Who are you?  Let your vision and mission statement take the center stage.  The customer purchase cycle has recently undergone a huge change; it’s all about informed decisions which depend heavily on word of mouth and feedback from others in the industry.  Mention it in your website, blog, and social media profiles.  Keep a web contact page that encourages people to ask questions and interact. They could be potential leads!

What do you offer?  Let them know about your products and what you can do to help them.  Collaborative effort helps businesses.  As a small business owner you should join communities, spread the word, attend webinars and seminars, try hosting your own webinars and seminars, and give away free e-books and whitepapers.  Share your knowledge and you will become a valuable thought leader in your industry.

Stay connected.  Newsletters are a great way to stay connected with your audience. Don’t fill it with industry jargon and repeated information on your company; instead keep it simple with useful information your contacts will appreciate.  In return for the valuable content you provide, you can expect referrals.  Always keep an option to sign up for your newsletter on your blog/website.

Write!  Your subject matter expertise is as good as your offering.  Write in company blogs, publish white papers, and volunteer to send contributions to award-winning blogs and websites. This will enable you to build a community that supports you and stays loyal to you.

Be thankful.  Thank your readers and customers—they are the reason your company is afloat!   Send thank you emails to loyal customers and also to interested prospects.  This will allow you to keep the conversation going in order to find out more about them and their needs. Be human; it’s not always about sales, and establishing a good relationship goes a long way.

Soffront’s marketing automation can help you stay connected to your customers and anticipate their needs with email automation and campaign performance tracking.  To find out how Soffront CRM Software can help you acquire and keep loyal customers, call us at 1-800-SOFFRONT or take a free CRM test drive.

Research firm M2 says that by 2016, the gamification market, currently sized at $100,000,000 will reach $2.8 billion, with 200% growth in 2012.  “Gamification describes the broad trend of employing game mechanics to non-game environments such as innovation, marketing, training, employee performance, health and social change,” said Brian Burke, analyst at Gartner.  The goal of gamification is simply to achieve higher levels of engagement, change behaviours and stimulate innovation.

An integrated CRM system is another essential way to provide an interactive customer engagement experience.  With a fully integrated CRM system, you will be able to monitor customer suggestions, feedback, and customer interactions from start to finish through the entire sales cycle starting with initial contact to customer service and defect resolution.

Soffront offers an integrated CRM that spans sales, marketing, customer service, project management, defect tracking, and more.  To find out how Soffront can enable you to engage your customers, call us at 1-800-SOFFRONT or take a free CRM test drive.

Reference article:    2012 is the era of customer engagement

It has been widely documented that when a customer has a good experience they will tell around 4 people about it.  Unfortunately for businesses, that number can double or triple when it comes to who they tell about a particularly bad experience.  And the worst part is that frequently customers won’t even tell you, the company—they’ll just go straight to complaining to their friends and family and you’ll be left in the dark as to why you are losing business.

So in a day and age where automation is king, how do businesses ensure they are still providing excellent customer service?  A human touch is the key.

While customer service automation is great to a point, make sure you have ways customers can escalate to a real human being when needed.  Sometimes people just want to make sure they are really being heard and not just getting canned messages from a robot.

So ensure that you have at least a couple ways people can connect to your customer service department when they are unhappy, such as a special email address, message board, or phone number that can be given out when regular customer service automation just isn’t cutting it for them.  They will be grateful for the human touch, and you will gain much-needed insight into customer frustrations.

Don’t forget that it takes much more time and resources to gain new customers than it does to maintain current customers, so it’s in the best interest of your business to make sure they are happy.

To find out how Soffront can help your business provide many ways for your customers to contact you, call us at 1-800-SOFFRONT or take a free CRM test drive.

Many companies use an integrated customer relationship management (CRM) solution to automate their business processes, which leads to higher employee efficiency and increased ROI.  So which type of CRM automation does your company need to excel in 2012?  Find out below.

Let’s take a look at a few of the main types of CRM modules:

Sales Automation

Allows you to track leads from initiation to closure within a single, easy-to-use application.

• Forecast better and manage opportunities more effectively
• Identify and focus on the most profitable opportunities
• Create quotes and invoices, and e-mail or print them
• All customer information such as addresses, contacts, notes, activities, quotes, POs, and invoices are available in one place for easy reference

Marketing Automation

Provides a closed-loop solution for campaign planning, execution, and results measurement.

• Plan multi-channel campaigns with a configurable workflow for design, approval, and rollout
• Collaborate with multiple departments and create a cross-functional action plan
• Slice and dice information to optimize your marketing strategy
• Execute personalized and targeted direct and electronic campaigns to acquire new prospects and strengthen existing relationships
• Measure the results of the campaign in real-time to get a handle on campaign ROI
• Monitor the results continuously and improve marketing ROI

Customer Support

Helps manage customer support tickets from submission to resolution.

• Create tickets and assign them to support reps automatically
• Dynamically generate action buttons that guide customer support reps through the defined process
• Know where every ticket stands in the resolution process and ensure no ticket slips through the cracks
• Access account and contact information related to the ticket
• Send an electronic survey to measure customer satisfaction after a ticket is closed
• Generate reports to measure CSR productivity and customer satisfaction

Project Management

Enables companies to improve utilization by keeping the right resources on the right project and provides a central location for managing the key aspects of projects, including their status and target completion dates.

• Manage and plan resources based on skills and availability
• Conduct team activities with a shared view of the project information, activity alerts, and a collaborative calendar
• Resolve conflicts in project schedules and get better visibility into key project activities

So whether it’s sales automation, marketing automation, or customer support, use an automated, integrated CRM system to refine and improve your business processes this year.  Soffront Software offers all of these modules and more.  To find out more about how Soffront can help your 2012 be a success, visit www.soffront.com or take our free CRM test drive.

With just a few days left until Christmas, panic might be setting in as you realize the large amount of holiday cards you still have to send.    This year, don’t fret, let marketing automation do the work for you.

To create a great holiday card that your contacts will love, all you need is a holiday picture or photo of your office staff, and a well-written holiday template.  You can also create a video to link to within   the card to make it more interactive.

Once you’ve created your card template, marketing automation makes it easy by identifying the contacts you want to send the card to and letting you easily send it to them.

Soffront CRM and Snapshot CRM make email marketing automation a snap!  To find out more, visit www.soffront.com or www.snapshotcrm.com.

Large companies have realized that they can be the most efficient by automating processes, saving themselves time and money, ultimately benefiting their bottom line.  Take a look at McDonald’s for example.  They have fine-tuned the art of running a fast food restaurant.  From cooking the burgers to measuring condiments, every single detail is measured and automated so the company is as cost-effective and time-efficient as it can possibly be.

Now, a small business owner might thing to himself, “I just don’t have the time or resources to automate processes like the big guys do.”  But that’s where he’s wrong!  A good CRM (customer relationship management) system can help small businesses automate and fine tune processes for relatively low to no cost, depending on the program they choose.  A CRM solution is vital for any business to grow because it helps automate many processes such as sending email responses, scheduling follow-ups, rescheduling calls and meetings, and measuring results.

To find out more about how CRM can help your business streamline processes and increase ROI, contact Soffront at 1-800-SOFFRONT or request a free demo.

Last week it happened to one of my friends: He had left the office and ended up unprepared for an important call.  A gold star customer called and wanted to renew their contract right away with his company.  The customer asked him to give him a 20% discount.  Not wanting to miss the opportunity, he fumbled and agreed, even though he did not know the details of his contract.  The meeting with his boss didn’t go so well the next day.

So what can you do to make sure you are on the ball when you are away from the office? Many CRM companies will now provide you with a mobile version of their application, which works as CRM on the go.  These are pared down versions of your regular CRM application and are easily accessible from your smartphone.  Having CRM on your mobile device will allow you close critical deals with ease, even when you are not at the office.

Soffront CRM has recently introduced a new easy to use version of their mobile module.  To check out Soffront mobile, click here.  For more information on how Soffront can help increase your productivity when you’re on the move, call 1-800-SOFFRONT or schedule a free demo.

So how can we prioritize our workload and streamline our work processes to be more efficient?  Just the task of going through daily emails, understanding the context, and answering them in order of priority is a task that slows many people down throughout the day, reducing their productivity.

But how do we stay afloat in the never ending cycle of increasing technology = increased workloads?  Savvy workers use a CRM (customer relationship management) system to stay organized and to prioritize their tasks throughout the day.

Here are a few great ways to leverage the awesome power of an effective CRM solution to keep you organized and productive:

Integrate your email accounts into your CRM. Integrating email into your CRM has huge advantages, such as ensuring your emails, contacts, and tasks are all in one easily accessible place.

Send batch emails.  Rather than spending the time crafting an email to each individual person you need to follow up with, you can send personalized emails to multiple recipients which are automatically saved in the CRM records for future reference.

Use follow-up reminders.  A CRM can schedule various reminders so you can easily keep track of who to follow up with and when.

Attach notes and documents to contacts.  You can attach various notes and other documents such as quotes or purchase orders to a contact’s record so you can access it easily and retrieve it in an instant.

Use auto-responders.   You can set up auto response emails to certain email requests that you get regularly so that you don’t have to retype the same information over and over for similar requests, and do it all without having to lift a finger!

Although technology vs. workload could be a never-ending battle, you can stay ahead of the curve for now by taking advantage of an effective CRM solution.  Soffront CRM spans sales, marketing, customer service and more.  To find out more on how Soffront CRM can help you organize your day, call 1-800-SOFFRONT or schedule a free demo.

For example, if a customer calls the shipping department of an online shoe store and says they never received their shipment, the shipping manager might check the records, see that there was an error, and send the shoes out to the customer.  Problem solved, right?  Not necessarily.  Because what the shipping manager didn’t know was that after speaking with him, the customer called customer service to complain as well, and the customer service representative put in a request to shipping to send out the package.  Now the customer will end up with two pairs of the same shoes, making the company look unprofessional and also losing profit at the same time.

With an effective CRM solution, no man or department is an island.  Everyone uses the same system, and is able to access the entire history of interactions with a specific customer from start to finish.  That means that in the earlier scenario, the customer service representative would have immediately seen that the shipping manager already corrected the error and would not have sent out another pair of shoes to the customer.

If you want to ensure that all the departments in your company are working together as one well-oiled machine, then look into an integrated CRM solution.  Soffront CRM’s modules span sales, marketing, customer service, help desk, and more.

To find out more about Soffront, call 1-800-SOFFRONT or schedule a free demo.

Tip #1: Watch the Time

You have limited time at networking events, so use it effectively. Arrive early, about 15 to 30 minutes before the event starts, so you can start meeting people right away. Don’t spend too much time talking to one person. You need to meet as many as possible in the short time you have. It’s not rude to say, “It was great meeting you; let’s keep in touch! There are a few more people I would like to meet today.”

Tip #2: Make Good Use of Business Cards

Always bring plenty of business cards and always ask people for their card when you meet them. Since you will be speaking to a lot of people, it’s a good idea to take notes on the back of the card. You should also prioritize the cards. Use a system such as numbering 1, 2, or 3 on the card to designate who to contact right away, who to send email to, and who to discard. Also, take pictures using your smart phone with people you meet to remember the face with the name.

Tip #3: Follow Up with Your Contacts

When you return from the event, don’t let the cards sit on your desk like most people do. Make sure you enter or scan them into a contact management system. If you don’t enter your new contacts right away, you will probably not follow up with them. Once they are in your contact database, you can also enter your notes from the networking event. Be sure to invite them to join you on LinkedIn and other social networks. Add your new contacts to an email marketing campaign that will send periodic emails about your products and services to keep them up to date.

Effective networking requires many things, but there are a couple items that can ensure your success: a contact management database or CRM (customer relationship management) software, and email marketing. There are many choices in the market for each of these individually, but Soffront combines both CRM and email marketing at an affordable price.

Soffront provides two CRM solutions. Soffront CRM for mid-size businesses and Snapshot CRM for small businesses. These products combine these two functions at an affordable price. They are also simple to use, which will save you a time. For more information on how Soffront can help your small to medium-sized business, visit www.soffront.com, and for small business CRM, check out www.snapshotcrm.com.