Sage has announced a Free 30 Day Trial program for the Sage SalesLogix Web Client. This is an exciting offer for anyone that wanted to see what the new Web Client is capable of. You can have access within a day or two by filling out the form here: http://www.techadv.com/sage-saleslogix-crm/sage-saleslogix-free-trial.

Technology Advisors has posted several free SugarCRM White Papers.  You can download them here:

http://www.techadv.com/sugarcrm/sugarcrm-white-papers 

Knowledgesync is an Alerts and Workflow solution for numerous business applications. A few of the more basic uses are:

• Business activity monitoring for events customers want to know about.
• Business Process automation. Automatically deliver confirmations, quotes, thank you emails, etc.
• Alerts for warnings regarding issues with clients.

How can these items be accomplished? Here is a short list of some basic capabilities:

• Triggered emails based on events in a database or email inbox.
• Web dashboards using html with graphs, etc.
• Deliver crystal reports via email as a pdf on a schedule.
• Trigger crystal reports sent as a pdf to a group of people.
• Inbound email marketing
• Triggered updates integrating several databases or applications.

Off the top of my head, I can see several very good uses for this application within Technology Advisors for the Customer Advocate position.
Such as:

• Automatically send pdf ticket reports to customers.
• Send alerts to the Customer Advocate and Support about issues that need to be followed up for a customer.
  • Tickets, Contract Status, etc.
• Alert emails to Customers and the Customer Advocate
  • Tickets opened & closed.
• Alerts to the Customer Advocate
  • Ticket without an updated for 7(3?) days.
  • Customers the Customer Advocate has not contacted in the last 30 days.

These basic functions would not take long to setup, but could save our users several hours a week in effort. Not to mention avoiding headaches from issues that might slip through the cracks otherwise.

Best of all, SalesLogix users can download a free 30 day trial at http://www.sageknowledgesync.com. For best results, I would advise our customers to work with Technology Advisors to make sure the trial is beneficial and used to its fullest potential.

Has Business Intelligence (BI) caught the attention of your executive team? Have you recently become aware of BI because your competitor's are effectively using it to grow their market share? If you are like many business or technology leaders, you are contemplating how BI can help your organization.

This FREE webinar will provide a framework for determining if your organization is ready for BI by:

• Providing a brief overview of BI
• De-mystifing the scope and complexity of BI
• Discussing the areas you need to assess
• Identifying what to look for during the assessment phase
• Highlighting tools and techniques to move your assessment forward

For more information about this or future FREE webinars, visit our webinar website http://www.techadv.com/webinars.

To register for this FREE webinar, visit our registration page https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/661587744.

Entrepreneur.com has an article up on 5 Simple Ways to Show Customers You Care:

1. Share Your Knowledge
2. Ask, Listen, Respond, Adapt
3. Reward Customers
4. Hold a Customer Appreciation Event
5. Do Good

It's a great article and I recommend you check out. Here is my take on how you can apply these points to your own business.

1. Sharing Your Knowledge.  Social CRM is here.  As has always been the case, with it you can manage your e-mail newsletters.  You can now also manage your incoming and outgoing Social CRM communications with applications such as Twitter or Facebook.

2. Ask, Listen, Respond, Adapt.  Without a CRM application, how will you be able to keep track of all of your correspondence with your customers.  Newer CRM packages have the ability to integrate with all forms of communications.  Fax, Email, Snail Mail, Twitter, Facebook, Linked In, etc.

3. Reward Customers.  With the proper CRM application you can track Campaigns where you use Coupons, Gifts, Events, Targeted Mailers, Phone Calls, Social Media, etc.

4. Hold a Customer Appreciation Event.  Customer Appreciate Events or User Groups are a great way to keep your name in a customers mind.  With CRM you are able to invite your customers or potential customers to the events, track registrations and report on attendance and survey results.

5. Do Good.  Doing good is a great thing, but how will your customers know about it if you aren't able to track and effectively communicate your "good."

Using newer CRM products goes far beyond just a giant electronic Rolodex of names and phone numbers.  With a properly setup CRM application and trained user base, you should be able to manage your complete customer experience from prospect to repeat business.  And then some.

The Illinois Technology Foundation, a Chicago-based non-profit organization dedicated to fueling the technology talent and human capital pipeline through facilitated collaboration between academia and industry, has begun accepting nominations for 50 for the Future, an event honoring Illinois’ most promising technology students. 

The event, now in its fourth year, is designed to provide students using technology in innovative ways a means to excel by connecting them with business leaders early in their academic careers.  The program is open to candidates enrolled in institutions of higher learning throughout Illinois. 

Over 30 of the region’s top technology companies, supporting organizations, and institutions of higher learning have become involved in the competition, offering their C-level executives as judges. 

Students who win the award will receive recognition at an April event attended by the competition’s judges and nominators, have access to prospective employers via round tables, web seminars and mentoring programs through the Illinois Technology Foundation, and will have preferred status for limited-capacity activities. 

To find out more information or to nominate an outstanding technology student, visit www.50forthefuture.org.

Crmbuyer.com has a story up on CRM for the small business, specifically on when to invest.  There is some good information in there.

When to Buy

When small businesses start out, they are usually focused on building a list of prospects and customers, noted Garns. The value of a business is usually in the size and quality of that list.

Read the full story here.

Sage has posted a step by step guide to custom form development with Visual Studio for anyone adventurous enough to give it a try.  You can see the guide here:  http://community.sagesaleslogix.com/t5/The-Sage-SalesLogix-Journal/Step-by-Step-Guide-to-Custom-Form-Development-with-Visual-Studio/ba-p/7548

The What's New in Sage SalesLogix 7.5.2 and Mobile 5.6 webcast recording is now available for download here. Thank you to everyone that attended one of the two webcasts. Nearly 300 attendees took part with an extremely active Q&A session. We are very excited about the latest realeases and it appears that you are as well! Here are just a few of the highlights we covered:

• Solid platform for LAN & Web
• Enhanced Activity and Reminder handling
• Sales Library parity between LAN and Web
• Sales Order improvements 
• Support for the newest mobile devices
• Improved Calendar integration between mobile, Exchange Link and Advanced Outlook Integration

If you have any questions about these exciting releases, please feel free to contact us any time.

Microsoft has released Update Rollup 8. This is a tested, cumulative set of updates for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0. It includes performance enhancements that are packaged together for easy deployment.

 More information is available at the Microsoft website here.