system that is intended to work well for every other department, except for sales.

When I open my CRM, I want to access my emails and dashboard so I can see what tasks I have to accomplish today.  I know that all the information that I need to perform my job is at my fingertips because I am the one that put it there.

The business managers that I talk to that have implemented company-wide systems often tell me they don’t have a CRM solution for their sales people.  Sure, they will have all of the customers contact information that is captured with their billing and customer purchase history, but what about the one simple tool that sales people need to build and manage their pipeline.

Sale people need to generate leads, convert prospects to customers and keep ongoing relationships with them.  Its a simple process that is over complicated with larger systems that focus on other areas of the business.  As a sales person, in the past I just used the software that I was given by my employer and created my own system of tracking and following up using additional software because it was the only way to manage my own personal workload.  This took my selling time away from me and added an additional level of stress that could easily have been alleviated had the company managers made the choice to buy specific software for my needs.

Everyone is trying to save money.  That is the biggest trend that I have encountered in my experience in dealing with managers and selling them relationship management solutions.  There is nothing that compares to an affordable and easy-to-use software product that does exactly what it is intended for.  InfoFlo is designed for the sales person or small business owner, not every other department in the company.  That is why it is an affordale solution for managers when they want their sales people to focus on their client relationships and make money for the company.  Sales people need CRM software so they can better manage their time and concentrate on relationship building, and managing their sales cycle.  We all want to reach the last stage of our sales cycle (the close) without having to wait for screens to load and wasting time looking at insignificant information that slows us down.

Why should business owners worry about paying high monthly subscription fees for a product that is intended to track the progress of making money?  InfoFlo is the CRM solution that all business managers need to look at and seriously consider as part of their business management solution because it will pay for itself with the first few sales made by one of your sales people using InfoFlo.  It is that affordale.

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