Search: Customer+Relationship+Management

Regarding CRM

by Sherie Cavicchia on February 5, 2012

Selecting the best CRM software for your business can be a difficult experience.

This desire to become more competitive and successful has led many managers to try out one or the other of CRM technologies and solutions for contact management. Both solutions are great business boosters, but deciding which one to use will depend on the way you run your business and on where you would like to take it.

With CRM softwares, cheaper is not always better, and the expensive ones may not even have all of the features most necessary to your business’ needs. To get the most out of your purchase, find the software that best serves your business’ specific needs.

Be sure to perform a comprehensive self-review; CRM solutions integrate collective functionality across your whole business. Pay attention to how big your company is now, and how big it may become. You will be well-served to familiarize yourself with the specific needs of each department when designing a user interface with a CRM software. The importance of interdepartmental communication should not be understated. In a similar vein, you should follow customers from initial lead through the end of the sale.

After making a vendor list, find out what the actual advantages of each CRM software will be. Analyze and review each CRM software company. The capabilities of products a company offers, as well as the history of the company itself should be examined. Narrow in on providers that have a respected reputation; quick rollouts and frequent feature updates will save you from prolonged pitch meetings and project estimates.

Different types of customer relationship management software can deal with different aspects of business and client actions. Some types of CRM software focus on sales leads, and identifying potential customers who may be a good fit for a company’s products or services. Other aspects manage marketing campaigns, and can keep track of the behaviors and trends of customers. By keeping client contact databases, they can help monitor their actions. This can help with tracking revenue, and also writing reports based on sales and production. This is one of many ways CRM software can be an invaluable asset in solving client issues.

It goes without saying that employees need be engaged in the implementation of a CRM system, and their feedback should be encouraged. The success of your new CRM software will depend directly on user adoption. The marketing, sales, and support staff of your company should all have their concerns heard during the implementation process from the beginning. Better results throughout the entire organization will be the result once they are comfortable with the software.

As soon as you query www.karmacrm.com into Yahoo search, do you find the thing you need?

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CRM Software vs. Contact Management Software: A Comparison

by Sherie Cavicchia on February 4, 2012

It is very difficult to survive in business these days without implementing some sort of modern technology. Those that do use what the modern world makes available will frequently find more success. The key aspects for any business today are therefore powerful innovation, an excellent work ethic, and of course, having the right technology for the job.

This desire to become more competitive and successful has led many managers to try out one or the other of CRM technologies and solutions for contact management. Which of these solutions work for your company, however, will be determined by the specifics of your industry and what you are trying to accomplish.

What is CRM software?

You can be a medium-sized company, or just a small one, but in either case you’ll need fierce promotional tools and a great marketing plan in order to rise above the power of your competitors. Many companies today are turning to customer relationship management (CRM), whereby a business will grow and improve through the use of a synergized software and workflow package. Clearly the customer is the key to success in business, and customer relationship management packages are a very effective way to create and involve a robust clientele.

The other side of the coin: contact management software

Contact management software works well for the individual business owner because it makes managing resources, business dealings, and customer care a breeze. The software works quite well, too, at building a powerful customer foundation, which any business owner knows is the most essential key to success. This technology will go a long way toward keeping your customer relations strong for a long time.

Breaking the split between CRM software and contact management

CRM software is a fine tool for compiling your entire customer database and related workflows into records for each and every one of your customers, while contact management provides leeway for managing all your customer data from anywhere on the planet. Many CRM software bundles will include at least a rudimentary contact management system, which is great when your storefront employees need to make an informed decision right away.

When you are looking for something that works well to benefit your employees, contact management software will give you a great environment wherein people are able to develop sales leads, hold meetings, manage documents, and send reports.

Either CRM software or contact management software will help you grow your business by maximizing the effectiveness of your customer data. Being able to adapt to customers immediately will keep you at the forefront of your industry, and CRM software can go a long way toward pushing your company to the top.

The moment you search small business crm into Yahoo search, do you find the thing you need?

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Shifting Company Goals by Working with CRM Software

February 4, 2012

Customer relationship management (CRM) software was, until just a few years ago, presumed to be effective, and necessary, only for large businesses and corporations. It was assumed, in many sectors, that small to mid-size companies lacked the volume of customer interaction to necessitate a CRM system. This outmoded point-of-view, however, has changed, and industries have now realized that customer interactions must be appropriately managed regardless of a company’s size. Once they realized CRM software could also benefit their needs, small and mid-size businesses began to integrate CRM programs in droves. In this changing business landscape, CRM software developers have begun to create programs that are customized to the needs of smaller businesses.

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Why you need online CRM software

February 3, 2012

Utilizing Customer Relationship Management or CRM software used to be something reserved for corporations and other big businesses. CRM software has become the new killer application, and with easy online solutions, nobody can argue that their vast benefits are out of reach. If you don’t use CRM software, even if you are a small business, your are losing out on not only a great organization tool. CRM software can provide the boost your business needs to compete with larger or more established businesses, and in this economy, you need every tool and advantage you can get.

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Choosing The Right CRM Software

February 3, 2012

Finding the best CRM software for a business can be a challenging task.

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Having CRM

February 3, 2012

In years past, it was assumed within most industries that customer relationship management, or CRM, software was only necessary for large business/corporations. It was thought that small and mid-size businesses did not necessary deal with enough customers to warrant the purchase of a CRM system. In modern industry, however, it has been determined that a company’s size should not be a factor where appropriate customer interaction is concerned. This shift in ideology has led to a surge in CRM sales. In turn, as small and mid-size businesses have adopted CRM programs, CRM developers have created software suites that are specialized for these smaller companies.

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Regarding CRM

February 2, 2012

It is very difficult to survive in business these days without implementing some sort of modern technology. Those that do use what the modern world makes available will frequently find more success. The right move for any business is therefore to make sure it is making the most of the available information and equipment.

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Knowing CRM

February 2, 2012

It used to be that only big businesses needed to make use of Customer Relationship Management, or CRM, software. Small businesses, taking advantage of new web-based CRM software, are finding that they can do business more efficiently and quickly surpass their competitors with these new solutions. If you don’t use CRM software, even if you are a small business, your are losing out on not only a great organization tool. In order for your smaller business to compete with bigger businesses with more resources, you need things like CRM software so you are able to provide the excellent service that your customers will love.

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How To Improve Your Customer Satisfaction

November 20, 2011

The method that you manage your customer satisfaction and be sure that your buyers are delighted by the service you provide is an important element of business success. All things considered, it surely costs more to find new clients than it does to service and keep the business of your current customer base, so before expanding your clientele it is essential to keep the existing customers happy. Not only do pleased existing customers provide you with business again and again they also recommend your services to others who may become new clients in the foreseeable future.

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FAQ for Customer and Partner Portals

June 27, 2011

This post addresses the most common issues that occur with the Customer and Partner Relationship Management Portals. If the problem you’re running into is not in the list below, please post a message to the CRM Labs Solutions Forum here: http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/crmlabs/threads?filter=alltypes.

1. Solution Import

1.1 Getting started with the portals

Portal installation instructions are as follows:

  1. Download the cab file from the marketplace and save it to disk
  2. Unpack the cab using instructions above
  3. Navigate to the “Documentation” folder
  4. Follow instructions for On Premise or Azure Deployment

1.2 Unpack the cab file downloaded from the marketplace

The cab file can be unpacked in two ways:

  1. If you have a third party unzipping program, you can right click on the cab file and use the unpacking tool.
  2. If you don’t have a third party tool, follow these steps:
    1. Open a command prompt. Start->run-> “cmd”
    2. Navigate to the location you stored the cab file
    3. “md CustomerPortal”
    4. “expand CustomerPortal.exe.cab –f:* CustomerPortal”

1.3 Solution Import: Error about cab files not being signed

“The cab file is not signed or digital signature cannot be verified”.

This error occurs for one of two reasons:

  • The incorrect cab file is being imported
    MicrosoftXrmCustomerPortal.cab     and MicrosoftXrmPartnerPortal.cab are the solution cab files. Please make sure you’re importing one of these. They are in the root directory once you’ve unpacked CustomerPortal.exe.cab or PartnerPortal.exe.cab.
  • The root cab file was not unpacked correctly
    Please follow instructions above for unpacking the cab file

1.4 Solution Import: Schema validation error when importing the correct cab file

"The selected file is corrupted or it does not use the correct schema. Either select another file or modify the file to use the Microsoft Dynamics CRM migration template schema"

This error occurs when you are running on pre-RTM version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011. The portals were developed against version 5.0.9688.583, so please make sure you’re running on a build greater than that.

Note: You can check the build you are running by going to your CRM client and navigating to File -> Help -> About Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

1.5 Installing both Customer and Partner portals in the same CRM instance

The steps are as follows:

  1. Install Partner Relationship Management Portal following the Partner Portal Deployment Guide. The PRM solution contains all the necessary components that are required for both portals to work.
  2. Install the Customer Portal website. Note – don’t install the CRM solution, just host the website on Azure. Skip to step #3 in the Deployment Steps section of the Customer Portal Deployment Guide.

You can install both solutions in step 1 as well if you’d like.

2. Live ID/Azure Setup

2.1 Getting the device id and password

Device ID and password are strings 12-22 characters long and are related to the live id so you can come up with any strings that meet the criteria. Please make sure note them down as you will need these values every time you connect to CRM Online with that particular Live ID.

2.2 Live-ID changes

Live ID no longer requires domain verification, so we don’t need to download the txt file and add it to the azure project. Additionally, the UI is different. Please refer to the updated Step 8 of the documentation here:

Customer Portal

Partner Relationship Management Portal

3. Partner Portal Access Issues

"You do not have sufficient permissions to view this page." in the Partner Portal

  1. Set the Parent Customer of the Contact (customer accessing the portal) to a Partner
  2. Set Account Relationship Type to "Partner"
  3. Invalidate the Cache
  4. Set access permissions for that contact following instructions in the documentation

4. Changing Membership Provider

If you’d like to use AD or IFD instead of Live ID for authentication, you can follow the steps in this blog:

http://www.shanmcarthur.net/crm/developers-corner/customer-portal-modifications-for-demo-vpc-without-internet-connectivity

While it is written for CRM 4, the process is identical for the CRM 2011 Portals as well.

The portals are designed to follow ASP.NET conventions. They should work with any legacy SSO solution that uses the IPrincipal mechanism of ASP.NET, or any membership provider that you plug into your site including the Active Directory or SQL membership providers distributed with ASP.NET.

5. WebsiteCopy.exe Utility fails when using Claims/IFD authentication
          OR
cannot connect to datacenters outside the US

WebsiteCopy.exe UI that was released with the portals on the Microsoft Dynamics Marketplace does not support Claims or IFD authentication. The UI will not allow providing only a username and password in the scenario where you have CRM installations with Claims/IFD auth. It also doesn’t connect to non-US organizations.

You can use one of two solutions for this:

  • Use the command line interface
  • Download CRM SDK version 5.0.3 or greater. The issue has been fixed in WebsiteCopy.exe released in the SDK

6. Language problems

The portals are English-only. We have not tested them in other languages.

If you are successfully able to import the Portal solution into your system and cannot activate workflows, you can try installing the English Language pack to your system. Alternatively, you can write your own workflows since the logic is pretty trivial.

6.1 System.NullReferenceException when trying to create/view a case

This issue occurs only in CRM orgs that do not have English as the base language. The *WEB* keyword needs to be in the service description and the case default subject and priority needs to be translated to the target language.

Palak Kadakia

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