Commence Helps Desktop Customers Migrate to Hosted CRM Service

Posted by Commence on January 23, 2012 under CEO Corner | Be the First to Comment

Helping our Business Customers

Commence Corporation, a leading provider of Customer Relationship Management software (CRM), is offering traditional desktop CRM customers the option to migrate to the company’s new online CRM hosted service.  “The economic environment has hit many small to mid-size businesses very hard” says Todd Pape, Chief Information Officer at Commence.  Many are working with dated hardware and software and no longer have the staff to maintain their internal infrastructure.  Commence is offering them an opportunity to migrate to one of two deployment options that have been designed to reduce the requirement of internal staff along with the cost  of maintaining their inhouse CRM system.”

“First is our hosted CRM service which enables them to maintain their desktop software, but have the server component managed and maintained by Commence’s professional engineers at our data center.  This enables the customer to focus 100 percent of their time in managing and growing their business. For those customers interested in cloud computing, they can have their CRM online and completely alleviate the requirement for new hardware or software.  The cloud based CRM system offers anytime anywhere access and full mobile support. “

“Customers truly appreciate the options offered by Commence” stated Denis Moran, president of Istri – a reseller of Commence products in Europe. “No one wants to change CRM vendors especially when they are pleased with the product and service they have received over the years”.   For more information about how Commence can help you migrate to a hosted or online CRM environment, visit the company’s web site at www.commence.com.

[Image "Midwest Hospitality" by johnnyalive on Flickr under Creative Commons license]

CRM Hosting is Not All The Same

Posted by Commence on December 6, 2011 under CEO Corner | Be the First to Comment

If you are looking to implement CRM software it is important to take note of the following: all CRM software hosting services are not the same.  Companies that are engaged in the selection of a CRM solution tend to spend the majority of their time evaluating a product’s features and functions.  While this is perfectly fine, it is important to appreciate that the majority of today’s CRM software offerings are hosted, which means a third party is storing and managing your data.  If you are like most growing businesses your data is critical to your business and the proper protection of it is paramount to your survival.  If you believe this to be true, then you need to also pay close attention to who is hosting your data and what procedures they have in place to back it up or make it available to you if necessary.

The term hosting can be confusing to the consumer.  Some companies refer to their CRM offering as hosted CRM, on-line CRM, web based CRM or cloud based CRM and there is a significant difference between simply hosting data and storing it in the cloud.  Regardless of the difference, what is most important here is to understand that the proper storage, management and protection of your data doesn’t come cheap.  Tier 1 companies tend to offer high quality services in this area and as a result cost more than the lower priced ones that do not.  So if you think one CRM vendor is a bargain over the others, you may want to ask about their hosting service. You may find this to be a significant reason for the difference in cost.

Cloud CRM Vendors – Not For Beginners

Posted by Commence on July 1, 2011 under CEO Corner | Read the First Comment

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

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.

From Hosted CRM to Cloud Based CRM

Posted by Commence on April 5, 2011 under CEO Corner | 2 Comments to Read

“Customers who thought they had a handle around the different deployment models of CRM software have been thrown another curve ball” says Larry Caretsky, president of Commence Corporation.  “Today everyone’s talking about cloud based CRM software and most companies are not quite certain what this means.”  There are so many terms being bantered about the industry such as desktop CRM, on premise CRM, hybrid CRM, hosted CRM, online CRM, web based CRM and now cloud based CRM that it’s no wonder customers are confused.   So what exactly is cloud CRM?

Cloud based CRM is simply the next generation of hosting, whereby the CRM provider manages the back end operations of your CRM system. The difference with cloud based computing vs. the standard hosting & management service is that it is more flexible in terms of system and server resources.  Let’s say for example that you need additional storage or have an unusually high volume of activity on your system.  With cloud computing and CRM software, the cloud based servers are able to immediately respond to demand adding capabilities or reducing capabilities based on your real time requirements.  A hosted solution would require you to inform the service provider of the additional requirements or changes ahead of time, so that the system could be updated by the IT services team.

Commence Corporation offers several different deployment models for their top rated  CRM software.  The CRM solution may be deployed on-premise, hosted by Commence Corporation’s professional staff, or operated as cloud CRM solutions.  To learn more about Commence CRM software visit the company’s web site at www.commence.com.

Commence Delivers Unique Hybrid CRM Hosted Offering

Posted by Commence on March 12, 2011 under Commence News | 2 Comments to Read

Photo owned by davidgsteadman (cc)

When people think about hosted CRM software they think about using the Internet to access their data.  This is because the majority of CRM solutions today are web based, deployed as a hosted service over the Internet and accessed as a browser based CRM application.

Commence Corporation has taken a slightly different approach to the deployment of their CRM software.   While the majority of businesses do select the company’s web based CRM offering, more and more are beginning to turn to a hybrid CRM deployment, where the CRM software is implemented on each personal computer with only the server being hosted by Commence Corporation.  This hybrid approach provides a full offline CRM client and is attractive to companies that do not have a reliable Internet connection and for those that would like to ensure that they have a copy of their data in-house.

Because the software is implemented on each computer, the Internet is only used periodically to update the main CRM server.  As a result, if an Internet connection is not available each employee can continue using the CRM system since they are interacting with their local offline CRM client on a desktop or laptop computer.  When the Internet connection returns, the CRM server is automatically updated with any changes that have been made.

“It’s really the best of both worlds”, says Larry Caretsky, president of Commence Corporation. “The customer can utilize our CRM software on premise and have immediate, local and offline access to their data without having to rely on an Internet connection.  Meanwhile our professional engineers are taking care of managing the server hardware and providing critical IT services such as back-up and recovery and managing the system security, such as virus protection.  This allows our customers to focus their energy on growing their businesses”.

To learn more about this unique hybrid CRM solution including full offline CRM client functionality, visit the Commence web site at www.commence.com.

Commence CRM Offers Solution for Abandoned Intuit Customer Manager CRM Users

Posted by Commence on December 3, 2010 under Commence News | 3 Comments to Read

December 03, 2010 - Commence Corporation invites customers of the discontinued Intuit Customer Manager CRM product to review Commence CRM as a migration option. Commence CRM is an online CRM system designed for small, medium, and large enterprise and provides comprehensive CRM functionality as well as QuickBooks integration.

“After much consideration, we’ve made the decision to discontinue Customer Manager, effective October 11, 2010”

“Intuit Customer Support will provide support for all issues through November 30, 2010.”

These surprising notices were posted on the Intuit website just 2 months ago leaving many small and mid-market businesses scrambling to find an alternative solution for their Customer Management and CRM needs.

“Many of these businesses were taken by surprise by this announcement and then further surprised that they had to find an alternative by November 30 when the system was being shut down”, said Todd Pape, CTO at Commence Corporation, “We are happy to provide an option for these customers to migrate to our web-based CRM solution with QuickBooks integration. We invite these customers to review our CRM solutions and believe we offer a very compelling option with our web-based Commence CRM and optional QuickBooks integration.”

Commence offers a robust suite of CRM software applications for managing sales, marketing, customer support, and project management. The Customer Management software can also be integrated with QuickBooks for 2-way synchronization of customer data.

Larry Caretsky, president of Commence Corporation, welcomes the addition of these customers. “Commence has been servicing small and mid-size businesses for over twenty years,” noted Caretsky. “A good portion of our business comes from companies that have outgrown traditional contact management software such as Sage ACT! software and Goldmine software. These companies need more than a simple contact manager, but not the cost and complexity of enterprise CRM software. We are positioned right in the middle of the two, which has served our business very well over the years. Our CRM solution is comprehensive yet intuitive and affordable, and is quickly deployed over the Internet,” says Caretsky.

About Commence Corporation:

Commence Corporation is a leading provider of Customer Manager software. The company’s products are designed to provide small to mid-size businesses with flexible solutions that leverage the Web to offer an integrated platform for managing sales execution and customer service. Commence supports several thousand customers through a worldwide distribution network, with outlets in North and South America, Europe and Asia. For more information see www.commence.com or call 1-877-COMMENCE.

Hosted CRM Makes Good Sense

Posted by Commence on November 12, 2010 under CEO Corner | Read the First Comment

Staying in touch with your customers has never been more important than it is in today’s business environment. The competition for every dollar of revenue has never been this fierce and the more the economy continues to stagger along, the harder it gets. If you want to be able to take care of your customers in an expeditious manner you need customer relationship management software that enables you to capture, track, manage and share vital information with the people and departments that need it to efficiently do their jobs.

The days of thinking you could manage all of your customers using a paper filing system are long gone, and in most cases you have far too many clients to even begin tracking in this archaic fashion. Today there are numerous choices when it comes to finding the right CRM software for your business.  For the past few decades the most common solution was desktop based contact management software that was installed on your internal PCs and server.   These programs did a good job of tracking basic customer information, but were limited in functionality and scalability.  Many were also proprietary solutions that required updates each year in order to take advantage of new features or remain compatible with desktop operating systems.  Customers that did not upgrade their software often found themselves in a very difficult and costly position as conversion to current versions of the software were expensive and simply not as easy as they had anticipated.

As with many other platforms, customer relationship management software has begun the move from internal servers to the cloud.  This migration to cloud based computing offers several benefits and customers who have switched to an online CRM service are realizing a higher degree of value than they did with previous platforms. Perhaps the biggest benefit is simply the ability to access data anytime and from anywhere via an internet connection.   In the past, employees using desktop CRM software often found themselves tethered to their desktop computer with access only to e-mail via their cell phone while away from the office.

The newer hosted CRM services have implemented mobile platform support for use with the latest smart phone or handheld devices. This makes it possible for your staff to access information on the go, providing sales people with the opportunity to immediately follow-up on new inquiries while your support team delights your customers with rapid customer service.   Hosted CRM services also provide you with product updates and enhancements that are fully implemented for you and ensure that you remain current with the latest technology advances.  This has proven to be an arduous task for IT managers maintaining in-house environments where the updates must be installed on in-house servers and desktop PCs.

Some company IT executives continue to debate the issue of desktop or on premise CRM software vs. online CRM claiming security concerns and runaway costs for hosted services each year, but industry reports indicate that web based CRM solutions are growing at a pace of more than double that of desktop software offerings. Companies are also finding that security concerns have been addressed and that due to the competitive landscape, online or web CRM offerings are now more affordable than ever.  This makes the case for hosted CRM quite compelling.

If you are looking for a cost efficient way to improve sales execution and customer service and provide your staff with anytime, anywhere access to vital customer data using a PC, Apple Mac, or Mobile device, you should strongly consider an online CRM solution hosted by a reputable company.  If this sounds like the winning formula for you, consider Commence CRM from Commence Corporation. The company has a twenty year track record for delivering comprehensive CRM software applications and high quality customer service.

CRM Software Selection Made Easy

Posted by Commence on September 29, 2010 under CEO Corner | 4 Comments to Read

Selecting a CRM software solution can be a daunting exercise, but this quick breakdown may help to pave the path for your evaluation and selection.  CRM solutions generally come in three flavors and with two deployment options.

There are quite a few Basic small business CRM applications, or what I like to refer to as productivity tools. There are Mid-market CRM solutions and Enterprise level CRM systems.  Vendors traditionally offer their CRM solutions as either web based under the Software as a Service (SaaS) model where you pay a monthly fee, or on premise.  A few now offer both deployment models.

Basic CRM software

These programs were at one time called contact managers and are generally designed to be productivity tools.  They provide the ability to manage your contacts and accounts, your calendar, e-mail, notes, history and even create a sales forecast. In addition, they also traditionally include a mail merge feature that allows you to quickly produce letters and merge the name and address fields.  Many also enable integration with popular mobile devices like the BlackBerry, iPhone and the new Droid via a synchronization program that resides on your PC.

Designed primarily for the small office, home office market (SOHO) these are affordable and worthwhile companions for businesses with limited requirements.  The downside to these applications is that they are traditionally sold as out of the box or ready to use crm solutions that are not scalable and are limited with regard to customization.

Mid-market CRM software

Mid-market CRM software takes contact management to the next level and has a strong focus on automating the sales process. They offer a robust set of functionality for lead qualification, lead management, opportunity management, pipeline management, sales activity management and sales forecasting.  Sales reporting is also very good, with both text based reports and analytics on sales activity and sales performance.  Many now also offer marketing management applications that enable marketing professionals to create pre-scheduled direct mail and e-mail marketing campaigns targeted at a specific group of companies or people.  The sales and marketing functionality is fully integrated with the contact management software allowing you to capture, track, manage and share vital customer and prospect information with the people and departments that require it to efficiently do their jobs.  The strength of mid-market CRM systems is their ability to fully integrate information from multiple departments therefore providing all authorized employees with a 360 degree profile of customer and prospect information.  Some mid-market programs also include a help desk or customer service tickets application.  Adding service history to the customer contact and sales data can play a vital role in improving sales execution and customer service.

The mid-market CRM software space is highly competitive. What separates many of the products from each other is their ability to integrate with disparate systems such as accounting and ERP systems, the ability to customize the applications, mobile support and the experience level of the vendor’s implementation and service staff.  Unlike basic low cost CRM software packages, many of these products are quite comprehensive and require a commitment from sales management and the proper training in order to realize the value they can bring to your business.

Enterprise CRM software

Enterprise CRM systems cover much of the functionality mentioned above, but are designed to support large numbers of users. The programs are quite comprehensive and offer a deeper level of sales, marketing and customer service functionality.   They may offer multiple sales processes for example, one for customers and one for prospects, security permissions down to the field level and the ability to manage high transaction levels.  Project management functionality is often found in enterprise level systems along with integration to social networking sites.  These systems are also highly customizable and offer (APIs) Application Programming Interfaces that enable the integration of a large array of disparate systems. Enterprise CRM software also traditionally supports multiple languages and multiple currencies making them ideal for large companies that operate globally.

If you are a large Fortune 1000 company with requirements for multi-language and multi-currency support your choice will become very clear as there are a limited number of quality vendors to choose from.  If you’re a small to mid-size company the choices are so numerous that it’s difficult to differentiate one from another.   You may want to review my free report, Don’t Make a CRM Buying Mistake, 7 points to Consider Before Selecting Your CRM Solution.

About the author: Larry Caretsky is the President and CEO of Commence Corporation, a leading provider of web based and on premise CRM software for small to mid-size businesses. Caretsky is considered an expert in the subject of CRM and has written several white papers on the subject. They may be accessed via the company’s web site at www.commence.com. Commence supports several thousand customers in more than 22 countries around the world and has outlets in North and South America, Europe and Asia.

Customers Find Good Value In Commence CRM

Posted by Commence on August 23, 2010 under Customer Success | 6 Comments to Read

Getting an early start in the CRM software industry may have helped Salesforce.com to become a leader in the Hosted CRM space, but another CRM solution provider is making a statement of their own, paving the way for some intense competition in the small to mid-size business sector. 

Better known for its on premise desktop CRM software, Commence Corporation has been providing contact management, sales force automation and marketing campaign management solutions to small and mid-size companies for more than two decades.  The company introduced a web-based hosted version of their popular CRM software and is gaining notoriety.   With an outstanding track record for performance, reliability and world-class customer service Commence is a strong competitor and becoming a favorite among smaller businesses looking for a flexible hosted CRM solution with productivity tools that are easy to use.

“Commence web CRM has an impressive and unique user interface that makes the product very easy to use and navigate” says Gary Sanders of OK! Magazine.  “The product’s Home Page or Dashboard is completely customizable by individual or job function.  This allows each user to create a dashboard to the way they work.  The value here is that you can place the functions you use most right on the home page, such as today’s calendar and activities, e-mail, sales opportunities, leads, reminders and even an interactive sales funnel.  We hadn’t seen this in any other CRM solution.  This flexibility enables people to conduct 90% of their daily activities without ever leaving the Home Page and has really improved productivity.” 

Commence Home Page

Karen Deneau, Director of Marketing with Center for Film Studies, needed CRM software that her staff would feel comfortable with.   “When selecting a CRM solution, you worry about utilization, but we were confident that our staff would adapt well to Commence CRM and they have.   We also liked that Commence is modular in design, which allowed us to select only the functionality we required. We weren’t forced to purchase a package with a dozen features we would never use.  Commence’s strength clearly lies in its ease of use.  Within two weeks we had marketing campaigns out the door and leads captured from our web site were integrated directly into the Commence CRM system.  The staff at Commence was also extremely helpful in ensuring that we quickly realized value from their solution.”

Key Differentiators

Commence’s modular design provides the flexibility to start with basic CRM functionality such as Account and Contact Management, E-Mail integration and Sales Pipeline Management, then add additional features such as Quoting, Marketing Campaign Management and Project Management when you’re ready.  Integration to disparate systems can be achieved via an Application Programming Interface or API, and Commence CRM supports the majority of popular Mobile devices.

Another key differentiator of Commence CRM is the product’s lead qualification and sales reporting capability. The leads module includes an automated business process that scores leads based on pre-defined criteria, then color codes them based on how well defined they are.  This capability is unique to Commence CRM, and ensures that your sales team is working on the most qualified opportunities and not chasing tire kickers. 

Lead Scoring Screen

Reporting

The reporting engine offers three levels of data analysis.  A set of pre-defined reports for sales management, marketing and customer support can be viewed with a single click and modified just as easily.  A built in report writer allows you to create customer reports against any field in the database, including custom fields.  Lastly, Commence CRM includes a pre-built set of graphical and analytical reports for all sales activity, marketing, lead generation and customer support.

Reports

Commence offers the freedom of choice to deploy CRM software on premise or as a hosted web based solution and offers a level of functionality traditionally only provided by enterprise level solutions. Commence products are distributed around the world in more than 22 countries and 35 different industries.  The company’s track record for providing high quality reliable products and outstanding customer service make it a solid choice for growing businesses.

About the Author:  Jim Smith is the founder and managing partner of YCHANGE INTERNATIONAL,  a management consultancy specializing in helping small to mid-size businesses expand or execute a turnaround strategy.  Jim is a commissioner for the Housing Authority of Portland, Oregon and serves as a member of the newly formed economic cabinet of Portland. Jim is a motivational speaker and trainer and lectures on Customer Relationship Management in the areas of sales, marketing, business and leadership.  He is an avid blogger on www.ychange.com/ychangeblog.