Do you choose to work from home? On the road? Or are you perhaps an employee of Yahoo!, obliged to head into the workplace to carry out your duties? There are all manner of reasons which might account for the huge increase in people that are working from home, whether out of choice or necessity. A couple of influencing factors include:

• Working on a consultancy or project basis rather than long-term contract
   
• Reducing the need or desire to commute
   
• Work irregular hours, evenings or weekends when office buildings may be closed
   
• Having a small businesses saving money on office premises
   
• Online businesses no longer needing a bricks and mortar presence.

Whilst this all seems positive, not everyone is happy; as seen in the well-publicised issue with Yahoo! banning working from home for their employees, and new CEO Marissa Meyer has come out recently to explain the policy change citing aspects such as increased quality of work done from within an office environment. Clearly this is not a cut and dried case and I am sure experts will be holding heated discussions about the pros and cons for many years to come.

However whether you work from home or the office, one thing you always have access to is your hosted business applications. Selecting cloud-based software solutions and CRM software rather than on-premises is one way of keeping your options open. Even strictly office-based organisations can benefit – whether it is working late or at the weekend, being able to continue to work even if you are ill and do not want to go into the office, or if you are one of the many of us whose work lives are disrupted by the increasing adverse weather conditions that we have encountered over the past couple of years. As well as being office-based, you may also need to visit clients or engage in field sales which will take you out of those cosy confines.

It will probably be a while before we see any reports that suggest whether Yahoo! made the right or wrong decision to implement such hard and fast rules and I’m sure it will make for interesting reading. In the meantime, whether your business core values or purpose depend on productivity, innovation or collaboration, being able to access your office tools and business software anytime, anywhere can only be of benefit to you. 

Further reading: http://www.forbes.com/sites/cywakeman/2013/03/07/is-yahoo-right-to-ban-working-from-home/

This article looks at the need to be able to see WHY your customers are buying as much as the What, How and When.

Standards in data capture are shifting. The traditional challenge has been to offer the ability to crunch numbers – volume of sales, leads converted, opportunity value for the current quarter and so on. This is not only valuable but essential information that relates to the performance of your organisation and individuals within. With this quantitative data, we can answer all those “What…” and “How Many” questions.

However using today’s possibilities to capture precise and detailed information you can go so much further, helping you to understand your customer’s attitudes and satisfaction as much as the numbers.

Multi-channel sales mean we also need to capture information to answer those “Where…” questions – how many sales are made through your bricks and mortar establishments, how many transactions are made online and so on.

The essential “Why” question however is still unanswered at this point and this is the real winner, as when you know why your customers are making certain purchases, you can start to predict customer behaviour and adjust your organisation accordingly.

Some ways of capturing qualitative data work better than others. A simple question or two at point-of-sale, or at the end of a support call will be considered as being less intrusive and easier to capture than a cold call for example. This information can then be fed into your CRM software and can then be reported upon and analysed. Common frustration points can be highlighted and dealt with and the aspects of your business processes which delight the consumer can also be focused on and developed to ensure you offer the best service you possibly can.

Good use of CRM software enables you to start to capture and analyse customer satisfaction with your product, service and process right from the suspect stage through to post-sales support, enabling you to keep them smiling all the way.

I am already reading articles proclaiming the death of social media. No, seriously I really am! OK, so once we have got over the attention-grabbing headline, we can start to look at what the author is actually trying to tell us. It seems that figures for Facebook usage (in certain countries) amongst teenagers has levelled off, if not actually dropped. The dramatists can look at this figure in any number of ways and read different reasons into it such as:

• Teenagers don’t want to be on the same platform as their parents.
   
• They would rather be active on a variety of different apps and platforms, taking their social activity out of Facebook and into the realms of Pinterest, Instagram and co.
   
• Facebook itself is being perceived as an advertising platform rather than a place for social interaction.
   
• Funny as it may sound, teens actually do other stuff!

Whichever spin you want to put on it, I guess the take away from all this is that the world is turning ever faster. This is significant to anyone whose business relies on customer interaction on different platforms, whether face to face, on the phone, via email or other web platforms.

Hence using a CRM solution to track interaction becomes a very powerful tool. You have the ability to record all manner of information surrounding each interaction – the nature of the exchange, the method used and duration for starters.

It doesn’t stop there, as what’s the use of collecting and compiling data if you don’t do anything clever with it? Well, creating reports to show information surrounding your activity will give you a quick indicator of any changes that are taking place within your customer base. As well as the usual demographics that you track, being able to see where your customers are active in their interactions with you puts you in a great position.

The next time you read an article or blog post that proclaims the slow death or sudden boom in any particular communications tool, you’ll be able to look at your data and decide for yourself whether this is scaremongering or painting an accurate picture of the world around you and lets you know if you are focusing your attention to be where your customers expect to find you.

When the water of a river stops moving it stagnates and not only will a foul smell start to rise from the murky depths but its life and soul will die off. Just like a river, your sales funnel needs to keep flowing. It won’t suffice if you just pump your CRM software full of leads as this data will remain lifeless if nothing is done with it eventually clogging up your system with redundant records.

Once the leads are in place, one of the first steps is to qualify and segment them. Some leads might be easy wins and can be fished straight out and into your prospects and opportunities. Others might not be ripe for pulling out of the water but are still maturing, in which case a different mechanism needs to be implemented.

In a best practise scenario, your lead management should follow a structure that ensures nothing slips through the net. Action Plans can help by automatically scheduling calls and tasks to get the leads categorised and qualified.

The Lead status can be set and the leads scored accordingly, so that you can not only see which leads have been actioned, but which ones are hot and lucrative, lukewarm or stone cold dead in the water. Once again the action plans can kick into action and help with task assignment – hot leads will need to be nurtured a certain way, whereas those dead leads can be managed by different means. A solid lead scoring mechanism in place means you can start to really project your sales and make sure your workforce is prepared for the volume of business coming their way.

Make the most of your data with a healthy lead management process and data that flows freely through the funnel

It doesn’t matter how central or remote your business is based, you still need to benefit from fast and reliable communication channels, and one such business is Commander Centre who have been providing communications and technology solutions to meet the needs of Australian businesses for nearly 30 years. This is a great project for us at OpenCRM to be involved in and so we are very happy that Commander Centre have chosen to work with us for their cloud-based CRM requirements which give office and remote workers alike full access to their business database.

http://www.commander.com

Coventry-based Serious Games International is a highly innovative company that specialise in games-based learning, virtual environments, data presentation and producing tailored solutions for their clients. This is a very contemporary technological environment and so we are delighted to announce that Serious Games International has selected to use OpenCRM for their hosted CRM requirements.

http://www.seriousgamesinternational.com

The KM Group is a news group that manages everything Kent-related. With a large umbrella of contact and company types to track and manage, such a company has the need for a sophisticated CRM solution which enable them to capture and segment data and so we are happy to welcome the KM Group on board as as customer of OpenCRM.

http://www.kentonline.co.uk

HSS are a UK based company providing software and designing, implementing and supporting hospital based information systems. Their Radiology Information Solution facilitates the safe and secure storage and retrieval of Radiology records. Being a company well versed in the need for data security, we are pleased to announce that HSS have selected to use OpenCRM for their hosted CRM software needs.

http://hssnet.com

Traditionally the close of a sale might have been seen as the end of the sales journey; today it is often seen as one of the very early stages of the journey if not quite the beginning. Parallel to this shift in the typical customer relationship, sales marketing orientation techniques have been replaced by various models over the past decades and for many of you, relationship marketing is where you are right now.

I’m sure lots of you subscribe to the theory that the cost of customer retention is considerably cheaper than the cost of acquisition. Following the various steps on the lead nurturing journey, once you reach the point of sale, you have successfully convinced the customer to place their trust in your product or service. At this point you  are starting to “know” your customer and satisfying their consumer needs becomes so much easier in terms of time and money spent than starting from scratch with a new suspect client.

Here’s where hosted CRM software becomes an indispensable business tool, as you can use the massive cloud storage facilities to build up a powerful database. Details such as products bought, contract start date and frequency of purchase are obvious examples of essential information but other specifics such as geographical location, gender, annual turnover and so on can really help you channel and focus your marketing activity to the benefit of both yourself (targeted marketing which will have a higher ROI than untargeted bulk mailshots) and your customer (receives marketing and product information likely to be of interest).

As with anything in life, if there are rules then you will find countless exceptions to the rule, and there are plenty of business models that live from one-time only sales rather than repeat business. Even in these cases the customer information collected during the lead nurturing process can be stored in your CRM software enabling you to best serve those prospects.

Whichever model you subscribe to, ensuring your customer details are managed in your CRM solution means you are well prepared in order to successfully plot and navigate and the customer journey – turning the traditional end into the start of a new relationship.

Consumers are more empowered than ever before. Whether sat on the couch with a tablet on their lap, waiting for a bus with a smartphone in their hand or on a rail journey with the laptop plugged in, people are online all the time. They can find the best deals, the newest offers, the latest trends there and then. How on earth are you and your business meant to keep up?

Well each touch point with a customer will tell you something about them. The method of communication used – a customer may have completed a webform, visited a website, clicked through from an email, sent a text or phoned up – these are all indicative of customer behaviour. If your customer enquiries team consists of ten people manning phone lines and one person monitoring email and social media, you may need to redress that balance!

You can keep up with trends as much as your customers can, if not be one step ahead – industry insight should enable you to be aware of changes that are taking place before the customer knows about them

Customer touch-points can also be recorded – emails saved, preferences noted, buying behaviour and trends can be monitored, reported on and analysed. This can all be documented in your hosted CRM solution, meaning that you can access this wealth of customer data at any time and from anywhere to keep you fully up to date on all aspects of your customer relationships.

Carry out the above and you will not only be keeping up with your customer but leading the way.

Sensor Access are specialists in access control solutions, offering offer entry level, mid range and enterprise solutions for software based, web based and web hosted access control, time and attendance and alarm management systems. A system as sophisticated as this requires a broad and deep CRM application and it is with pleasure that we can announce that Sensor Access have chosen OpenCRM to be their preferred hosted CRM solution.

http://www.sensoraccess.co.uk/

Scholaris International is a software development company focused on building and deploying innovative solutions to improve teaching and learning across the global education market with implementations in school systems across the world including, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore, UK and Ireland. We are delighted to announce that Scholaris have elected to use OpenCRM for their cloud CRM requirements as well as setting up a customer web portal.

http://scholarisintl.com

With the job market seemingly harder than it ever has been to get a foot on the ladder, employers are going to be more favourable to candidates when seeing two things – qualifications, and experience. It is the latter that can be hard to acquire, and so this is where organisations such as Lifeskills come in. Lifeskills is about showing learners the way by giving them the tools they need to get the jobs they want, through employment and apprenticeship learning programmes. Such an organisation can only benefit from a powerful, customisable hosted CRM solution and we are please to say that Lifeskills have opted to work with OpenCRM.

http://www.learnaliving.co.uk/

It’s always easier to concentrate on the tough day to day activities of running your business if there is someone else taking care of your financing. Trade & Export Finance Ltd are a business dedicated to enabling clients to finance their business at the lowest practical cost as well as offering a foreign exchange service. When in need of a hosted CRM solution, it was OpenCRM that TAEFL came to and we are happy to welcome them on board as customers.

http://taefl.co.uk/

It doesn’t matter how good your sense of direction is, to get from A to B you are going to need some kind of guidance. Whether it’s your inherent sense of knowing where to go if you are familiar with the roads, looking up and plotting a route, or switching on the satnav and getting guided all the way navigation is something we all need to do.

Additionally some places are easier to get around than others – a beautiful old city such as York or Paris is a joy to walk around, but driving is quite a different experience! On the other hand US cities with their grid system are designed to make navigation as straightforward as possible; even if you get lost then you just cruise around the block one more time rather than going all the way around a soul-destroying one way system.

Finding your way around the web can be a similar experience. Some sites and resources are easy to find with a quick search whereas others require you to dig a little deeper. One of the principles behind CRM is that it is a time-saving measure. You have a wealth of information contained within which you want to access quickly and easily. When you’ve found the data you want to be able to do something with it without jumping through hoops – whether it’s an email to a group of contacts, a list you are creating of businesses of a certain type, a report you need to send to a client or a series of meetings you want to set up. In order to achieve all of this, your CRM solution comes loaded with a variety of search methods to enable you to search whether on a global, local or granular level. Using views and tabs you can create shortcuts to these searches to help you get to where you want to be quickly and easily. Once you are there, action buttons allow you to set up calls, tasks, meetings or emails smoothly.

When you would set out on a journey, you work out in advance where you are going and how you plan on getting there and the same can be said for getting the most of your CRM data, forward planning and a clearly defined roadmap means you will be able to extract the very best from the data you have invested your time and money in collecting.

One of the real aims of any online business is to make the most of your website visitors. From casual browsers and window shoppers to people engaging with your brand, there are lots of different types of visitors. One company which works with clients to increase the profitability from web visitors is Klick2Contact, with a multitude of features available in their solution. We are pleased to have Click2Contact on-board and using OpenCRM as their hosted CRM software of choice.

http://www.klick2contact.eu/

Hardie Polymers are one of the leading independent thermoplastics distributors in the UK, with over 50 years’ experience in the supply of plastic raw materials. A quick visit to their website shows a huge range of products in as many vibrant colours as you can imagine.  Hardies have a well thought out approach to their CRM requirements and so it has been a pleasure to help them implement this and to fulfil these requirements using OpenCRM.

http://www.hardie-polymers.co.uk/

What is it that tickles your tastebuds?  I read an article recently that surprised me with the fact that in the UK chili is now the second most popular sensation on the old palate, second only to long-term number one favourite, chocolate.

A variety of factors have influenced this change such as the increasing number of chili growers; hot sauce production is a blossoming niche industry and chili festivals are springing up all over the place. We are seeing more and more cooking programmes on television, and there seem to be new Mexican restaurants and fast food outlets cropping up all over the place. In other words, Brits are starting to like it hot!

Obviously markets need to change and develop to satisfy emerging consumer trends and tastes and this provides organisations that are able to segment their data in order to target customer groups a chance to get a competitive advantage.

Using a CRM solution you can add as many filters to your records as required, in order to capture data unique to you. So if you need to capture taste trends, this can be done quickly and easily with the addition of one or more custom fields or editing existing picklist fields to match the information you need to collect. Whether it’s chocolate or chili, football or tennis, tea or coffee, bicycle or car, the ability to segment your data puts you one step closer to being able to service each of your customers and satisfy their demands.

Kube Networks are a communications provider delivering business connectivity and communication solutions throughout the UK and globally. Being a business in a cutting edge technological industry such projects are always fascinating to us and so we are pleased to welcome Kube on board using OpenCRM for their hosted CRM needs.

http://www.kubenetworks.com/

When you think about the length of time most of us spend in our office environment, it’s not surprising to find that there are organisations out there specialising in high quality office furnishings. One such company is Gosh! Projects, whose concept is to create the Gosh or Wow factor by providing excellent customer service, quick lead times and bespoke solutions without compromising on quality. We are happy to announce that Gosh have chosen OpenCRM to fulfil their cloud CRM requirements.

http://www.goshprojects.co.uk/

Global sports events seem to be having an increasing impact on our approach to sports as more and more people are inspired to hit the gyms, cycle paths, football pitches and cricket nets across the UK and beyond. SJD Sports provide a massive selection of school sports hall products for a range of sporting activities and we are delighted to say that SJD Sports have selected OpenCRM as their hosted CRM solution of choice.

http://www.sjdsportsinternational.com/

CF Capital PLC was formed in 1988 and has grown organically to become one of the largest and most powerful broking organisations in the UK. To date, CF Capital has arranged in excess of 300,000 leases and enjoys strong relationships with the UK’s leading banks and financial institutions. We are pleased to announce that CF Capital have chosen to work with OpenCRM for their customer management and relationship needs.

http://thecfgroup.eu/

Smart Assessor have created a new unique e-portfolio with integrated web assessment rooms, delivering the e-portfolio to QCF standard. The solution is designed to benefit assessors, learners and employers alike. We are delighted to be working with and fulfilling the cloud CRM requirements for a company such as Smart Assessor, providing a cutting edge tool to make managing work-life and education as simple as possible.

www.smartassessor.com

Access your OpenCRM data whilst on the move (or even whilst you’re sat on the beach with a Mojito in your other hand).

What can I do ‘out of the box’?

You have options that are baked right into OpenCRM, let’s explore some of these;

Outlook Addin – This lets you bi-directionally synchronise your Calendar and Contacts direct from OpenCRM into Microsoft Outlook. This works with Outlook for Windows 2007, 2010 and 2013 (32 bit). If you are an ActiveSync user your data will be automatically synchronised from Outlook into Exchange and any compatible & connected mobile devices.

Google2OpenCRM – Built into OpenCRM is a powerful synchronisation engine which manages bi-directional synching of Calendar items and Contacts with Google. This includes granular control over which users have permission to synchronise data and how this information will be managed. Including the ability to select specific Calendar and individual Contact folders.

Mobile Browser – Of course whilst on the go you can experience all of the features in your OpenCRM system using your mobile browser. Quick Create and Jump To components make touch access easy on small screens easier to navigate.

All of the features above are provided as standard within all OpenCRM subscriptions.

Mobile Framework

Sometimes you just need more!

Being able to look-up the current credit limit of a customer with their outstanding balance, or clicking the postcode to view their location on a map just brings the data to life!

Having a list of your Opportunities and being able to update your ‘best guess’ whilst on the road, effecting your pipeline and forecasts with the minimum of effort helps keep everyone on the same page.

Having the most recent version of an electronic form delivered to your mobile device, with up to date information with the flexability to work offline just got easier.

In Part Two of this series we will cover what is coming soon for OpenCRM subscribers.

This article looks at how the Projects module in your CRM solution offers you a great tool to help you keep your business under control. When you are busy – and that’s where we hope you are right now – it can be easy to fall into the habit of jumping from one job to another depending on which client is on the phone right now, which email looks nice and easy to deal with, or where deadlines might be catching up on you.

Sometimes a customer job can be larger scale tasks, for example a house renovation, which is delivered in stages and the projects module is the ideal place for you to manage the job. It enables the project manager to set start dates and deadlines to track and monitor the project and ensure that it runs on schedule. Work might be carried out by different professionals and this has to be coordinated so the tasks happen in the appropriate sequence – it would be no use if the painter were to turn up before the plumber had finished – and the project manager can keep track of activities not started and done to ensure such situations do not arise.

So far so good, we can make sure that construction is progressing according to the terms agreed.

Another challenge that faces the project manager is to not allow too much “scope creep” that is to say when the customer add seemingly minor jobs to the original spec, causing the venture to run way past any agreed deadlines and over budget. If the original plan was to concentrate on the house renovation only, jobs involving the garden and garage should be saved for the next project. From the beginning to the point when the original undertaking is completed you can demonstrate to the customer the plans that were drawn up together along with a time schedule which shows the progress as each activity is signed off. This essentially informs both parties that the project has been carried out as agreed from the outset. Now of course customer satisfaction and indeed going beyond in order to delight the customer is essential in today’s highly competitive services industry, and an important part of that is that both you and your customer are happy with the outcome of a completed project.

Recording each task, call and meeting as an activity and collecting these together on a project in your CRM software allows you to make sure projects are run in a logical manner enabling you to stay on target and run your business smoothly. At this finishing point you can look back on a job well done and your client is already loving their new dream house.

This post talks about the importance of having someone within your organisation taking the reins of your CRM project.

It’s been said time and time again, but your CRM solution is only ever going to be as good as the people using it. You can customise, tweak and install the software to do some incredibly clever things – seeing as the system does what you tell it to, it will happily follow those instructions. So if you have created a view but not enabled this for the right users, then the view will remain hidden. If you want users to enter certain data for example email addresses for all new Leads brought into the system but not made this a mandatory field, then you may well find your system gradually filling with incomplete data.

In today’s economic climate it stands to reason that everyone’s days are filled from start to finish, as we try and squeeze as much as we can out of our available resources, and so perhaps the management of the CRM solution is one of those jobs that you’ll “get round to one of these days”. Whilst it’s a good thing and not a bad thing to know that you are busy, it is important to get the implementation of a system right at the beginning – this can help prevent bad habits from forming, incorrect or incomplete data being entered, or perhaps being entered in an inconsistent manner – for example one salesperson inputting new data into the Leads module whereas another salesperson enters their new data into Contacts. It is much harder to wade through bad data in order to tidy it up, than it is to ensure you start off on the right foot.

A good way of keeping your system in line is by adopting a CRM champion – an administrator that embraces the project, sets the system up to match the requirements and ensures that the anticipated benefits of the system are won. Having a CRM champion gives the project a focus and means your users know who to turn to if they have any questions about the system. This encourages user adoption and keeps frustration to a minimum. A further advantage of having someone with a good knowledge and understanding of the system means that your organisation will fully benefit from all the features you need and be prepared for new features and enhancements as they come on board. Isn’t it time you put someone in charge to maximise the ROI of your CRM?

It seems so obvious, yet every week brings a new story of someone not getting it right on the social web. This week’s victim is the newly appointed police Youth Police and Crime Commissioner for Kent, whose inappropriate tweeting behaviour has come to light just a day or so after her position was announced.

If there is a lesson to be learnt, it is probably that the web and in particular social media should not be used for knee-jerk reactions. Something said to a few people in the heat of the moment can usually be contained and rectified with a quiet word/ apology/  later on. But a tweet, comment or blog post becomes property of the public domain the very second you hit publish whether you like it or not. You may well delete a comment when your rational head kicks in, but if what you have posted is of any consequence chances are people will have saved screenshots and the damage is done. Even if you have forgotten about this bump in the road on your social timeline, chances are it will come back to haunt you when you least need it to – simply deleting a message doesn’t make it go away.

It is not just individuals that play with their reputations but employees take the credibility of their companies into question with every misplaced quote or message, so much so that entire websites and consultancies now exist with the sole purpose of crisis-managing social media gaffes.

The social web is erasing many of the boundaries which would have traditionally protected organisations and individuals such as timeliness and geography, however cultural, political and ethical differences are still as strong as they ever have been, and so the danger is that even a message that is harmless to some might be offensive to others and may well cause lasting damage to any respective reputations.

As mentioned at the start of this post, the message to take away is that there is only one internet, which takes place in real time and anything you publish will be archived in this giant virtual library, so the question to ask yourself is – do you really want to be remembered for THAT post forever?

It’s all in the template.

Within OpenCRM you have the ability to set up and store as many email templates as you require. From a thank you email for completing a form on your website, to marketing pieces, to regular customer communications - and all of this can be personalised to send each client a message addressed from you, to them. But email templates are so much more than just a time-saver. Here are five advantages of using templates to send out your communications:

1. Maintain your corporate voice with every communication. As you don’t need to edit the text contained in the email, any person using the template within your organisation can send those emails and not have to worry about “getting the message right”.

2. Personalise the message without needing to search for details. OpenCRM finds and inserts any details from the system into the email if and when needed – client’s name, address, product and pricing details can all be dropped into the mail automatically.

3. Reduce the margin for error. As there is no need to retype anything, you remove a significant chunk of human error and the risk of sending incorrect messages with potentially embarrassing or significant consequences.

4. Use the same message time and time again. You don’t need to retype anything, you don’t even need to copy and paste, the template is stored right there – click on the name and the template loads up for you.

5. Let your formatting and design hits the spot every time. Once a template has been tried and tested, you can start to use a design that will never let you down.

Whether it’s marketing, sales, accounts, management or support, why not take a look at how using email templates within OpenCRM can help your business?

Not all your customers are the same, they all differ – and they do that in all sorts of ways. You may have important clients that invest heavily in your products and services, or casual clients that spend a small amount of money with you every now and then. Some customers may focus on one tiny area of your product portfolio; early adopters may just buy the latest gadget out there regardless of price whereas another customer group will hunt out what’s on special offer, happy to buy last year or end-of-season models for a cheap price.

With this in mind, it’s clear that a blanket marketing approach won’t work as one size does not fit all - the bargain hunter won’t want be pre-ordering the next release at premium price for example, and the customer wanting to be one step ahead of the game will soon look at your competitors if you are not keeping up.

Here’s where a CRM solution comes in, offering you the capacity to segment your data, and this can be as basic or sophisticated as you needs demand. You might just need a few demographics such as age and physical location to enable you to categorise and establish audience groups. But perhaps you need to segment your customer depending on how much money they spend with you, or what type of products they are interested in. In an ideal world, this allows you to pinpoint exactly which people within your customer base are likely to make what purchases, and when.

This gives you a tremendous amount of flexibility – such as knowing when you’ll need to purchase extra stock or bring in additional staff, or at which stage on the sales cycle you can drop the prices on a premium product or relaunch a product within a bundle to stimulate the next customer group. All this means you are not only selling the goods and services needed to keep you going, but you are reducing overheads and managing resources in an effective manner.

Within a small number of fields held in your data and with a couple of reports to show some customer demographics and statistics, you can soon build the mechanism to accurately target and serve your customer base, helping both you and your customers make the most of your data and your CRM.

I have just finished a college course. It kept me busy for over a year and was a fairly intensive thing to do on top of working full-time at OpenCRM and so in all honesty I can’t really say that I’m missing the added workload right now. I learnt a lot during the past year, and one thing I noticed was that every new skill picked up or knowledge gained not only provides you with answers but also opens doors to many more questions. In short, it highlighted the fact that learning never reaches the “Game Over” stage – we are always located somewhere on the learning curve.
Far from being a depressing thought this not only opened my mind to the new knowledge that I have acquired but also enforced the idea that there is so much information, education and skills available out there from which we can all benefit.
Much the same can be said about using and mastering a CRM solution - you never stop learning. The early steps are cautious ones, as you are thrust into a broad and deep world. As time goes by and you learn how the system functions and fits to work together, this wilderness is soon tamed and its capabilities are harnessed for your organisation. But there is always more.
Just as your organisation develops, so does your capacity to do even more using CRM. New ways of segmenting your data are needed and so your system develops. You discover better ways of capturing information about communications with your customers. You start to employ more and more modules, allowing the system to flourish as your intellectual property gains in value when it can be used by accounts and marketing as well as the sales team. More detailed reports show you how each department is performing. This holistic view of your business and your customer base really is within your grasp.
Just as learning a new language or any other skill, it is important to start with the basics and learn how to use those building blocks to create more complex structures and scenarios. With the basics understood, you can start to really unleash the capabilities of an incredibly powerful business tool.