Technology Advisors, Inc.

from CRM Buyer by Christopher J. Bucholtz

With CRM, timing is everything. Investing in CRM technology too early can hurt adoption, miss critical changes in the business, and represent a wasted investment. How can you tell when the time is right to jump to a CRM system? No. 1 on the list should be your ultimate alarm system, your customers.

http://www.crmbuyer.com/rsstory/70784.html?wlc=1284037271

Sam Biardo was interviewed at SugarCON in San Francisco, California about CRM, Open Source and helping users build better customer relationships.

Des Plaines, IL - May 17, 2010 - Technology Advisors, a leading Midwest Business and Technology Solutions Consulting Company, announced today a partnership with Vineyardsoft Corporation for the rollout of Blackbird, a centralized alert command center for users of the Sage KnowledgeSync Alerts and Workflow solution.

Extending Sage KnowledgeSync's inherent alert delivery capabilities, Blackbird provides each user with a dynamic, interactive list of their alerts and activities. From this list, a user may both view the details behind a "triggered event," and also mark the event as "complete," thus removing it from their list of to-do items.
Complementing Sage KnowledgeSync's workflow capabilities, Blackbird provides direct links from a user's list of tasks to the appropriate option within the corresponding business application. For example, when Sage KnowledgeSync alerts an account manager that a sales opportunity has not be followed-up on, Blackbird's dynamic to'do list not only displays that alert, but allows a user to double-click on that message and go right to the sales record of that opportunity within their CRM solution.

Similarly, when Sage KnowledgeSync detects that a stock item is running low (and sends an alert including a purchase order), an employee working in finance will see the PO request listed in their Blackbird window and can simply click on that item to automatically approve or deny the PO for processing.

Like Sage KnowledgeSync, Blackbird can be tied to any number of 3rd party applications so that individual users, regardless of department, have a single interactive window from which they can manage and act on alerts and assigned tasks across their organization. The combination of Blackbird and Sage KnowledgeSync effectively bridges the gap between delivered alerts and the need for users to manage and respond to their action items.

The initial release of Blackbird will include pre-configured connectivity to Sage Software's SalesLogix CRM product line and to the Sage MAS500 ERP solution.

"The addition of Blackbird to Sage KnowledgeSync brings true closed-loop Workflow Management to the Sage Software community," says James Murphy, CEO of Vineyardsoft. "An alert is only as useful as a recipient's ability to see it, act on it, and complete related activities. Blackbird is an interactive management console that gives each user a quick, easy, and friendly way to manage and respond to their alerts."

"Sage KnowledgeSync has always been the best solution for providing the right information to the right people at the right time," said Sam Biardo, CEO of Technology Advisors, "but getting users to take the appropriate action in response to an alert was not always easy for users. The Blackbird add-on to Sage SageKnowledgeSync gives users the ability to track and complete tasks instantly - and does so in a cost-effective and easy-to-use solution."

Pricing for Blackbird is set at $36 per year for each user. For more information, and to download a Free Blackbird demo, visit http://www.techadv.com/blackbird.

View Official Press Release

After this Wednesday, March 31, 2010, SugarCRM will no longer provide customer support, maintenance patches or bug fixes for Sugar 5.1.0.

Check the End of Version plan to learn about the upcoming End of Version dates.

This update contains a few bug fixes and a slew of improvements to the email functionality.  "The Emails module has been redesigned to improve usability and performance. New features have been added and existing features have been enhanced or removed."

The following features have been added or enhanced:

•  A new Quick Compose form provides the ability to quickly compose emails from other records, such as accounts, without leaving a List View or a Detail View. You can access this form outside of the email client by clicking on any email address or by clicking the "Compose Email" button in the Activities sub-panel of a record's detail view.
• The Address Book has been redesigned to make selecting recipients for emails easier. You can easily identify and select email recipients from related records.
• The Search form for finding imported emails has been expanded, and now includes the following fields: Subject, From, To, Date From, Date Until, Relate To, Assigned To, Attachment.
• The Settings window in the email client has been redesigned for ease of use.
• The Mail Account tab in the Settings window has been redesigned and simplified for ease of use.
• The Folders tab has been removed and a Folder management section has been added to the General tab.
• Inbound Email setup has been redesigned to make it easier for administrators to create group mail accounts.
• Administrators can configure outgoing mail accounts for users.
• A "Send Test Email" button has been added to test outgoing email settings.
• Error messaging has been improved for invalid and incomplete mail account settings.
• The user interface has been enhanced so that viewing, importing and sending emails can be done within the email client, without accessing additional views in the Emails module shortcuts menu.
• Users can assign the email record to another user during and after import.

You can read the full release notes on the SugarCRM website here.

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.

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.