Small Businesses CRM Software – Stop Looking for a Bargain!

Posted by Commence on January 18, 2012 under CEO Corner | Be the First to Comment

Small business owners are smart operators.  They traditionally have to do a lot with very little, wear multiple hats and position their companies to be competitive in a rapidly changing environment.  Software tools and applications like CRM software can help them to automate the internal processes that can make them a more effective sales and service organization.  Newer cloud based CRM software systems also alleviate the need for purchasing additional computer hardware or software and have become extremely affordable for small businesses. The rapid deployment, ease of use and affordability of these newer programs has stimulated a high degree of growth among the small to mid-size business community.  Despite this the failure rate among SME’s with regard to the implementation and use of CRM software is greater than 70%.

Much of this has to do with a complete lack of knowledge when it comes to selecting a CRM solution.  CRM is not an appliance that you simply plug in the wall and it magically improves sales execution and customer service.  And if you think you can buy CRM software by merely entering your credit card over the internet, you are not thinking clearly. Yet many small business executives see CRM software as a commodity item, causing them to simply select some Freeware or low cost program that delivers nothing but headaches.  These business owners initially think they got a bargain; only to find out later that the time, energy and cost they put into the free product was greater than the initial cost of selecting a quality company with a product that would address their business requirements.  The point here is simple.  There are no bargains when it comes to CRM software. Anything that seems to be too good to be true at just a few dollars a month (or even better Free) is going to cost you dearly in the end.

There are several high quality companies and products designed specifically for small to mid-size businesses that will deliver real value and provide you with expertise that will enable you to improve how you market, sell and provide service to your customers.  One of these companies is Commence Corporation, a company that has been providing customer management software solutions to small and mid-size businesses for more than two decades.  While not free, Commence has experienced sales and support personnel who have assisted hundreds of companies improve their internal business processes resulting in better lead management, accurate sales forecasting and improving customer service.  Commence customers have reported greater than a 25% increase in sales through the use of the program. Would you pay for a product or service that could deliver this kind of value to your company?  Sure you would, but this kind of value isn’t free.

To learn more about Commence CRM software visit Commence.com and view a series of educational videos that illustrate how you can become a more efficient sales and service organization with Commence CRM. 

Image ‘Bargain – Save 1c’ owned by Alpha, on Flickr (cc)

Commence CRM Scores Big with Account Rating System

Posted by Commence on September 23, 2011 under CEO Corner | Read the First Comment

Commence Corporation, a leading provider of on-premise and cloud based CRM software is winning new business by demonstrating that all CRM systems are not alike.   Designed specifically for mid-size companies and small enterprises Commence takes CRM software to a whole new level offering several unique features that have proven to offer exceptional value to Commence customers.

Account Rating

The first of these features is an account rating system that allows you to rate and color code each customer based on the value they provide to your business.  Customers coded in red represent your top rated customers, while yellow and blue coded customers may purchase less products or services, may be more costly to support and less profitable.

Customer Scoring

The rating system is completely customizable and traditionally includes criteria such as: customer size, revenue generated, cost of providing service, profitability and growth potential.   This simple but unique feature is providing exceptional value to Commence customers by enabling management to better understand who their most valuable customers really are.

Account Rating

Organization Chart

Another unique feature that is differentiating Commence from the pack is the products automated Organization Chart that identifies key people within your customer base and new prospects.  This feature helps sales and support personnel to understand the reporting structure of their customers and new prospects.

Company Org Chart

Commence has been providing customer management software to mid size businesses for more than two decades and is no stranger to the CRM software sector.   Its cloud based CRM solution is competing very favorably with industry giants Microsoft CRM and Salesforce.com. For more information about Commence CRM visit the company’s web site at www.commence.com and sign up for a free test drive.

Nine Tips for Dealing with Angry and Difficult Customers

Posted by Commence on August 2, 2011 under Sales Training | Read the First Comment

Strong sales mentoring combined with great CRM software make a powerful combination. We look forward to sharing these insights into the sales process with you each month. Below is a Sales Management article from guest poster Dave Kahle, author and leading sales educator. Follow Dave’s latest Tweets at @davekahle.

By Dave Kahle

No one looks forward to an encounter with an angry or difficult customer.  Most of us can’t help but feel emotionally impacted by an upset customer.  An ugly incident can ruin our entire day.

Not only that, but there is usually some damage that can be done to the company by the angry customer.  Our job security is not enhanced when the company loses business.  Put those two things together, and you can see that dealing effectively with an angry customer becomes a challenge that we must overcome.

Here are some tips to make your next confrontation easier for you, better for your company, and much more satisfying to the customer.

1.    Don’t take it personally.

Unless you were personally involved in the incident that caused the customer’s anger, the customer probably isn’t angry with you.  He’s angry with your company, and he’s angry with the consequences that impact him.  There is no reason that you should take it personally.  You are just the current expression of your company, the most convenient representative.

When you take the customer’s anger personally, it’s so much easier to become defensive and argumentative.  And when that happens, the net effect is to turn a bad situation into something even worse.  When you are tempted to react in kind, emotionally, just tell yourself that this is not about you.

2.   Listen.

That is often enough to turn a customer’s attitude around. It is amazing how powerful an empathetic, active listener can be.  When you sincerely and actively listen, that calms the customer down, it shows him that you are interested, it gives some credence to his/her position, and, it gives you some information and time to think. A magic elixir!

3.   Empathize.

If you were the customer, and this thing had happened to you, how would you feel?  Wouldn’t you also be upset?

Empathizing doesn’t take much effort on your part, and it has a powerful impact on a tense situation.  When you empathize with the customer by letting him know that you understand how he feels, you release much of the tension out of the situation.  Picture a balloon that you have blown up almost to the point of bursting.  There is tremendous tension inside the balloon pushing outward.  But when you open the bottom, and let some of that pressure out, the balloon relaxes.  Same thing when you empathize with the customer.  Picture yourself letting air out of the bottom of that balloon.

4.   Apologize.

This sometimes seems like too little, too late.  Regardless, it’s the minimum acceptable response.  If your customer has been wronged, or thinks that he or she has been wronged, apologizing for your company is the least you can do.  If you are afraid of admitting responsibility, then let the customer know that you are sorry this thing happened to him.  That’s generally enough to not accept any responsibility, and still convey a message of concern.

5.   Don’t blame.

No one cares who is at fault.  No one really cares that so-and-so in inventory control didn’t order enough inventory, or that the picking clerk incorrectly picked the order, or any one of a thousand other possible mistakes that other people may have made.  Blaming someone emphasizes that you are more concerned with yourself than you are with making things right with the customer.  It emphasizes the past (what happened), instead of the future (what you can do to fix this.)

Blame is the first response of a small person.  Don’t show yourself to be in that league by immediately jumping to blame someone.

6.   Ask.

Always ask something of the customer.  By asking, you show your interest in the customer, indicate that you really do want to understand, and give the customer an opportunity to describe their situation.  Ask about the details, ask about the situation, ask what the customer would like to see as a solution.  Don’t worry about asking the wrong thing.  Almost any question in that situation is going to have a positive impact on the customer.  No matter what, ask.

7.   Promise accurately.

The worst thing you can do is make some grandiose or unfounded promise to fix the customer’s problem, and then not follow through on it.  Or make a promise on behalf of your company, and then discover that your company is not able to meet the terms of your promise.

By doing that, you’ve fed the customer’s frustration and added fuel to an already hotly burning fire.  It is far better to not promise anything than it is to jump to a hasty and unfounded promise.

8.   Deliver more.

Here’s an opportunity to turn the customer around.  Deliver more than what you promise.  If you say you’ll have a replacement to him on Friday, try to get it there on Wednesday.  If you say you’ll replace that gallon of paint with a free gallon, throw in an extra brush. A little something above and beyond what you promise is a great way to say that you are sorry for the previous inconvenience, and leave the customer with a good feeling about the encounter with you and your company.

9.   If possible, follow up.

To this day, I remember a hotel calling back the day after I rented a small conference room to ask if everything had been acceptable.  That follow-up call was eighteen years ago, but I still remember the powerful, positive impact it made on me.  Someone cared enough to call after the fact and determine that I had been satisfied.  What a concept!

Your follow up call can have the same effect.

A difficult and angry customer is one of the most intense challenges you’ll face.  Implement these nine tips and watch yourself grow in confidence as you expertly handle these hot situations.

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If you’d like some additional help with this thorny issue, check out a variety of resources at http://www.davekahle.com/difficult_customers.html.  If you are a subscriber to The Sales Resource Center, check out Cluster CL-12: Abusive Customers, Cluster CL-17: Dealing with Difficult Customers, and Pod-15:  How to Skillfully Handle Difficult Customers.

About the Author:

Dave Kahle is one of the world’s leading sales educators. He’s written nine books, presented in 47 states and seven countries, and has helped enrich tens of thousands of sales people and transform hundreds of sales organizations.  Sign up for his free weekly Ezine, and visit his blog.  For a limited time, receive $547 of free bonuses with the purchase of his latest book, How to Sell Anything to Anyone Anytime.

Image Credit: by Molumen source openclipart license Public Domain. Free images from acobox.com

Cloud CRM Vendors – Not For Beginners

Posted by Commence on July 1, 2011 under CEO Corner | 2 Comments to Read

The hype about cloud computing is all around us from television commercials, to businesses to college campuses and for good reason. Cloud computing has shown to provide exceptional value to businesses both large and small enabling them to scale their business and computer resources quickly with minimal upfront investment. In the Customer Relationship Management software (CRM) sector, CRM software providers are including “cloud computing” in their marketing materials and product presentations, but there are some false claims about some of the vendor’s cloud environments and multi-tenant architectures. This is because cloud computing is evolving and there is little consistency with regard to its definition or its meaning among consumers.

Cloud computing is all about providing shared configurable computer resources such as servers, applications, storage and other computer related services. Similar to application software hosting, cloud computing is a service, but with several very important differences. Cloud computing enables a customer to scale their computing requirements upward and downward often without vendor intervention, share virtual resources in a multi-tenant environment, access data anytime and anywhere via a PC, tablet or mobile device and pay only for the computer processing and resources utilized. Unlike a hosting service tied to a specific server or servers, with cloud computing the access to computer resources can in effect be limitless.

Providing application software that performs properly in a cloud computing environment is not for the faint hearted. It starts with the selection of a world class cloud computing service, offered by several companies including RackSpace and Amazon.com as examples. This is coupled with CRM software that has been designed for a multi-tenant architecture and can perform well under high transaction volumes. Many CRM vendors have struggled with delivering reliable and scalable software solutions in a hosted environment and simply do not have the experience to migrate their solutions to the cloud. As a result many customers have experienced poor performance and downtime. The way to avoid this is to select an established proven CRM software provider that has the experience and track record for delivering their customer management software in the cloud.

Companies like Commence Corporation have been delivering software as a service or (SaaS) based solutions for several years. Commence began as a hosting service and has evolved into a true cloud based computing offering that offers the scalability, resource pooling, reliability and performance you would expect from a top rated CRM software provider.

For more information about Commence CRM and the Commence cloud services, call one of our experts at 1-877-266-6362 or visit the company’s web site at www.commence.com.

Image Credit: by Bpgriner at en.wikipedia source Wikimedia Creative Commons

Customer Ranking Now Part of Commence CRM

Posted by Commence on June 29, 2011 under Commence News | Be the First to Comment

Do you know who your most profitable customers are? Which ones require a high level of service or which ones have potential for up-selling or cross selling?  You would if you had Commence CRM.  Commence Corporation a leading provider of cloud based CRM software has released an enhanced version of their popular online CRM software that is taking customer relationship management to a new level.  The enhanced version now offers a built in customer ranking system that quickly identifies the value that each customer provides to your business.  This automated business process ranks and color codes each customer based on a set of pre-defined business criteria. Some examples include customer size, revenue, fulfillment cost, service level requirements, profitability, future growth potential and customer retention. Best of all, the criteria are completely customizable.

Ranking and segmenting customers according to their value to your business can play an important role in defining future service level agreements and marketing activity. You may for example choose to modify your service contracts for customers that consistently require a high level of customer care thereby increasing profitability.  In addition, by segmenting those customers with the highest potential for up-selling or cross selling, you can create specific marketing programs targeted at this customer segment. The color coding feature enables management and each end user to quickly identify the top rated or most profitable customers allowing you to pay special attention to them and provide the type of service that ensures customer retention.

Automated Customer Ranking Process

Account Summary View

Commence Corporation continues to be an innovator in the field of customer management software providing advanced functionality not offered by industry competitors, Microsoft and Salesforce.com.   The company has been providing CRM business solutions to mid-size and small enterprises for more than two decades.  For more information about Commence’s  CRM software solutions, call 1-877-266-6362 or visit the company’s web site at www.commence.com.

Improve Business Performance With Commence CRM Analytics

Posted by Commence on May 2, 2011 under CEO Corner | 2 Comments to Read

CRM software provider Commence Corporation has taken their online CRM solution to the next level by incorporating real time analytics as a component of their CRM offering.  The analytics program is designed to provide senior management with a complete snapshot of business performance so that they can take a proactive approach to improve how they market, sell and provide service to their customers.

Designed for mid-size companies and small enterprises Commence CRM is a top rated CRM solution that is continuing to attract companies looking for a comprehensive easy to use affordable online CRM system.  Commence provides a suite of customer management software that automates the front office business processes that directly impact sales execution and customer service.   One of the areas that differentiate Commence CRM from competitive CRM offerings is the product’s multiple levels of reporting.   In addition to pre-built customer management reports Commence CRM also incorporates a report generator, similar to Crystal reports, that enables customers to create custom reports to address unique reporting requirements.   The addition of the analytics module makes the reporting capabilities of Commence CRM one of the best in the business.

The analytical reporting provides customers with a graphical analysis of key business metrics for lead management, sales pipeline management, marketing campaign management and customer service.  Designed specifically for executive level management the analytics reporting gives management the information they need to make informed business decisions and has shown to significantly impact the lead generation process and close ratios.

The analytics  identify how many leads were generated each month or quarter, what the source of the leads were, how many of the leads turned into sales opportunities, how many of the opportunities turned into new business and what was the value of that new business.

The CRM analytics program also provides real time sales pipeline data illustrating the sales opportunities by month by outcome, the top ten sales opportunities by revenue and by close date, as well as a corporate funnel by sales stage that enables sales management to manage the movement of each sales opportunity from introduction to closure.

Commence CRM also provides real time executive level reporting for customer service and displays information such as all open service tickets by representative, all open service tickets by age and more.  This enables management to ensure that they continue to provide world class service to their customers.

Commence continues to raise the bar in Customer Management software.  The addition of the analytical reporting component is just another differentiator between Commence CRM and alternative CRM solutions.

About Commence Corporation:

Commence is a leading provider of Customer Relationship Management software (CRM) for mid-size and small enterprises.  The company has been providing both desktop and web based CRM software for more than two decades.  Commence CRM is highly regarded for the products robust functionality, customizability and ease of use and is now delivered as a cloud based CRM offering.  To learn more about Commence CRM software, visit the company’s web site at www.commence.com.

Commence CRM a Robust Offering for SME’s

Posted by Commence on April 20, 2011 under Press Release | Read the First Comment

TINTON FALLS, N.J. /WiredPRNews.com/ November 21, 2010 –-  Commence Corporation a leading provider of Customer Relationship Management software for small to mid-size enterprises has evolved into a robust CRM offering that now includes Help Desk and Project Management applications. “CRM is all about capturing, managing and sharing vital customer information with the people and departments that require it to efficiently do their jobs,”  says Larry Caretsky, President of Commence Corporation. “This requires more than simply managing contacts, leads and sales opportunities. Most CRM solutions for SME’s are focused on contact management and sales automation and fall short when it comes to managing customer service or projects. This makes it difficult to become a more efficient sales and service organization if customer service personnel and the vital information they capture are left out of the equation” Caretsky concluded.

Commence offers a suite of comprehensive business applications for contact management, sales and marketing that now include a Customer Service module and a Project Management system. The Help Desk module offers an advanced ticketing system with threading, a feature that provides a service representative with the ability to note the conversation that occurred between themselves and the customer. This is then linked to the account and contact record so that everyone involved with selling or servicing the customer has a complete service record and history of all correspondence including e-mail. The application also includes a Knowledgebase and a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section that has proven to help customers provide best in class service by providing employees with access to information in the Knowledgebase and the ability to e-mail the appropriate response to the customer.

The Project Management application provides the ability to efficiently manage projects, establish tasks and timelines for completion of the project, assign personnel and keep track of billable hours. Time slips are also incorporated within the application. The Project Management functionality is also fully integrated with each account and contact record providing all authorized personnel with the ability to review service history and projects along with sales, and marketing activity.  Commence CRM incorporates functionality traditionally only found in higher level enterprise solutions. This has made Commence the clear choice for small to mid-size companies that require more than basic CRM solutions.

About Commence

Founded in 1988, Commence develops and delivers a diverse suite of award winning CRM products that integrate people, processes and technology. Delivered via the popular software-as-a-service (SaaS) model or implemented as on premise licensed software, Commence CRM software solutions are used by thousand of companies to streamline sales and customer service front-end business processes. As a result, Commence clients increase workforce productivity, generate positive customer interactions, and reduce cost. More information about Commence can be accessed at www.commence.com or at 1-877-COMMENCE.

Don’t Make a CRM Buying Mistake : 7 Points to Consider Before Selecting Your CRM Solution

Posted by Commence on January 20, 2010 under CEO Corner | 8 Comments to Read

Larry Caretsky, Commence CEO, has released the white paper “Don’t Make a CRM Buying Mistake : 7 Points to Consider Before Selecting Your CRM Solution”. Selecting the right CRM software or customer management software for your business can be a daunting exercise. This White Paper will help you differentiate the myriad of product offerings and enable you to make an informed and educated decision.

Here’s an excerpt including the introduction and you can download the full white paper below:

“Customer Relationship Management is one of the fastest growing sectors of the computer software industry.  In order to gain a competitive edge, companies of all sizes are looking for ways to improve how they market, sell and provide service to their customers.  Many are turning their attention to Customer Relationship Management software as a tool that will enable them to effectively manage their customer relationships before, during and after the sale. “

Click to view or download the full CRM Whitepaper