Being the one tasked to evaluate and select a CRM System can be a lot to ask. This post is to help you ease the pain and understand your options before making such a large investment. Here’s an excerpt from a highly recommended book called “Just Enough CRM” by Francoise Tourniaire. It’s listed on my [...]

I’ve already talked about what’s ahead for CRM in 2007 in a previous post but failed to recognize what was accomplished in 2006. Better late than never right? Despite being well underway into 2007 I felt this list was worth mentioning.
An anonymous author for SearchCRM put together this article and starts it off with [...]

If you have absolutely no tool in place to track customers’ interactions, you need a CRM system. If you do have a tool in place but are not satisfied with it, take a good look at it before deciding to start over. Why?

Problems that appear to
be tool problems may stem from other causes.
Implementing
a new [...]

Businesses need to understand good customer service does not
begin or end with the purchase of a CRM (customer relationship
management) solution, according to Gartner.

It may seem obvious but too many companies are failing to
understand the complexity of the good customer service jigsaw in which
technology is just one–albeit important–piece.
"More than 70 percent of CEOs currently rank building [...]

Training new customer service reps to use a CRM system quickly is
crucial not just to a contact center or customer service effort, but to
the entire company, as well. Often, a service rep is the first contact
for new customers, or for existing customers who have problems with a
product or service.

Having a new rep stumble through [...]

The world is being “disrupted,” and that’s a good thing, said IDC. At its Directions show here this week, the company made some predictions regarding changes in IT and how to find the good in them.
If you believe Frank Gens, senior vice president of research at IDC, one of those changes is that Salesforce.com will [...]

There can be many reasons why CRM initiatives fail but here we’re going to focus specifically on six of them pertaining to small businesses and startups. Brian Halligan has been implementing and using CRM systems for his whole career and has some good points.
"Most small businesses I deal with have either tried and failed on [...]

Getting a CRM business case approved can be a tough challenge. Gary Smith has put together a free three page white paper explaining how to define the benefits, business capabilities and
scope of the CRM project in a way that will withstand executive
scrutiny and present a compelling reason to invest.
You can download the free white paper [...]

Being tasked to evaluate and select a CRM system can be difficult and intimidating. Should I select an in-house system? How about a hosted solution? Your boss depends on you to pick the best solution for your company but you don’t know where to start.
According to Matthew Crook, CEO at SalesCentric, there are 8 [...]

Gene Marks from The Marks Group wrote about Seven Ways to Make Money From Your CRM System. The article talks more about how guys like "Don" or "Harry" are able to keep better track of their quotes or sales leads using a CRM System instead of ways to really increase revenue using CRM.
It’s a [...]