And the winner is...

A big congratualtions to Catherine MacLennan who has won FREE CRM software for a year.

Here at PPD Computing we look forward to speaking and working with you to help you increase your customer service and many other things along the way.

Last Day to win FREE CRM Software

LAST CHANCE! Today, 2nd March 2008, is the last day for 4Networkers to submit entries to win CRM Software free for a whole year.

Enter online at www.ppdcomputing.co.uk no later than midnight March 2nd, 2009. Our competition is open to all 4Networkers, but dont worry if this does not include you, you can sign up for the free online membership today and still be included in the random draw.

The competition winner will be picked at the 4Networking event in Leeds on the 4th or March and will be contacted by email and telephone.

Some relevant details:

• We will accept entries till 11:59 PM EST tonight. A little leeway will be allowed because of time differences across the world. However we will not accept any entries that come in tomorrow.


• Please make sure that all entrants are registered on the 4Networking website, only members including those with a free online membership will be included


• Once all the entries are in and checked, our randomising software will pick a winner.

Good Luck!

How much has the snow days cost UK businesses?

Today (the 4th of February 2009) as I look out of the office window I can still see mounds of snow on the ground and the odd snow shower falling from the sky. I know the past few days have been horrendous for businesses and BBC Weather is still predicting more snow to come.

This made me think, what effect and problems does this snow cause? Well, I did a bit of research and found some nice little facts for you about the last two days...

1. Over 6 million workers took the day off on Monday and over 5 million on Tuesday because of the snow
2. London bus network was halted
3. This cost the economy over 3.4 billion pounds
4. The AA received over 16000 calls from motorists requiring assistance

I am sure you will agree with me when I say on Monday morning and probably again on Tuesday - you got out of bed, opened your curtains and thought one of two things

1. how am I supposed to get to work?
2. how many of my staff will come to work this morning?

I'm sure we would all agree that when we did get to work and you heard the phone ring we got a different reaction that normal. We usually think ' a new opportunity - maybe a new client', yet on these days we got that feeling in the pit of our stomach that it was yet another employee calling to say they will not be at work today. Try and think back and remember what did they miss by not working? how much did that cost you and your business? Did you have to delay work? Maybe lost work?

The question I ask you all today is this...why do they need to be at work to do work? Just think about that for a second... I'm aware that in some cases you do have to be on site, but in most cases the things you need are the essential resources such as the telephone, email, and the most important all your contact information and history.

How would you feel if I said all your employees could have these essential resources at home, therefore, when days like the past few happen - your business can carry on as normal.

A hosted CRM solution (Web based CRM Software) does just that. It provides you with the tools to be able to work from anywhere in the world through an internet connection. Hosted CRM Software provides you access to not only all your customer information and customer interaction history - but also your diary, your daily tasks, even allows you to carry on sending that personalised 'bulk' email marketing.

Problem solved - work from home hassle free!

Lesson 4 - Finding your perfect CRM - What to look for and ask providers

Finding the perfect CRM can be a daunting task for many people and businesses. But it doesn't need to be once you break it all down into simple steps. This can be broken down into

1. Things to remember before looking at a CRM
2. Where are you now and where do you want to be? What type of CRM do I need? A needs assessment
3. Questions to ask the provider
4. Implementing a CRM

Things to remember

It’s all about the customer
Before you embark on a CRM adventure, you have to remember it’s about your customers as much as it is about you. Think about how and what is needed to improve how they interact with you and your organisation.

Understand CRM, it is not just software
A CRM does not guarantee great customer service. CRM is much more that a software solution, it is an organisation wide philosophy, even with the technology; it is still about the people within your businesses.

Promote organisation-wide adoption
One of the key elements to securing a CRM success is the user adoption. By involving them in your software needs assessment you have addressed their needs, and they feel part of the process. This will help create positive perceptions from the outset for your new solutions and incredibly boost the adoption rate. Offer them training on the software solution before it is activated so they are as comfortable and confident as possible with the new solutions. This gives you valuable time to receive feedback from the users and give you time to make any chances to the system

A needs assessment

That leads nicely onto our 2nd point - the needs assessment.

We all know that planning is the most important aspect when investing in anything - and it is the exact same with a new software solution, and a key part of the planning process is completing a needs assessment. The four key aspects to CRM failure are being over budget, too little or too much functionality, behind scheduled implementation, and user adoption. All of this can be avoided by completing a need assessment. Establish a core team of individuals, including a project manager, to oversee and manage the whole process. A CRM solution is one of the most valuable tools your organisation will have at is disposal, therefore allocate time in your dairy to hold a team meeting and complete a need assessment.

We know this can be difficult to do because some users are in customer facing roles and need to concentrate on serving your customers. Therefore, try and elect one person from each area that has the responsibility to collect the views of their selection of users. This will not only help you make knowledgeable decisions that are beneficial to all areas of your organisation, but also improve the success of the implementation of your CRM solution because you have the time and views to determined the budget, the timescale, and the features the users want, which will improve the user adoption rate of the new solution.

All businesses are different and different needs and objectives will need to be discussed within your needs assessment. However, your needs assessment should include some of these key points:

• Analysis of your current process and highlight which ones are working, which are not, why?
• What is it about our current system that is most frustrating or troublesome?
• What steps are required to solve the problem?
• What do we want to achieve?
• Is new software the solution to our problems?
• What will happen to your organisation if these changes are not addressed?
• Do we need a CRM?
• Do we need online CRM, on premise CRM or a combination?
• How many system users will we have? Don’t forget to include administration, technical, customer service representatives and off premise users.
• What features, and key fields will do we need?
• What reporting capabilities will we need?
• When do we need the CRM in place?
• What is our budget?
• Is they a solution currently available that matches our requirements?
• What type of CRM do we need? off the shelf? tailored? bespoke solution? Look at Lesson 2 - Types of CRM for more info

By asking yourself these questions you will be able to find a CRM solution and provider, that emulates the positive ways you do business as well as incorporating and helping you achieve your future business goals.

Questions to Ask

Choosing the CRM solution is much more than choosing the right CRM software, you have to think about the CRM provider. Would you want a solution that had little or no support? How about overseas call centres? All this has to be included in choosing the perfect CRM for you and your business. With so many companies in the CRM marketplace, how can you find the best provider and solution for your unique business? It all begins with asking the right questions during the initial process to help you make a smarter, and more informed purchasing decision.

Get the information you need from the CRM provider by and asking the following questions…

• What is your history? How long have you been providing this software?
• Do you specialise in any industries?
• Costs and pricing structure of the software? One off fee? Annual / monthly fee? Charge per user? Charge for storage? Charge on amount of contacts?
• Can we speak to your clients? Contact them directly? View testimonials?
• Can we see a demonstration?
• What installation timescale can we expect? Any costs with this?
• What kind of support and training is provided? Any costs for this?
• Will the solution grow and adapt as we do? Will they be additional charges?
• Will the system work/transfer data from our original system?
• What kind of support is provided? Is they a charge?
• Does the supplier provide consultancy? Costs again?
• How secure is my data?

You should also consider…

• Are we ready?
• Have we completed software needs assessment?
• Do we need online CRM, on premise CRM or a combination?
• What features do we need?
• How challenging will it be to introduce?
• How supportive are our staffs to new software?

The debate

Anything you would like to add to this? Do you have any other questions people should ask CRM providers? How about additional things to think about during the needs assessment process?

Lesson 3 - Benefits of CRM

I am sure we would all agree, in times like this we need to look after your existing customers effectively and concentrate our efforts in finding new clients. The more you know about your customers, the better the relationship, the better the relationship, the more trust you have and the easier it is to identify and increase your customer base.

Even with years of accumulated knowledge about your contact you can always improve. Each and every one of your customers need change over time, their likes and dislike change, their contact base change, and this technology can make it easier to record and find out more about customers and ensure that everyone in an organisation can exploit this information.

As organisations become aware that the intensifying customer relationships, including retention, satisfaction, and loyalty, are the responsibility of the whole organisation and not an individual department or team, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems are becoming organisations primary objective.

Experienced organisations have realised that CRM enhances performance, client relationships and interactions or ‘touch points’ through accurate and organised documentation, knowledge of their clients, and professionalism.

In basic terms a CRM helps you bring together all your customer information into one centralised location. It helps you manage and use the customer information you have to your own ends more effectively- whether that is marketing, customer service, selling.

These are just 10 ways a CRM system will improve your business

1. Improved Organisation Performance and Productivity
the centralisation of data results in faster customer service, improved data accuracy and the ability to quickly and easily access and share information to boost your productivity

2. Improve Decision Making Through Better Client Knowledge
have a sharper competitive edge, enabling you to sell more effectively and attract new customers.

3. Improve Call-Centre Efficiency and Service:
in a call centre, a CRM system enables employees to quickly and effectively access the client information to decrease the time of the call. Call Centres can also automatically identify incoming calls and instantly loads a complete client history ready for the employee.

4. Any time Information Access:
the web access option gives mobile employees instant access to the centralised data to support their all their activities to improve their time efficiency while also being more prepared and knowledgeable when interacting with your clients.

5. Improve Client Profitability
have the information to create and sustain individual client relationships and boost client satisfaction to maximise profits. A CRM system can also help you identify and market to your most profitable customers. This approach allows you to increase your marketing efficiency while reducing the cost.

6. Store, Report and Analyse Customer Feedback
including quality control and evaluation results, to ensure a prompt reaction to any scenario that may arise.

7. Professional Quality Controlled Documentation
when your templates and documents are held in one location your organisation improves and you can easily achieve a consistent brand image

8. Better Management Information
parameter driven reports, history tables, instant data field creation for the information you didn't know you needed yesterday.

9. Enhanced Quality Checking
including a range of built-in features, such as a the Automatic Version to check you are working from the latest version and full audits of all actions between your organisation(s) and your client.

10. Minimise Delays
you can start using and benefiting from the powerful features of a CRM immediately, with migration of your current data and virtually no disruption to your everyday operations, you can carry on doing what you do best.

11. Greater Accountability and Improved Team Working
CLIM8's unique multiple organisation structure for data means separate partner organisations or external organisations can safely share core data. Each organisation can be optionally made aware of each other's activities, but security features allow them to remain autonomous on selected data and information.

12. Other benefits

• Identifying needs more effectively
• Increased sales through better timing due to anticipating needs based on historic trends
• Identifying which of your customers are profitable
• Effective targeted marketing communications aimed specifically at customer needs
• A more personal approach
• Enhanced customer satisfaction and retention
• Increased value from your existing customer

here are just a few of many benefits of Hosted CRM Software

• Quick deployment time
• Cheaper set-up and maintenance costs
• Lower hardware costs
• Less risk
• Global accessibility
• Increase return on investment
• Automatic updates and patch management

OK, so I said they would be 10 but we all like that little extra

Do you have any benefits you have noticed from CRM Software? Can you think of any more - I Know I can think of many more which I can include further down the road...