Outlook CRM for Sales & Marketing

Prophet CRM by Avidian

The Irony of CRM

Using CRM is essential and the challenge is providing a solution that is an intuitive extension of what your employees already do each day.

I have asked Managers, “Why would you fire one of your employees”? The answer usually implies that the employee is not doing the BASICS of calling, setting appointments, doing follow-ups and closing business. They think the answer is to track all activities by making their employees record them. Then the Manager will drive those metrics and expect higher productivity and success. Seems logical but not that simple in dealing with day to day reality.

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Inbound Marketing and CRM Strategy

Inbound marketing and customer relationship management both trade on the same basic principle: interacting with your company shouldn’t feel like a chore. In the ideal case for both, customers feel like a valued part of your business and have reasons to come interact with it beyond a new product purchase or need for technical support. Basically, customers should want your world and theirs to overlap more than is minimally necessary.
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Reciprocity — Giving Something to Get Something

Many sales and marketing professionals find themselves in a rut, sooner or later. Even with a well-developed sales script or enough understanding of the field to skip one, they find customers just aren’t interested in what they have to offer. No matter how had or soft the sell is, things seem to fall through every time. Often, this comes with too much focusing on the bottom line–and the more a sales professional focuses on absolutely ensuring a sale gets made, the less selling actually gets done.
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The Right CRM Program Part II–Features & Functions

In our last post, Selecting the Right CRM Program for Your Company, we discussed how a company’s environment and today’s hosting options affect CRM system choices as they relate to long-term business goals. To continue this discussion, here we focus on how to weigh features and functions of CRM programs against those goals.
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Does Your Business Have a Crisis Plan?

Every business should have a public relations strategy that includes a crisis plan. Time is crucial during any major event that a company faces, and wasting that time with figuring out how you intend to stay in contact with key customers and the public as a crisis unfolds can leave a business in shambles. Part of having a solid crisis plan is knowing how to use every tool at your disposal–this becomes especially important as businesses gain access to more (and more varied) channels of communication. Response speeds that might have been acceptable five or even ten years ago might be considered too long in an age of instant information.
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Changes to Expect In Outlook for Office 2016

In addition to its steady rollout of Windows 10, Microsoft has also rolled out another major change to its core: Office 2016. For those who use Outlook for business emails, Office 2016 offers as variety of new, useful features that make it easier to collaborate, share, and communicate. Some features and integration methods are going away as well — businesses should be aware of what systems are changing before making the switch.
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Communications Tech for Better Business & Selling

Businesses today have countless communications tools at their fingertips for keeping things running, from simple telephones and video systems to less traditional applications like productivity workflows. Keeping in touch with employees, coworkers, customers, and stakeholders has become easy and seamless, and lots of technology exists that is designed to fit unique business needs.
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