Today, according to industry experts 90% of all CRM software providers either already offer a cloud based computing alternative or plan to within the next 18 months.  The reason for this migration from desktop programs to cloud based ones is due simply to the appetite of small to mid-size companies that are anxious to reduce the operational cost associated with maintaining in-house computer hardware and software.  The current economic climate has placed a significant financial burden on these companies who have found themselves working with dated hardware and software programs.

One of the CRM vendors that has realized a high degree of success in the CRM sector is Commence Corporation, a company that has been servicing small to mid-size enterprises for more than 20 years.  Commence offers an easy to use affordable cloud CRM software solution that has captured the attention of the industry and small to mid-size enterprises who like the product’s robust functionality and reliability.

“We realized several years ago that there was a high degree of interest in on line CRM software“, said Todd Pape, Chief Technology Officer at Commence.  “The challenge was making sure customers felt comfortable with the reliability and security of storing their data in the cloud.  This concern seems to have been addressed and we are seeing more and more inquiries and implementations of our cloud based CRM.”  Commence CRM is now available in the United States, Canada, and Europe and is highly regarded as a solid cost effective alternative to Salesforce.com and industry giant Microsoft CRM. On-line demonstrations are available directly from the company’s web site at www.commence.com.

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Companies that engage in the evaluation and selection of CRM software are traditionally looking to achieve three business objectives:

1)       Data Consolidation – information is streaming into your business every day from the telephone, fax, e-mail and the web. What happens to this information is the problem. The objective of CRM software is to ensure that all of this information is consolidated into a single unified database where it is immediately accessible to those employees that need to it efficiently do their jobs.

2)      Improve Sales Execution – this starts with implementing a structured process for lead qualification and the efficient management of the sales cycle from introduction to closure.  Proper lead qualification ensures that your most valuable asset, i.e. your sales team, is focused on the most qualified business opportunities.   Proper management of the sales cycle using CRM software has helped management keep their eye on the most promising opportunities and has  been shown to improve close ratios and generate higher returns.

3)      Provide World-Class Customer Service – In today’s world where customer loyalty is only skin deep the difference between winning and retaining customers may have more to do with the quality of service you provide than it does your product.  CRM can ensure that all members of the organization have access to customer records and can respond quickly and professionally to customer inquiries.

The challenging economy coupled with a highly competitive market place has encouraged businesses of all sizes to seek a way to get a leg up on their competition.  CRM software has proven to be an effective tool for helping companies market, sell and provide service to their customers.

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Companies that are still using desktop contact management software are looking for the next generation of software that provides additional functionality, better reporting, and anytime anywhere access to data via mobile devices.  Commence CRM’s robust functionality coupled with its ease of use and affordability has proven to be a nice step up for companies still using desktop contact management programs.

[Image "Inverted Cheerleader Pyramid" by Steve Jurvetson on Flickr under Creative Commons license]

The highly competitive nature of the CRM software sector has software providers searching for ways to differentiate their product from the myriad of options available. While many focus their attention on adding wiz-bang features that often provide little value, one CRM software provider has focused their attention on the product’s usability and access to customer data.  That CRM software provider is Commence Corporation.

Commence is a feature rich CRM solution that is attracting customers away from industry giants Microsoft CRM and Salesforce.com.  While Commence offers several unique features over the competition, what customers find most alluring about Commence CRM is how easy the product is to use.  Commence has paid close attention to the routine functions that individuals in sales, marketing and customer service perform each day and has incorporated this functionality directly into the product’s dashboard or home page.  With Commence CRM, sales and customer service people can conduct the majority of their daily business without ever leaving the dashboard.  This not only reduces the learning curve, but provides customers with an immediate return on their investment.

Commence customers and resellers have commented about  the clean and efficient deign of the dashboard which is cosmetically appealing and so easy to use that employees immediately become comfortable with the product’s navigation and access to customer information.  “Commence CRM is well designed, has an excellent sales workflow process and enables the user to perform numerous tasks with a single click.” says Nigel Park, managing director of TPS Consulting, an IT consulting firm and reseller of Commence CRM.  “Customers who test the product prefer it every time over the competition.”

Commence CRM Dashboard

With Commence CRM the user can read and compose email right within the CRM system, add activities, create a new lead or a new account, add a sales opportunity, a service ticket or a project task right from the product’s dashboard.  You can even access both standard text and graphical reports from the reports tab on the left hand tool bar.  No other CRM system offers this level of access to customer and sales data as easily as Commence CRM.

Outlined below is a comparison of the dashboards of Salesforce.com and Microsoft Dynamics CRM.  You can see for yourself why customers prefer Commence CRM.

Salesforce Dashboard

Microsoft CRM Dashboard

To learn more about Commence CRM and the features that are making Commence one of the most talked about CRM solutions, visit the company’s web site at commence.com or call Commence Sales at 1-877- 266-6362.

A standard approach to pursuing and tracking opportunities is a smart way to assure that all sales activities are aligned with organizational goals and the overall direction of sales management. Consistency also reduces the amount of non-value added sales activities such as drafting letters, writing reports, and having lengthy phone calls to determine what stage is next in a sales opportunity.  Having standard terminology saves time and minimizes confusion.

Sales managers benefit from standardized CRM Sales processes because it is also easier to determine how each salesperson is performing.  Opportunities that are stalled in one stage can be identified and resolved.  Salespeople benefit from standardization because they waste less time determining what information is missing and what the next step should be in the workflow. Sales appointments become more productive because they are only conducted when qualified as part of a planned sequence of events.

The high level steps to implement a sales process are:

1. Document your sales process
2. Design your implementation
3. Train your sales team
4. Support the implementation

Some companies adopt branded systems such as Sandler, Solution Selling, Dale Carnegie or others.  Others develop their own systems with distinct terminology; perhaps a hybrid of popular systems or a mix of the techniques used by the company’s most successful sales performers.

A standard sales process allows companies to more easily analyze events and make sense of trends. As a regional sales manager at a mid-sized organization observed, “The only way to discover what’s working and what’s not is to measure the individual steps of the sales process.  If you know the percentages of prospects that proceed through each stage of the process, you accurately predict how many sales will close in the future, based upon the current pipeline.  You can also compare the performance of team members and take appropriate action, like additional coaching, in order to ensure that the team remains productive.”

Applying Best Practices to Sales

Most organizations are not strangers to processes, systems, and re-engineering.  For example, in the manufacturing industry, plants and warehouses couldn’t operate profitably without them and no business manager would let accounting and purchasing departments improvise. The more complex the task, it’s more likely that the effective principles and processeses for successfully completing that task have been defined and codified.  In other words, much of the business world is already highly process-driven, systematized, and automated.

Yet, oftentimes, the sales department hasn’t been automated.  For example, in a recent study of distributor respondents, eighty-eight percent indicated that they do not have a documented, formal sales process.  Given that sales is fundamental and represents a large expense item, it was quite surprising that written sales processes were non-existent for the majority of the study participants.  Without such a document to provide a consistent road map, executives have no choice but to depend on the creativity, work ethic and luck of individual sales reps and their managers.

Organizations without a documented sales process often exhibit several common symptoms, such as a disconnected and manual approach to selling and a lengthy cycle time to find prospects, get quotes out the door, and close orders.  This may in turn lead to irritated prospects, who expect a rapid response to their inquiries or request for a proposal. .  In addition, top sales employees may become annoyed.  They want to sell, not figure out the best way to put prospects in the pipeline, create quotes, enter orders   and track shipments delivered. Other symptoms of process deficiencies include abundant and costly errors, evidenced by expedited orders and high volumes of returns, and inadequate margin on too many quotes, resulting in deflated profitability.  This may lead to stagnant sales from the most important customers and cause engineering and other departments to be pulled into disarray when the sales team gets a request for proposal or learns about a bid opportunity.

If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone.  Many executives voice issues similar to these, yet the remedy seems to be incredibly difficult.  Sales teams are often extremely autonomous, and management struggles to avoid “big brother” accusations and micromanaging.  Despite these legitimate concerns, it is not that difficult to successfully implement a standard sales process.

When reviewing the various sales methodologies and processes available, make sure your final selection is repeatable, predictable, and scalable.  What you want is a sales process that is simply enough that, over time, it will become second nature to the sales staff. Also, make sure that it isn’t too complicated, or the sales team will not use it.

The elements of a sales process typically include:

• a common vocabulary for describing the activities involved in selling
• clearly defined stages of selling
• an agreed upon checklist of what it takes to move from one stage to the next
• consistent guidelines for information to be gathered and given at each stage
• clear expectations for how long each sales stage should take
• concise definition of suggested next actions

When smart organizations are designing a sales process implementation, they focus on change management, not sales training.  By implementing a formalized sales process, businesses are fundamentally changing the way people do their jobs on a daily basis.  There will be natural resistance.  To develop a change management plan, make sure you can answer the following questions:

• What motivation do sales people have to use the new system?
• What potential barriers are there to implementation?
• How can I overcome those barriers?
• How will I know if the implementation is successful?
• What should I expect during the transition?
• Who can people go to if they have questions?

Follow the Leader

One of the best ways to make sure implementations “stick” is to have the management involved.  One recent study found that when sales training is reinforced by management, the sales skills taught during training produced a 15% permanent increase in productivity.

Management needs to be involved in more than a cosmetic fashion.  A senior member of the management team needs to attend the training, and this same manager should inspect the sales activities for a period of time to make sure they continuously are consistent with the new sales introduced during the training.

At the end of the day, the challenge with adopting a new sales process is getting everyone to follow it.  Sales management must lead by example in sales meetings and on sales calls.  An automated workflow reinforced by a CRM system that quickly prompts a salesperson to enter required information before moving to the next sales stage is invaluable. Standard reports and online visibility into the sales pipeline can help monitor the progress of opportunities over time so that both the salesperson and the sales manager can spot when an opportunity is stalled.

As one sales leader summed up his company’s recipe for success: “Our company can’t grow consistently unless the sales process is repeatable, not arbitrary.  For us, it is a condition of employment – you have to embrace the standards, follow the processes and use the CRM system.”

About Commence Corporation: Founded in 1988, Commence develops and delivers a diverse suite of award winning CRM software that integrates people, processes and technology.  Available on-premise or online, Commence CRM solutions are utilized by several thousand businesses to streamline sales and customer service front office business processes.  As a result, Commence clients increase workforce productivity, generate positive customer interactions and reduce operational cost.

TINTON FALLS, N.J., (October 15, 2009) – Commence Corporation, a leading provider of customer relationship management (CRM) software solutions, today announced that it is extending its managed services offering to existing desktop customers and offering a complimentary software upgrade with its new hosting service.

“Today’s economic crisis has created an environment whereby companies are finding it difficult to upgrade and maintain their own IT infrastructure,” said Larry Caretsky, president of Commence Corporation. “Some have been forced to reduce their IT staff, making the management of their systems even more challenging. As a result, these businesses may now be working with older, fragile hardware or unsupported software and they are rightfully concerned about the impact this will have on their business.”

Commence Corporation has created a unique Managed Service designed to address this business challenge for existing customers.  The service places the role of managing and maintaining the Commence Server hardware and software with Commence Corporation.  It provides customers with the use of state-of-the-art high-speed server hardware at Commence Corporation’s data center as well as 24/7 management of the system by trained engineers. Customers are also entitled to a free software upgrade and continued upgrades for as long as they remain on the service. This ensures that they are always working with the highest quality server hardware and the latest version of the software.

Abhijit Joshi, president of White Hedge Inc., recently switched over to the service and is pleased with the outcome.  “As a small company I did not have the resources to purchase the equipment and staff necessary to manage and maintain my Commence system,” said Joshi.  “In addition, keeping up with the latest product releases became difficult.  By outsourcing this function to Commence I freed up time and resources to dedicate to growing my business while Commence manages and maintains the hardware and software.”

Joshi, is not alone, several dozen new companies are already utilizing Commence’s managed service. For more information contact Commence sales at 1-877 – COMMENCE.

More About Commence Corporation

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 premised licensed software, Commence CRM solutions are used by thousands 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.

For many people, buying a home is one of the more stressful life events. From packing up belongings and getting financing, to working with real estate agents, property inspectors and title officers; the process can be daunting. For real estate professionals, keeping everything running smoothly means managing every aspect of contract to closing.

To improve the customer experience and provide the highest quality escrow and title services, Bellevue, Washington-based The Talon Group supports their business processes with Commence Desktop Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software. By choosing Commence’s CRM system, the company has gained a centralized solution for managing data. As a result, The Talon Group is better able to standardize processes, efficiently communicate with customers, improve productivity and support their mission to “build customers for life.”

Founded in 2003, The Talon Group, a division of First American Corporation, works with individual clients in the real estate and lending business and maintains a strong commitment to providing the highest quality escrow and title services in Washington. It offers residential services; commercial services, including commercial title insurance and endorsement coverage, commercial closing and escrow, online transaction management. The company employs nearly 100 people across its nine offices in the Puget Sound area.

Like other title and escrow companies, The Talon Group provides the insurance for the title component and ensures there are no liens, encumbrances or easements on a property. They also act as an ‘honest broker” in the transaction by taking the place of a real estate attorney and getting all parties to sign pertinent documents. They also hold the responsibility to redistribute them appropriately.

“One of our key challenges is getting information spread around the company quickly,” said Cliff Treat, vice president, The Talon Group Escrow and Title Services. “Our workflow is based on events so it is imperative to have robust communication between the administrative staff, real estate agents, loan officers, and home buyers to ensure we are efficient in our processes and responsive to our customers.”

With an eye on efficiency and a desire to fully utilize the Web to interact with customers and field agents, the company incorporated Commence CRM into their business model. Commence Corporation’s “best in class” CRM software   offers a comprehensive suite of applications for business contact management, sales and sales force automation, marketing, campaign management, lead management, project management, customer support and analytics.

One benefit of the system is that it allows The Talon Group to automate and streamline processes such as payoff information. A property may require a payoff on taxes, homeowner dues or waste removal fees. By having the Commence system in place, administrative staff is able to view and manage multiple properties that require payoffs on a single screen.

“When we get a transaction on a property we go to the applicable county or city and ask for the payoff information,” explained Treat. “Through the system we are able to funnel that work to one person. Instead of having an individual call for one payoff and waiting on the phone for 15 minutes for information on one house, they are able to request information for 20 properties. It’s created a streamlined process that helps improve our efficiency.”

By being able to share and access information quickly and efficiently, the company is able to proactively manage their business and ensure they deliver high quality  service to their customers. A copy of the database is available on all employee desktops and if someone makes a change, everyone in the company is able to see.   Commence enables them to get the most up-to-date information immediately.

Another benefit of the solution is automatic alerts that improve event management. For example, when an assistant enters the date she receives a property title, an email is sent to the appropriate agent alerting them to the title availability. Instead of requiring the assistant to manually manage the process, actions are automated through the system ensuring optimal workflow. The system also “flags” potential issues which enables management to proactively address them.

Company sales professionals rely on the system for campaign management and customer communications. Through the Web site, they can send fliers for new listings and see role-based applicable activity. Home buyers are able to view pertinent information via a dashboard on the Web site. Every agent and loan officer also receives an automated summary on transaction activity for accounts they maintain. This is delivered daily to their inbox rather than requiring them to visit the Web site for updated activity.

“The HTML email with summary information is helpful because they don’t have to chase information,” said Treat. “During this last refinancing boom it was hard to get in touch with anyone due to the accelerated level of activity. Using the Commence system, agents and loan officers receive the most current information, which enables them to efficiently complete tasks and get their job done.”

The Commence solution also empowers The Talon Group to respond quickly to new opportunities in the market. Like other businesses, they are using social media such as Facebook and Twitter to communicate company news and interact with customers. Sales success is fueled by conversation and the Commence system makes it possible for sales professionals to efficiently use new media to disseminate information. They are also using the system to populate the company newsletter that is sent directly to clients and customers.

“What Commence enables us to have is have consistency of message,” added Treat. “No matter where you look – whether it’s via our newsletter, on Twitter, or a personal communication from a salesperson – the message is the same. And, because we can automatically make things happen based on events, it enables us to get to a place where we do things the same every time. When we set up an escrow and title for an agent, the communications happen the same way without requiring someone to remember to take a particular action.”

While the solution is designed for small to mid-size businesses, it has been able to support the company’s growth and serves as a centralized repository for nearly one million documents. Title and escrow companies are required to store information for seven years and through the system, The Talon Group is able to save everything from client notes and transaction details to email communications.

“The solution has done well expanding and enables us to produce discovery material when needed during legal situations,” said Treat. “We’ve prevented from paying out a lot of money because we have the entire history of events. It’s helped us because everything is documented.”

Most importantly, the solution has enabled The Talon Group to support their mission of building customers for life. When an agent sells a home, the system automatically creates communication points at the one month, six month and two year anniversary to support additional interaction with customers.

“The Commence solution allows us to support our ‘customer for life’ by enabling us to stay in constant communication with our customers,” said Treat. “In the 14 years I’ve been involved with Commence, it’s proven to be a reliable solution that has given us a fail safe way to manage all our data and be proactive and efficient in managing our customer relations.”

A key challenge for companies with multiple divisions spread across many locations is collaboration, especially when it comes to business-critical information. At Southern Petroleum Laboratories (SPL Inc.), a leader in the petroleum and environmental testing industry, customer information was stored in many disparate databases. As a result, sales and operations professionals were duplicating efforts and lacked insight into customer successes and service issues. To address this, SPL implemented Commence CRM from Tinton Falls, N.J.-based Commence Corporation in the fall of 2005 to improve information management. The company experienced a 114% growth in sales within the first 90 days and has been able to sustain that growth despite a chaotic economy.

Founded in 1944 and headquartered in Houston, Texas, SPL Inc., was one of the first major suppliers to service the petrochemical, refining, pipeline and retail markets with environmental testing services. Over the years, it has expanded its service to all major industry, key government sectors, and their suppliers and consultants and proven itself as a sustained leader in the industry. SPL’s hydrocarbon services, the top supplier in this market sector, include testing of refinery gasses, sulfur compounds, petroleum fingerprinting, and forensic analysis. SPL field services include liquid and gas measurement accounting, fabrications, allocations and consulting services.

The company operates five divisions – environmental lab, hydrocarbon lab and field, fabrication, audits and loss control, and allocation and oil and gas accounting – and in many cases calls on the same customers for different products and services. The sales and operations groups had a CRM application, but it wasn’t a synchronized system so each representative managed their own database. Without a central repository for information there was no consistency or commonality in effort across the company.

“We had people in the same division with different databases of information and it was redundant and sometimes conflicting,” said Randall Ritch, senior product manager/client services focal point, SPL, Inc., Hydrocarbon division. “As a result, we were in the dark about which were our best customers, recent activities or any caveats to a new sales effort.”

Realizing a centralized CRM database would offer efficiency gains and increase sales effectiveness, and having worked with the Commence solution at two prior companies, Ritch implemented it at SPL.

“Because of all the disparate databases, it was a very large undertaking,” he said. “That said, I was confident the solution would help increase sales. Within the first 90 days, just by having good information management, we were able to generate nearly $100,000 gross monthly income in the Hydrocarbon department. That’s because Commence made it possible for everyone, regardless of department, to see what the other has done in terms of recent proposals, customer service issues or sales success.”

Commence Corporation’s “best in class” CRM software offers a comprehensive suite of applications for business contact management, sales and sales force automation, marketing, campaign management, lead management, project management, customer support and analytics. The solution is delivered on demand as a managed service hosted over the Internet.

“We chose a Software-as-a-Service solution based on the reliability and cost,” said Ritch. “If there are upgrades or maintenance to the application, it is handled by Commence and the support we get as a hosted client is endless.”

With the solution in place, SPL is able to use data to drive better decisions as well as leverage their brand as an industry leader to customers. It has also enabled the sales departments to combine efforts and increase efficiencies, eliminate redundant effort, and save money in the process. Among others, one way in which it has improved processes is by ensuring tight collaboration.

“We encountered a situation where our environmental department had an unresolved issue with a client and the hydrocarbon group had a past due invoice for the same account,” said Ritch. “We were able to investigate the history with the client and learn about the issue prior to approaching them for payment. When we saw the documentation that noted the issue was resolved, we were able to approach the client and get the invoice paid. The Commence solution enabled us to work collaboratively and make a responsible decision from a sales, marketing and reputation perspective.”

Along with better customer service, the solution also helps streamline SPL’s proposal process. A key component to success is ensuring proposals are submitted to clients and that timely follow up ensues. Sales cycles vary from as little as one day to as long as 18 months. To further increase efficiencies, SPL has integrated the Commence system with QuoteWerks sales quotation software. Together the two applications have allowed the hydrocarbon division to generate thousands of quotes and close nearly 80 percent of them.

“Commence is the repository for all the contact information and QuoteWerks is the repository for the products and services that we sell,” explained Ritch. “A core competency of Commence is the management of time sensitive information. QuoteWerks enables us to keep track of how many products we’ve sold and our profit margins. It’s a perfect marriage between the two solutions.”

By having this improved process in place, SPL has become more profitable and had its highest sales revenue year at the close of this past fiscal year. Another way the solution is impacting the business is it is serving as impetus to support the company’s brand management strategy.

“Instead of giving the appearance that we are a bunch of little companies, Commence enables us to be consistent in service and demonstrate the cohesiveness of our organization,” said Ritch. “It allows all our offices around the country to have access to the same up-to-date information and we produce a consistent response to every inquiry that comes into the company regardless of what division receives it.

“It’s a very reliable solution that I’ve been using since 1994,” he concluded. “I have never had a corrupt database error and I haven’t had that type of success with any application. We have been able to demonstrate our effectiveness using the solution and generate more sales than we ever did in the previous 17 years without the use of this application.”