A Tale of Outstanding CRM Vendor Support
So, it was a dark and stormy night. Well, at least dark. At 9 PM, I was working on a fix for a client to automate a complex business process.
On a whim, I emailed the question to WiredContact, expecting an answer sometime the next day.
Instead, Ed, the author of WiredContact, did a remote session at 10:00 PM and installed the necessary feature enhancements. We were done by 10:45 PM.
With 18 years in the software industry under my belt, I have never seen that from a publisher. So, choose your vendors and partners with care. Brand names are cool, but at the end of the day, you need it to work.
I said "tale" as the title;however, this tale actually remains true.
How NOT to Use the Phone to Generate Connections
I was at a client site configuring a CRM system when I heard this conversation.
Caller (Blocked caller ID): Is Dan there ?
JoEllyn: No. He's out of town. Can I help ?
Caller: No. Honey. Just get him on the phone.
JoEllyn: He's out of town until Monday,
Caller: I'm not gonna reduced to a piece of paper. Tell him Gene's on the phone. Get up out of your chair and get him !
JoEllyn: He's not in the office! (Getting annoyed)
Caller: How unprofessional of you! I'm gonna call Dan and tell him you conduct business.
JoElyn: Go for it! Click
Is this the era of Mad Men where men treated women like chattel to get their way ? Belittling someone and attempting to scare them to pass you to a business owner just does not work.
Let's see. "Gene" knew nothing about this place. He only has the INTERNET, Hoovers, Linkedin, ZoomInfo and PR Newswire or Broadlook as tools to learn about Dan before attempting a foolish and outdated method of making connections.
With the wealth of free information and social media, these useless conversations can be reduced.
I'd like to see your comments and thoughts.
At a CRM Consultant's Conference
I am with my industry peers in Washington DC. Gonna learn more about ACT & WiredContact. So far, the conference has confirmed web-based CRM is becoming more accepted.
Find Your Best Source of Leads in ACT!
As you enter data into ACT! make sure you fill in the "Referred By" field; then, you can create a source of referrals report.
Watch a 40 Second Video on How to Find Out Where Your Leads are Coming From
Microsoft Office 2010 & ACT Integration
Be warned ! Microsoft Office 2010 32 bit edition only works with ACT! 2011. If you have an earlier version of ACT!, you have to either upgrade ACT! or downgrade Microsoft Office to 2007 or 2003.
Also please note Microsoft Office has to be installed before ACT! does. This allows ACT! to "see" that Microsoft Office exists and will add the necessary connections.
Here is the article from Sage.