You see, Socius is a professional services company, providing a wide variety of consulting services to companies across the country.  This makes us a great candidate for customer relationship management software.  Our relationships with our clients and partners are the lifeblood of our organization and we need a system to manage those relationships. 

Unfortunately for the company sending the email, many of the services that we offer center around the selection and implementation business management software solutions; including industry leading CRM software from Microsoft Dynamics and Sage.   We also use those CRM systems internally to track, not only our sales activities, client relationships and the services we provide, but also our marketing activities. 

The CRM solutions that we use and support have advanced marketing functionality with robust data cleansing and segmentation tools, leading campaign management features, and insightful marketing analytics to increase the effectiveness of marketing programs, improve efficiencies, and better track key metrics.  First and foremost though, our CRM software products have marketing data and list management capabilities that help you segment and target your marketing activities for maximum efficiency and return on your investments.  These tools can also help you navigate through the marketing minefield and keep you safe from costly mistakes (like marketing directly to your competitors). 

Learn more about the marketing, sales and service functionality of SageCRM, Sage SalesLogix, and Microsoft Dynamics CRM or request a complimentary business strategy assessment for advice on which CRM solution can help you streamline and secure your marketing efforts.

• 87% of respondents stopped doing business with an organization or company because of a negative customer experience. That’s up from 68% reported just two years ago.
• 58% of consumers polled said they will pay more for a better customer experience during a down economy.
• Consumers stated that the most important thing companies could do to encourage them to spend more is to improve the overall customer experience.

Since it costs five times more to attract a new customer as it does to keep an existing customer, it is in every organization’s best interest to ensure that the experiences they are delivering to their customers are the highest quality possible.  A great CRM solution can be key to delivering the kind of experience that will keep your customers coming back to you for more. 

In our post on www.crmsoftwareblog.com we discussed the “10 Ways Microsoft Dynamics CRM Helps You Enhance Customer Experiences.” 

SageCRM also boasts 7 excellent tools to help improve communications, manage expectations, and clarify responsibilities between businesses and their customers and build the foundations for a win-win relationship.

1. Workflow capabilities in SageCRM ensure that the exceptional customer service levels which are expected in the post-recession climate are consistently met every time.
2. Triggers and alarms allow customer service teams to ensure that queries are followed up in a timely manner so that issues don’t get ‘lost between the cracks’ and that demanding customers are served efficiently and effectively.
3. Knowledge management capabilities make it easier to capture remedies related to specific issues which may recur over time, enabling users to find information quickly and easily, ultimately resulting in improved customer care.
4. Integrated with Sage ERP systems, SageCRM provides customer service agents with complete customer information enabling them to answer customer queries confidently and accurately.
5. Real-time monitoring of SLAs ensures that customer service cases are progressed in accordance with SLA requirements, driving customer satisfaction and retention.
6. Self-service capabilities empower customers to securely access CRM data over the web in a convenient manner, enabling customers to services their own information requirements while reducing the resource overhead to the business.
7. SageCRM reports and dashboards provide detailed analysis on metrics such as call volume, case resolution times, communications, follow-up statistics and escalations; enabling management to quantify the performance of their agents – a key requirement for companies entering the recovery with fewer staff on board.

Sage highlights these and other features of SageCRM that can help you thrive throughout the current economic changes in their whitepaper:  “Accelerate out of the Downturn with SageCRM”.

1. Data Ownership – Although it seems obvious, the ability to retain ownership of all of your data and processes is actually somewhat rare in the SaaS world, so it is a great feature of the new edition. 
    
2. Upgrade Control – You are no longer tied to an outside vendor’s upgrade schedule or obligated to add unwanted features during an upgrade.  With the cloud computing edition, you can trigger an upgrade on your schedule.
    
3. Deployment Flexibility – Receive the benefits of a hosted, on-demand solution with the option of migrating to an on-premise deployment at any time should your needs change.  Likewise, if you already own an on-premise deployment of SalesLogix, you can seamlessly migrate to the cloud edition.
    
4. Customization Flexibility – Adapt your SalesLogix CRM software to your unique sales, marketing, and support processes  and take advantage of industry-specific versions without the restrictions that are common in other multi-tenant SaaS offerings. 
    
5. Buying Flexibility – Whether you want to purchase a perpetual license or a subscription, Sage SalesLogix cloud edition allows you to pick the purchasing manner that best fits your needs and financial goals.

Would you like Socius to keep you up to date on the development and release of the cloud computing edition of Sage SalesLogix?  Sign up for release alerts!

• Microsoft Dynamics CRM
• Sage SalesLogix CRM
• SageCRM
• ACT! by Sage

Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Sage SalesLogix CRM both made it into the Challengers quadrant, which reflects the strength of these products is their ability to execute their vision.  They share this quadrant with SAP, a product designed for enterprise level companies, while both Microsoft Dynamics and Sage focus on the small to mid-market level companies.

SageCRM and ACT! by Sage share the Niche Players quadrant in which they top Goldmine, Maximizer Software, Landslide, SugarCRM, and Pivotal Sales in their ability to execute their vision.  Gartner placed ACT! in the Niche Players quadrant because of it’s focus on addressing the needs of small businesses and independent sales people.  SageCRM earned its place in that quadrant due to its deep, seamless integration with Ohio Sage ERP solutions like Sage MAS 90 Extended Enterprise Solution (EES).