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  • Small Business CRM Software

    What is a Small Business CRM?

    A CRM Software helps build business relationships and lets a company focus all their attention on the clients. Small Business CRM is CRM software that is specifically tailored for a Small-Scale Business while keeping all of the needs as a typical small-scale business. It involves many functionalities like maintaining all of the Client communications in one go, giving a better view of the sales reports and providing with a better insight on the marketing strategy effectiveness, and more all of this specifically tailored to the Small Business.

    Now we know what a Small Business CRM is let’s discuss why you need a Small Business CRM.

    Why do you need a Small Business CRM?

    When often thinking about opting for a Small Business CRM for the Small-scale company you might ask that why should a company opt for a small business CRM? also what will be the benefits of a Small Business CRM?

    These are some of the reasons why the small-scale business company might need a Small Business CRM:

    • It organizes all of the company’s sales reports, emails, roles, and much more in one place thereby making it much easier for you to see the bigger picture.
    • It helps the company to get full insights on the Market strategy and provides you with a precise Sales report to propel the business even further.
    • It gives a small-scale business owner to deal with a variety of issues that the business might face. It includes customer sales decrease, various mismatches between corporate revenue objectives, and salespeople’s territory management among others.
    • It helps a company to manage the customers in one go.
    • It gives better insights into the client base thus helping you to create better strategies for much better outcomes.
    • It reduces the workload as a company by providing you with accurate financial reporting.
    • It minimalizes the risk of losing the data as it stores all of the data in the cloud thus giving an extra layer of protection for the precious data.

    Why FinCRM.com for the Small Business?

    There are various reasons why you should choose FinCRM.com for the CRM as unlike other small Business CRM present out there. FinCRM.com provides you with the software which you can install on your server which allows you to customize it according to the business. While allowing you all the important functionalities which any top-tier Small Scale business needs to thrive in this competitive world.

    These features include dynamic dashboard to get different types of insights on the daily sales and marketing reports thus helping you to better plan the marketing strategy with ease.

    FinCRM.com software is specially designed while keeping in mind all the diverse needs the Small-Scale business may have like customer management, project management, sales management and so much more.

    Key Features of FinCRM.com

    Contact Management
    With FinCRM.com Contact Management feature which is fully dedicated to providing you and the business with all of the crucial information regarding the business Contacts thus making it easier for you to better understand the contacts in a whole new way.

    CRM Dashboard
    FinCRM provides you with a modern and adequate CRM Dashboard which has many different features like Sales reports, Lead management, Orders, and much more to help you and the small business thrive. It gives the real-time information about the potential leads with the most recent deals, including deal titles, lead names, and lead amounts.

    CRM Software

    Web to Lead
    With FinCRM’s Web to Lead Feature you can directly capture different types of potential leads directly from the website and enter them into the CRM which makes it easier for you to generate much more promising and potential leads in one go.

    Database Management
    FinCRM Provides its customers with a dedicated Database management feature that allows you to store the contacts, potential leads, emails, the customer info, and phone numbers all in one centralized place which provides you with faster and easy access to the data.

    Lead Management
    FinCRM has a devoted lead management feature that allows you to access all the vital information about the lead in a much simpler way.

    Accounts Management
    With the FinCRM accounts management feature you can easily manage and view all of the account’s vital details which include contact information, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses, as well as sales data in one place.

    Reports and Analytics
    With Reports and Analytics you can easily view the product reports, potentialleads, the sales pipeline, and sales forecast in a much seamless graphical format.

    Rest API
    With Rest API developers can interact with the site remotely and more securely by sending and receiving data which can also be used to develop various custom mobile applications to make the business flourish.

    Ticket Management
    FinCRM is equipped with dedicated ticket management which helps you to manage all the complaints and issues from various sources in one place while keeping track of all of them for you. This helps in fast issue resolution and thus increases the overall productivity of the business.

    These are some of the features which FinCRM offers for the small business at an affordable rate.

    Conclusion
    Every small business needs a CRM Software these days. FinCRM provides the best CRM for Small Business. It provides an all in one solution for small businesses with a set of powerful features of sales, marketing and project management to improve a company’s productivity and sales.

  • Self-Hosted CRM Software

    The primary goal of CRM Software is to grow the business by focusing on improving business relationships. It involves customer contact management, sales management, and so on. With CRM Software, companies can manage their customer relationships all through the sales lifecycle. This then defines the quality of service you offer to your customer.

    There are cloud-based CRM software that gives you preinstalled or preconfigured server software as well as self-hosted CRM software that allows you to host the software on your local server.

    Let’s take a look at the self-hosted CRM software.

    What is Self-hosted CRM Software?

    Self-hosted CRM software is software that is hosted on-premises. This means the CRM software runs on your local hardware and the storage, database, and security are managed locally by your personnel.

    Benefits of Self-hosted CRM Software

    Self-hosted CRM software is not too far off from its cloud-hosted counterparts, especially when it comes to the features they offer. Most of the difference has to do with the flexibility you have with administrating self-hosted CRM software as most of them allow you to make modifications to the source code.

    If you are considering adopting self-hosted CRM software for your business needs, then the following reasons may help you make a more educated decision.

    Faster Maintenance

    One of the biggest selling points of self-hosted CRM software is the fact that its maintenance is your responsibility. Of course, this is best enjoyed by users that prefer to have full control of the maintenance of their systems.

    The fact that maintenance for the system is done on-site means that it can be carried out quickly and at any time without any dependence on a third-party vendor.

    Easy Customization

    Sometimes it can be challenging to get a CRM solution that ticks all the boxes for your business needs. Self-hosted CRM software is quite advantageous in these circumstances as you can customize these features on the open-source application to meet your business needs.

    No Long-term Commitment

    Unlike the cloud-hosted CRM solution, a self-hosted system does not require regular usage payments and subscriptions to maintain the system. Therefore, apart from the initial cost of setting up the system, you don’t have to pay regular operational costs, so in the long term, the ownership cost is reduced.

    Examples of Self-hosted CRM Software

    Now that we understand what a self-hosted CRM solution is and its benefits, let’s take a quick look at examples.

    FinCRM.com

    FinCRM is an excellent example of self-hosted CRM software. This CRM solution gives you the traditional CRM features of evaluating and managing relationships with your clients and customers. It also offers features like marketing automation, sales automation, inventory management, and so on.

    This software helps you handle your marketing, sales, and service with layout, custom modules, and other related development tools. The real-time dashboard gives you regular insight into your various campaigns.

    Final Thoughts

    The efficient use and management of data is a primary success driver in business today, so adopting CRM software for your business should not be up for debate. If you are considering going for self-hosted CRM software based on your business needs, we hope this article has helped you in making a more informed decision.

  • Enterprise CRM

    CRM software helps businesses manage customer data efficiently to improve customer relationships and consequently customer interaction with the brand.

    What is Enterprise CRM?

    Enterprise CRM software is designed for larger and more multi-national companies that have large databases, more robust needs, and more customer-facing departments. In enterprise business, it isn’t unusual to have multiple sales teams and departments in need of access to customer data.

    Enterprise CRM software is often offered by several vendors in the CRM space and, of course, they are significantly more expensive than the standard software.

    Choosing a CRM solution

    Deciding on a CRM software solution mostly depends on the vision of the business as well as its size. Mid-market businesses and SMBs that don’t have big expansion plans may go for a cheaper standard CRM solution. With this, the sales team can work efficiently with customer data thereby increasing the profit potential of the business.

    A business with multiple sales departments or multiple teams that work with the same customer data may decide to adopt a more expensive and robust enterprise CRM software solution.

    Features of Enterprise CRM

    Large businesses need CRM software more than smaller ones. Here are must-have features for any enterprise CRM software:

    Customizable Dashboard

    The user experience of CRM software is almost as important as its functionality because more users will be interacting with the software daily to try and drive the company’s sales up. A more intuitive system will be more beneficial to a business.

    Field Sales Force Automation

    Enterprise-level organizations tend to have multiple field sales representatives interacting with leads in person. These reps need to be able to interact with customer and company data on the go to perform their tasks more efficiently.

    Sales Collaboration

    The bigger the business the more important collaboration is among various departments. This should be considered when choosing enterprise CRM software.

    Other more general features that are expected are contact management, lead management, opportunity management, and so on.

    Benefits of Enterprise CRM

    There are numerous benefits a CRM software offers any business, and these benefits are even more pronounced on the enterprise level.

    Better customer knowledge

    As your sales team interacts with customer data, they can familiarize themselves with customer preference and how to relate with each customer. This results in better segmentation and more deliberate marketing campaigns.

    Better customer retention

    This is another benefit of CRM software as having better and more planned marketing campaigns means there is a higher possibility of converting leads and retaining them.

    Increased profitability

    The primary goal of any business is to make a profit, and an easier way to guarantee this is by using CRM software. From greater customer retention to saving costs on unnecessary marketing actions, the business can reduce the cost spent per lead converted.

    Enterprise CRM Implementation

    Having an efficient CRM implementation strategy could be the difference between a successful implementation and one that isn’t. Here are tips for a successful CRM implementation:

    • Plan out your needs
    • Shop for a custom software
    • Choose an implementation team
    • Plan a budget
    • Prep your CRM data
    • Onboard users
    • The rollout for an initial stage.

    This list is not in any way exhaustive and only contains steps that are important for consideration. It is recommended that you choose an experienced implementation partner to carry out the implementation for your business.

    Common CRM Challenges

    Some challenges often face the successful adoption and implementation of CRM. Some common challenges include the following:

    Implementation time and cost

    A genuine concern for most businesses is the implementation time and cost. This can be reduced by choosing a solution from a reputable provider and executing a good implementation strategy. Moreover, the cost benefits of CRM are usually experienced in the long term.

    Lack of implementation plan

    This is another challenge that could affect the implementation success, albeit it is an avoidable one. Having a solid implementation plan will help in avoiding any risk attached to a planless implementation.

    Lack of training

    CRM is quite complex, especially for the untrained mind. This lack of training can potentially throw a wrench in the efficient use of the software. Businesses should adopt an effective change management strategy to get all necessary stakeholders the necessary training.
    Of course, there may be some concerns and challenges but with the right information and strategy, most of them can be mitigated.

    Enterprise CRM Software

    FinCRM.com is a leading CRM software provider, offering an array of solutions for large businesses to help them easily and quickly manage their customer relationships.

    It allows a company to stay connected to the customers, meet key business objectives and effectively grow their business. And manage your contacts and leads, monitor campaigns and keep track of your company’s sales funnel.
    The CRM Software is easy to use and offers a plethora of features, like marketing automation and sales analytics, dashboard and real-time data.

    With an integrated approach to sales, marketing and service, FinCRM.com helps you put the right information in the right place at the right time so your organization achieves success.

    Final thoughts

    CRM software solution has become quite indispensable to all businesses, especially large businesses with multiple sales team and departments working with customer data.

    These are some of the key points for any business considering adopting an enterprise CRM software solution. Care should be taken that the solution comprises the right features and the implementation plan is equally as important.

  • What is a CRM Dashboard

    A CRM Dashboard provides a company with an overview of sales and marketing success with key performance metrics. Rather than extensive chunks of data, CRM dashboard generally relies on pictures, graphs, and numbers. The company management can use them to get a quick overview of the performance of the sales funnel and figure out which activities need to be done next.

    CRM dashboards are configurable. This customization allows you to highlight the metrics that are most important to the team. Acquired leads, closed transactions, and, of course, KPIs are examples of such measures.

    CRM dashboards may also be used to track the progress of individual salespeople toward specific objectives. Dashboards are a valuable feature of any CRM software.

    Benefits of a CRM Dashboard?

    These are some of the reasons why any firm might benefit from a CRM dashboard.

    CRM Software

    It improves the team’s focus
    An in-depth sales report isn’t always necessary for the team to stay on track to accomplish its objectives. A CRM dashboard’s top-level information can be adequate to notify salespeople of what has to be done right now and what can wait, saving time and effort on reviewing comprehensive reports.

    It streamlines the overall work of staff
    Not only does analyze reports take time; it also takes time to create those reports. Without having to go through CRM software to pull up reports, team can quickly identify which activities should be completed first with CRM dashboards. This feature can help you save a lot of time.

    Sales Procedures are improved
    CRM dashboards improve overall sales success by bringing sales team’s activities into the current tense. CRM dashboards are especially useful in directing the sales team because they provide a current view of the sales funnel and the prospects’ progress through it, which is considerably more valuable to the team than data from an old report.

    It is constantly updated
    A CRM report is a static document that displays data for a specific period in an inflexible manner. In contrast, a CRM dashboard reacts to and reflects changes in the data in real-time. This allows the sales team to develop a plan based on the most recent KPI data rather than old data.

    What should a CRM dashboard consist of?

    The following components on the CRM dashboard are important:

    The sales pipeline
    The CRM dashboard should show you the status of all the pending sales transactions based on where they are in the pipeline right now. Transactions in process, aging leads, lost deals, and urgent requirements should all be highlighted. The value of all transactions at each step of the pipeline (e.g., $10,000 in prospective post-proposal sales) will often display as a set of horizontal bars in the sales pipeline widget.

    Recent actions of sales staff
    Given the volume of calls, emails, and other communications that a sales team may generate in a single day, it can be difficult to quickly establish who did what and when. This information may be shown alongside other engagements with prospects, such as website visits and social media participation, on the CRM dashboard. You can adjust the plan if you notice flaws in the team’s approach.

    Recent leads
    Leads and transactions are frequently represented in CRM dashboards in terms of the proportion of total sales value they represent across all available possibilities. The dashboard may just display a list of fresh leads and deals in other situations. With either configuration, you’ll be able to see which leads require quick attention to become prospects. You’ll also be able to observe which leads have turned into customers.

    Resolve Urgent Tasks
    A CRM dashboard, like any decent software interface, should feature a list of critical activities as well as their deadlines

    Indicators of critical performance:
    KPIs are maybe the most essential CRM dashboard component since they provide you with the current values of the statistics that matter most to you. The staff might not know which tasks should come first if you don’t have a clear KPI display.

    Why FinCRM for CRM Dashboard?

    FinCRM provides a more than adequate and dependable Customer relationship management (CRM) Dashboard that helps any type of business to maximize all CRM-related operations while optimizing their marketing efforts and plans while featuring various types of features like:

    • Total Sales chart where you can see all the critical information about the total sales which includes the confirmed sales,
    • Negotiating sales, ready to pay sales as well as the number of orders taken
    • Real-time analytics of how many of the sales have you won and how many of them you have lost which gives you a broader idea of the sales portion
    • Real-time information about the potential leads with the most recent deals, including deal titles, lead names, and lead amounts
    • Deals in Stage, Accounts, Contacts, Deals, Customers, Sales, and Global Reports are some of the other noteworthy features.

    FinCRM.com gives you the finest of all of these capabilities integrated on a single but attractive dashboard.

    Key features of FinCRM.com – CRM Dashboard

    Sales
    The sales section is fully dedicated to providing you with all the basic and crucial information regarding the sales which makes it easy for you to better understand the business sales more than ever.

    Deals
    The Deals section is dedicated to providing you with the information regarding all of the deals like the name of that particular deal, the company that deal is associated with, lead name, the name of the product, and closing date of that deal, and the stage at which that particular deal is while also giving you the option to make changes to that deal’s stage or edit or delete that particular deal.

    Leads
    The leads section enables you to dive more into the potential as well as the engaged leads the business is currently working with while also giving you insight about the lead’s source as well as the opportunity to add it as the customer or do any action on that lead.

    Orders
    The order section gives you all the basic but crucial information about the orders which you are currently working with while providing you with the name of that particular order, the lead, product, company, total amount, order date, shipping date and so much more thus granting all the crucial information to you in a fraction of seconds.

    Conclusion
    A CRM Dashboard in a CRM Software can analyse the data to generate reports that can give a true estimate of customer expectations and how well the company’s efforts match these expectations.
    FinCRM.com has all the key features required in a CRM dashboard.

  • How to Choose Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Software

    By Kaya Ismail – Founder of Wordify, a content marketing agency for software vendors

    If you’re looking for a Customer Relationship Management system, you aren’t alone. In fact, the demand for CRM technologies is fueling growth in the CRM industry worth over $40 billion in 2018 alone, according to Gartner.

    But with all those shiny CRMs out there adorning the market, what’s the best strategy for your brand when it comes to choosing a CRM? To help you formulate that strategy, we’ve asked industry experts for their advice.No One-Size-Fits-All CRM

    If you’re asking around about what the “best CRM” solution is, you’re asking the wrong question, according to JP Lessard, President, Business Software Solutions at Miles Technologies. “CRM solutions aren’t one-size-fits-all, and the features you should insist on will vary from industry to industry, organization to organization. Before you start shopping for or building a new solution, you should conduct an analysis to determine which features map best to the vision you have for running your business,” said Lessard.

    Read Full Article:
    https://www.cmswire.com/customer-experience/how-to-choose-customer-relationship-management-crm-software/

  • Using Twitter as a Marketing Tool

    Twitter is a micro-blogging site where you can share your text, videos, photos, status and links online. Twitter allows 140 characters for each post, known as a tweet.

    Twitter works as a real-time social media platform for users to update their followers with information and messages that are broadcast to a group of users who have chosen to stay updated to your messages.

    Using Twitter for Marketing:

    Twitter works for marketers for several reasons:

    Members only type a restricted number of characters making it a much focused company information blog.

    Companies can use Posts for Promoting new products or advertising, or event, or sale/ discount/ prizes/ gifts, or benefits of product/ event/ service/ organizational policy, etc.

    Companies can use Mention to highlight within the Sales Team possible options for Lead Generation, and Trends to create advertisement, and so on.

    Most of the information exchange is live so companies can immediately resolve customer issues or complaints

    Twitter can be used along with multiple accounts using tool called Tweetdeck. This can be done either by using the integrated Dashboard for multiple accounts’ Trending, mentions for all Users, and Web/ Twitter Trending.

    It has a big database of 300 million users and is seeing traffic growth every year.

    Communicating in short texts can actually foster real relationships because you have to focus on your word choice – with only 140 characters, you take the time to make sure every word counts.

    Twitter can also be used with mobile. This makes it more appealing and personalized, and can have genuine and more market penetration. Retailing, Service, Customer Support, and Media are major industries where Twitter marketing is used at the best.

    info about followers, Likes, Comments, Trends (Geographical/ Web/ Twitter/ HashTags/ Topic Trends)

    The analytics report is simple and smartly built which makes it easy to present it to your requirement for detailed analysis.

    Using basic Twitter Data many tools can be developed such as for CRM, User Trend Analysis, Lead Generation, Mentions, Twitter posts integration, and Web Analysis tools with simplicity) of Twitter along with Multiple User Representation and Analysis etc

    Twitter Analytics can be used for high-end Business or Marketing Analysis. This can be made use for Marketing, Customer Relationship Management, or reduce customer disloyalty, or organization employee outflow, or product related issues on Twitter or Web.

    Each Twitter data or feature has a different use, and they can be identified as to how to implement specific need in Marketing or can be tweaked accordingly.

    Twitter is a great marketing tool because you can find a targeted audience for your product or service.

    Resources:
    https://twitter.com/
    https://tweetdeck.twitter.com/

  • CRM Training and Certification

    Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is combination of a tools, software and strategy for managing a company’s relationships with leads and customers

    There is huge demand for candidates who are trained in the major CRM certification courses. All organizations prefer such applicants. There are several companies that provide CRM training and certifications

    CRM Certified staff a key to success in the field of Customer Relationship Management sector. Some of the major CRM software companies who also provide quality training and certification are SAP, Oracle, Salesforce and Microsoft.

    SAP Certification

    SAP is a German Software Company mainly into enterprise resource planning. The SAP CRM applications is an integrated on-premise customer relationship management software which targeted business software requirements for marketing, sales and service of midsize and large organizations in all industries and sectors.

    Professionals with SAP certification are always in demand. The training is divided into specialization to provide deep knowledge of each module. Individuals can have personal growth assured and organizations can improve the productivity.

    SAP Certification details:
    https://www.sap.com
    https://www.sap.com/products/crm.html
    https://training.sap.com/

    Oracle Certification

    Oracle Corporation is an American multinational software company headquartered in Redwood Shores, California. Oracle sells database software and technology, cloud engineered systems and enterprise software products particularly its own brands of database management systems

    Oracle CRM is divided into different product lines. Siebel 8.1.1 is the latest release of their on-premises solution.Oracle CRM On Demand Release 26 and Oracle Sales Cloud Release 10 are the latest releases of their SaaS solutions

    Oracle is a major player in the database software field and is trusted by many organizations the world over. The CRM training program by Oracle requires the professionals to get thorough knowledge of the software and its training can be tailor made to suit the specific needs of concerned organization as well. The training is organized either in virtual classrooms or onsite with instructor led to provide proper knowledge and insight.

    They ensure that the staff has in-depth knowledge even in real life like scenarios that may happen. The other benefit is that whenever there is any addition to the workforce the organization, if they have acquired the CRM from Oracle, can have training scheduled whenever needed without any extra cost.

    Oracle Certification details:
    https://www.oracle.com
    https://www.oracle.com/applications/customer-experience/what-is-crm.html
    https://education.oracle.com/

    SalesForce Certification

    Salesforce.com, Inc. is an American cloud-based software company  headquartered in San Francisco, California.

    Salesforce also sells a complementary suite of enterprise applications focused on customer service, marketing automation, analytics and
    application development.

    Saleforce CRM is a preferred SAAS based CRM solution. They provide knowledge to implement the program. Training option varies and as per the need may be acquired. Self paced online courses, instructor led virtual or individual user

    classroom can be chosen. Certification from the Salesforce is sure to give the is very important in the cloud CRM sector.

    SalesForce Certification details:
    https://www.salesforce.com/
    https://www.salesforce.com/dreamforce/certification/

    Microsoft Certification

    Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology company with headquarters in Redmond, Washington. It develops,
    manufactures, licenses, supports and sells computer software like Windows operating system

    Microsoft Dynamics is a line of enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management software application.

    Getting trained by Microsoft will have positive impact in employees’ personal as well as organizational career. They provide certifications to people so that they can put forth their proficiency which can then benefit the whole enterprise. Microsoft Dynamics CRM solution helps organizations to manage customer service operation along with sales and marketing.

    Microsoft Certification details:
    https://www.microsoft.com/
    https://dynamics.microsoft.com/
    https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/learning/default.aspx

    Organizations can have huge benefits by employing CRM certificated people. As it gets personnel with knowledge of CRM and who can improve company productivity

    Resources:
    SAP Training and Certification – https://training.sap.com/
    Oracle Training and Certification- https://education.oracle.com/
    Microsoft Certifications- https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/learning/default.aspx
    SalesForce.com Certification – https://www.salesforce.com/dreamforce/certification/

  • Big Data CRM

    Big Data can be defined as the study of huge volume of complex data being generated. Big data CRM refers to the practice of integrating big data into a company’s CRM processes. Big Data analysis is now an integral part of CRM Software

    Big Data can be used to capture, store, manage, process, or analyze market generated information .The goal of Big Data CRM is to analyze and predict customer behavior, improve customer service

    Huge amount of data is being generated from various sources such as mobile apps, server logs, geo location, retail stores, financial, Retail, Manufacturing records, social media platforms and other Data points

    There are 5 Billion mobile phones in use in 2019, around 30 billion pieces of content shared on Facebook and other social sites every month and there is over 40% growth in global data generated per year.

    Organizations are increasingly having more data in their system today. As limitless data gets generated, it becomes vital for companies to use them effectively.

    Benefits of Big Data CRM

    • Big Data can help augment CRM systems by integrating big data into a CRM solution, companies can predict customer behavior, improve customer service, and calculate ROI more accurately
    • Big data has the potential to change the way companies manage customer relationships by offering businesses powerful new tools, capable of identifying sales opportunities and analyzing customers’ responses to products, by combining internal data with data on social networks
    • Companies are using data collection and analysis to make better management decisions for forecasting future sales
    • Collecting and analyzing big data on their customers allows companies to increase
      customer loyalty and improve business relationship
    • BigData helps to build a database of consumers interested in the product offered by your company thus increase their sales
    • A CRM can keep track of the data trail that customers leave on various online platforms and present the data in form of analytics
    • Big Data empowers businesses to predict how customers are going to respond in the future based on their past buying behavior
    • Using Big Data, customer trends can be mined and used to predict needs and therefore direct new product development
      Big Data can show how product or brand is perceived by the customers online
    • Big Data can be used to identify their weaknesses and revise their marketing and sales strategies
    • Combination of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence businesses can revolutionize the way they market their products and serve their customers
    • Integrating Big Data allows your Sales Reps and Marketing executives to analyze all of the consumer touch points
    • Big data CRM’s goal is to combine internal CRM data with customer sentiment data that exists outside of the company’s existing system, such as on social
    • Combining big data with other CRM data can improve customer analysis and lead to predictive modeling and other practices
    • Companies using big data in conjunction with CRM aim to have systems that can process data in real time and therefore connect with customers faster
    • Big data provides businesses with Customer Segmentation, sales, marketing and customer service performance metrics
    • Using big data, businesses gain the ability to predict how customers will respond in the future
    • Big data could represent a significant step toward providing your organization with increased call center productivity,

    Big Data Technology

    Big Data analysis can be with by various data processing application software’s. Hadoop by Apache is leading Open source enterprise software for Big Data clustered scale out data processing analysis

    Conclusion
    Big Data can be used to improve decision making and integrating big data analysis, tools, and techniques into customer relationship management (CRM)

    It can help organizations radically improve customer service and enhance the customer experience. Big Data is the key to the future of business in terms of Research, Productivity Growth, Innovation, and Marketing.

    Use of big data analysis in CRM Software will bring about new waves of productivity and consumer satisfaction
    Big Data will be the next disruptive technology and will transform the CRM sector

  • Using Twitter for Lead Generation

    Twitter is among the most popular social networking sites today. It offers a micro-blogging service that lets its users send, receive and share messages upto140 Characters in Length via tweets.

    Several companies are now using Twitter as a lead generation tool, which offers anyone to search, and keep track of prospects.

    There are several third party tools which can screen tweets and twitter accounts to get better quality leads. Twitter tools include CRM Twitter Analysis, Web Analysis, and Search Location, #HashTag / Username, Twitter Trends and Lead Generation; which assists in searching for prospects.

    Some of the ways to generate leads from Twitter:

      • Twitter Advanced Search:
        Carry out searches for name, or business’s name, brands, competition and other tags. The advanced search function lets you run a search for your keywords by geographical location, which helps you keep track of what is being talked about generally and your organization. You can also use Twitter’s “search operators” to find a prospective lead.
      • Being responsive and Distributing Content through Twitter:
        Twitter is full of people who post questions, opinions, requirements and just about anything and it is up to the marketer to utilize these tweets. Keeping your customers engaged or getting involved in customer engagement does allow for good lead generation. This also includes getting customers involved with your own Tweets and creating a response from the customer.
      • Involvement of whole network apart from Leads:
        Apart from responsiveness and conversation engagement, you can build a community around you that could yield business partners for different aspects of your business that helps you in better Customer Relationship Management, either by using blogs, content, webinars, eBooks, etc.
    • RSS feeds:
      With RSS feeds that you subscribe to helps in identifying what conversation or trend is worthwhile for you to get involved with. You can use the RSS function to republish the results from your search either by searching and publishing, or using #hashtag and publishing the RSS.

    Some few more suggestions for increasing Lead generation through include:

    • Take time to fill out complete profile
    • Tell people why they should follow your company
    • Start conversation to build a trend and reach to customers
    • Share interesting links to increase reach. Links get re-tweeted
    • Focus on the audience or the customer than talking about your-self
    • Tweet between longer frequency and tweet slower and keep the length to 25 % of the tweet.
    • Experiment with length of Tweets and at different Time Zones of the day
    • Headlines or Titles are important part just like Tweet bodies

    Whether B2B or B2C Sales Lead Generation, Twitter can be used for lead generation online.

    References:
    Twitter: http://www.twitter.com

  • Top 15 Open Source CRM Software

    Open Source software is software in which the source code is released under a license in which the software developer grants users the rights to modify the software code.

    CRM Software is business software that enables a company to store contacts, convert leads, manage sales pipeline and close deals.
    Some of the most popular CRM Software's are open source solutions. Open source CRM Software is often used as an alternative to proprietary CRM software like Salesforce.com

    There are several benefits of using Open source CRM:

    • Company has full control over their data
    • Open Source Software is free so no license fees
    • No vendor limitation in terms of number of users
    • Create your custom modules in CRM as per organisation requirement
    • Change the design and user interface
    • Add specific features in CRM Software as per your company requirement
    • Host the software on your in-house server or managed webhost
    • Participate in developer community
    • It is more cost effective than a proprietary solution
    The Leading Open Source CRM Software's are:

    Odoo

    Odoo is a suite of open source business apps that cover company software needs including CRM, eCommerce, accounting, inventory, point of sale, project management, etc. Odoo CRM is one of the most installed CRM software in the world. It is used by over 3.700.000 users worldwide ranging from start up companies to large enterprises.

    Download Odoo CRM Software

    Vtiger

    Vtiger CRM enables sales, support, and marketing teams to organize and collaborate to measurably improve customer experiences and business outcomes. Vtiger CRM also includes email, inventory, project management, and other tools, providing a complete the business management suite. Vtiger CRM is built using the Apache web server (Apache license) open source software and license. Vtiger is supported by an active community of users, developers, and partner networks in more than 110 countries and our portfolio of products are used in more than 300,000 businesses worldwide

    Download vtiger CRM Software

    SugarCRM

    SugarCRM is a software company based in Cupertino, California. It has the web application Sugar, a customer relationship management (CRM) system. Sugar CRM is deployed by more than 2 million individuals in over 120 countries and 26 languages. SugarCRM provided a community edition, Sugar CE, previously known as Sugar Open Source. It is available free of charge alongside paid editions until version 6.5

    Download SugarCRM Software

    Mautic

    Mautic provides free and open source marketing automation software. Mautic Inc., an Acquia company, the world’s only open marketing cloud. Mautic enables brands to integrate and personalize all their digital properties and channels into a seamless customer experience. Mautic’s suite of tools enables marketers to deliver higher performing campaigns and content and achieve superior results.

    Download Mautic CRM Software

    SuiteCRM

    SuiteCRM is a free and open source Customer Relationship Management application. SuiteCRM is a software fork of the popular customer relationship management (CRM) system from SugarCRM. SuiteCRM has been downloaded more than 800,000 times since the original release. A community of nearly 90,000 developers and collaborators have joined the project.

    Download SuiteCRM CRM Software

    EspoCRM

    EspoCRM is an Open Source CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software that allows you to see, enter and evaluate all your company
    relationships regardless of the type. In CRM, you can view people companies or opportunities – all in an easy and intuitive interface. It’s a web application with a frontend designed as a single page application based on backbone.js and a REST API backend written in PHP.

    Download EspoCRM

    CIVICRM

    CiviCRM is an open source CRM built by a community of contributors and supporters. It is specifically designed for the needs of non-profit, non-governmental, and advocacy groups, and serves as an association management system. CiviCRM is designed to manage information about an organization’s donors, members, event registrants, subscribers, grant application seekers and funders, and case contacts. Volunteers, activists, voters as well as more general sorts of business contacts such as employees, clients, or vendors can be managed using CiviCRM.

    Download CiviCRM

    Zurmo

    Open Source CRM application that is mobile, social, and gamified. Written in PHP utilizing jQuery, Yii Framework, and RedBeanPHP Zurmo provides an easy-to-use, easy-to-customize CRM application that can be adapted to any business use case. Zurmo has an international footprint with contributors and end users all over the world

    Download Zurmo

    TRYTON

    TRYTON is business software, ideal for companies of any size, easy to use, complete and 100% Open Source. Tryton CRM modules provide a coverage of the following functional fields: Accounting, Invoicing, Sale Management, Purchase Management, Analytic Accounting, Inventory management, Manufacturing Resource Planning, Project management, Lead and Opportunity Management

    Download Tryton

    Opentaps

    opentaps Open Source ERP + CRM is an open source Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. The system is designed to bring together all aspects of a company, from customers to inventory to accounting, from online stores to the shop floor to the warehouse, so that everyone in the company works together as part of one coordinated process.

    Download OpenTaps

    X2CRM

    X2CRM is an enterprise CRM, Marketing Automation and Workflow solution that supports every aspect of your customer engagement.
    Using X2CRM you can develop effortless customer experiences by enabling the most optimized process and interactions. X2CRM provides companies with speed and control in a complete, secure and highly configurable CRM suite.

    Download X2CRM

    openCRX

    openCRX is a professional Open Source Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System featuring rich and intelligent functionality in the area of Sales Force Automation (SFA), Customer Service and Support, Marketing automation, and analytics. Furthermore, openCRX delivers a rich groupware feature set, including e-mail, contacts, and calendaring.

    Download openCRX

    SplendidCRM

    SplendidCRM produces open source Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software developed in C# for the ASP.NET framework
    SplendidCRM targets companies with Microsoft-based servers. SplendidCRM is a web-based application, so it can be delivered as an on-site application or as an on-demand service. We will be engaging with partners that will customize SplendidCRM for highly-specialized vertical markets.

    Download SplendidCRM

    Concursive

    Concursive, is a software company that offers the ConcourseSuite product, a customer relationship management application, and ConcourseConnect, a social software application, both based on Java/J2EE. Concursive products are used by large enterprises and thousands of small businesses alike and our thriving developer and user community has approximately 20,000 registered community members.
    ConcourseConnect, an integrated web-based software platform that brings together Social Business Software, Corporate Social Networking, Online Community, Business Directory, and CRM capabilities. ConcourseSuite is a dedicated Enterprise-Class CRM Solution with a single, easy to use web application.

    Download Concursive CRM

    Secretica CRM

    A free and open source customer relationship management application. Features include documenting customer-related communication; Email campaigns, Task management with email notifications. Management of connections between communications, tasks, documents, etc.

    Download Secretica CRM

    The most remarkable part is that all the above Open Source CRM Software’s are free.

    But using Open source CRM has its own complexities. There is a steep learning curve and you will have to hire experienced developers for installation, hosting, modifications and support

    However Open source is the future of software industry. More and more software companies are developing their software on open source framework.