The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Duke Ellington’s Blues In Orbit:
Another case lesson in marketing CRM to sophisticated, global SMBs. What’s interesting is exactly what this Indiana pump company wanted in a CRM product, pay attention to what it spelled out it wanted – and notice what’s missing:
Solutions4ebiz, an Indiana CRM software and technology solutions provider, announced today that Indianapolis-based Peerless Pump Company, a worldwide manufacturer of heavy-duty industrial pumping systems, has chosen to implement its customer relationship management software, CRM4ebiz.
Peerless Pump Company isn’t just some local yokel outfit, it’s a global vendor of fluid handling systems. With corporate offices in Indianapolis, Indiana, Peerless has facilities throughout North America and the world. In business for more than 80-years, Peerless Pump Co. serves many markets including fire protection, municipal, commercial, and agriculture markets.
Peerless Pump Co. chose local provider Solutions4ebiz for its CRM4ebiz product's “affordability, ease of use and availability,” according to Peerless officials. Since Solutions4ebiz had already provided Peerless Pump Co. with managed hosting services for more than three years, they had a good understanding of the company's business.
Peerless Pump Co. also liked the fact that it would have access to the company's local support system based in central Indiana.
With repair and manufacturing facilities in four states and branch offices worldwide, Peerless Pump Co. wanted a CRM product to let its 340 employees communicate customer information to one another more effectively. The company will use the CRM4ebiz product to give its sales, purchasing, marketing, customer service and other staff real-time visibility into all customer activity.
"We want the ability to record every customer touch point, so that everyone in our company will get a feel for the voice of the customer," said Fred Bock, marketing manager of Peerless Pump Co. "Any time a customer has something to say, we will be able to hear it right away, and that information will be available from the president of the company, through to those people actually in charge of making the pumps. The best part is that we will not have to wait until the next sales meeting or conference call to share that information."
The company also wanted consistent, real-time feedback from its customers so it could take quick action when it comes to product innovations and extensions, as well as sales forecasting. This will allow the company to notify vendors and inventory staff and plan ahead for future needs.
Peerless Pump Co. also believes that the CRM4ebiz product will allow for more consistency across the organization and will improve customer service and satisfaction. The company is currently in the process of testing the CRM before it is rolled out to a larger subset of the organization this month.
In the future, Peerless Pump Co. plans for the CRM to be part of a completely integrated package that includes its extranet, distributor and internal communications systems.
"The entire process is going faster than we thought it would," said Bock. "We have gotten great buy-in across the company, and I have been happy with the progress that we have made and the support that we have received so far from Solutions4ebiz."
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Smart Online, Inc., a vendor of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) for the small business market, has announced the release of its new Web-based Sales Force Automation (SFA) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) application.
Smart Online's SFA/CRM application is now included as part of the subscription to Smart Online's suite of applications which includes Human Resource Management, Accounting, Calendar, Contacts, and many more tools for small businesses.
Smart Online's SFA/CRM application delivers to its customers all their business applications using a Web browser, eliminating the cost and difficulties of traditional software.
"Small businesses are often challenged with managing their prospects and customers as many lack the financial resources, technical expertise and time required to set up and use traditional SFA/CRM software," said Michael Nouri, president & CEO, Smart Online, Inc., adding that "Salesforce.com has pioneered the SFA/CRM Software-as-a-Service market for the enterprise sector.”
Smart Online's new SFA/CRM application is now available on www.smartonline.com as part of its monthly subscription of $49.95 which includes access for the first five users and provides unlimited access to its full suite of small business applications.
Smart Online plans to integrate the SFA/CRM application into the Websites of our private label syndication partners later this year. The company has already integrated those features of the existing SFA/CRM application that it believes are most useful to small businesses, and has focused on making the application easier to use.
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Aspect Huntley is reporting that Telecom Corporation of New Zealand advised that the NZ government has “announced a comprehensive telecommunications package to push New Zealand's broadband performance into the top quarter of the OECD.”
Currently, Telecom dominates the broadband market: “The majority of the alternative providers depend upon a restricted speed ‘unbundled bitstream service’ that allows limited options for competitors to develop differentiated broadband products.
The stocktake analysis indicated that new entrants require access on fair and non-discriminatory terms to Telecom's network to be able to provide high quality, cost effective and differentiated services. As part of the government's final package, AH says, “Telecom will be required to prepare a set of regulatory accounts (accounting separation) based around its wholesale businesses.”
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INeoMarketing and salesforce.com, the market and technology leader in on-demand customer relationship management (CRM), today announced the availability of PluraPage for salesforce.com's AppExchange.
Salesforce.com customers can now deploy PluraPage within their Salesforce implementation “to drive more leads directly into their salesforce.com accounts from customized, personalized landing pages,” according to iNeo officials.
Built on the AppExchange on-demand platform, PluraPage is AppExchange certified and is immediately available for test drive and deployment at http://www.salesforce.com/appexchange.
PluraPage, with its patent pending technology, gives salesforce.com users the ability to create customized, branded and recipient-personalized landing pages with corresponding forms, integrated into Salesforce. Users can create an unlimited number of landing pages that match their outbound marketing campaigns and communications, all without involving their IT departments, and those responses are integrated directly into Salesforce as an Account, Lead or Contact.
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