Category: Web Development

11 ways to reduce unnecessary load on your WordPress site

Unnecessary load on your website is like uninvited guests at your home, some of them are good but most of them will make your life difficult instead of helping you anyway. They will keep you busy and for that you may miss your real guests. There are thousands of bots crawling in the web daily but not all of them are made for you nor are they of any help to you. In order to solve the unnecessary crawling/load on the server it is recommended to follow the next optimization steps for your sites. 1. Pay attention to the scripts provided in this post. Special attention should be paid to scripts that use MySQL. Maybe changes to some part of code are needed. For example: – Disconnect Post Revisions in file wp-config.php define (‘WP_POST_REVISIONS’, false); -Reduce the number of request. Eliminate unnecessary requests to expedite the     generation of the page. For example, the following typical code can be removed if found in all the themes. for WordPress: <meta http-equiv=“Content-Type” content=”<?php bloginfo(‘html_type’); ?>; charset=<?php bloginfo(‘charset’); ?>” /> Replace to: <meta http-equiv=“Content-Type” content=“text/html; charset=UTF-8” /> 2. Update CMS to the last version available (http://wordpress.org/download/) 3. Update all used plugins for WordPress CMS, and delete unused. 4. Install next WordPress plugins: – Optimize Db. Can be downl oaded at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/optimize-db/ – WP-super-cache plugin or any other plugin that enables caching for this CMS (link to wp-super-cache -http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-super-cache/) or WP3 Total Cache, it can be downloaded from http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/w3-total-cache/ – Avoid plugins that cause high CPU load such as: *All in One SEO *Broken Link Checker *Yet Another Related Posts Plugin *NextGen Gallery 5. Disable wp-cron by editing your wp-config.php file and eding line: define(‘DISABLE_WP_CRON’, true); Create the following cron task in your control panel: 0 */2 * * * wget -q -O – http://yourwebsite.com/wp-cron.php?doing_wp_cron >/dev/null 2>&1 6. Don’t use ETags unless customer are taking advantage of it. How to http://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/how-to-add-far-future-expires-headers-to-your-wordpress-site-1533#removeEtags 7. Use external scripts. Instead of placing tons of code in your header.php file, use external scripts. This allows the browser to cache the script so it won’t have to read it for every other page 8. Keep page sizes less than 100 Kb. Do not use too many unnecessary images and video on a page. Always compress the images appropriately. 9. limiting unneeded hits through a robots.txt As for robots.txt file please refer to the following link to know correct syntax for it: http://www.robotstxt.org/ 10. for the wp-login.php; it might simply means that your wordpress dashboard is open for brute force. You can resolve it by limiting access to your wp-admin folder to specific IPs in case no one else is supposed to gain access other than the administrator. (http://www.netmagazine.com/tutorials/protect-your-wordpress-site-htaccess) 11. There is a WordPress plugin called “Login Lockdown, http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/login-lockdown/ which will block any IP that guesses an incorrect password a certain number of times. This post is written specially for those sites using WordPress CMS. However some of the points are also applicable to other sites. We welcome some comments in this thread, please feel free to comment and share your ideas to make the webmaster’s life easier to fight the spam’s and save bandwidth.

Read More »

Empower Your Sales Professionals with Mobile Sales Automation Solutions

In today’s cut-throat market environment, companies must empower their sales force with automated sales process to help the sales executives increase their efficiency and convert more prospects into customers in a much lesser time. The sales representatives are the first persons of the company to get in touch with the customers and coincidently they are the most important people as they generate profit and revenue for the company. The customer is not bound to purchase from a single company, it is his loyalty which stimulates him for repurchase from the same company despite uniformity of products across the competitors. So whether it is an old customer or a new customer, your company becomes disposable when the customer is not satisfied with your services. In such a scenario, no company affords to have a sales force which acts late than its competitors. Technological advancements and more Off late, the technological advancements have introduced CRM solutions on mobile devices to let your sales force manage the customer efficiently and effectively thereby increasing productivity at work. Fortunately, most of these applications come with a cloud based platform to avoid double entry across different devices. These modern day applications let you sell, service and market from your mobile device. And there are loads of sales force automation applications available in the market with secure and password protected sign-in option for salespersons. Therefore, the time is ripe to use these technological benefits for sales executives, by using sales force automation on smartphones, tablets, PDAs, laptops and other Java, Windows, Android or iOS powered devices to streamline the tasks related to sales and achieve higher return on investment. Lastly, they have been tried, tested and adopted across various industries including FMCG, healthcare, insurance, confectionaries, financial and banking industries. Key features of mobile sales automation solutions Generate invoices and automatic reports – Mobile sales force automation systems equip the salesperson to generate instant invoices. It even helps them to generate automatic reports and dashboards on monthly sales pipeline analysis, sales opportunities by lead source and much more. Direct customer feedback to management – It enables the management to have an instant review about customer feedbacks straight from the field. So when a new product is launched, you immediately get to know about first-hand customer response for your products. Real time data sharing among salespersons – Mobile sales force automation arms your sales team with information about new salespersons joining the team and higher versions of these systems also facilitate automatic field updates, task assignment and email sending. What’s more, you can build mobile social intranets to connect your employees with RSS feeds, files, applications and important published information so that employees can stay up to date, aligned and more productive. Route management – A sales executive is mostly in the field tracking down the appointments with its customers. Mobile sales force automation solutions help the sales reps to easily route their daily, weekly or monthly appointments. In case, there is any change in schedule of the meeting or appointment cancellation, it can smoothly reroute the appointments. Inventory management – Customers are often impatient and expect quick response from sales persons. It is practically impossible to keep a track of inventory if the SKUs are huge. Not only this, it is extremely important not to book an order if the product became out of stock even a few minutes ago by another sales deal in a different territory. The central inventory database keeps all the sales persons alert about the current stock available and booked, right on their mobile. Client management – Customers do get irritated when there is overlapping of communication by various sales persons. Most importantly, they get discouraged if they are asked to share the same information which they did last time with a different salesperson. Besides reflecting a lack of co-ordination among the salespersons it may turn into losing a potential customer. Mobile sales force automation maintains call records, history of previous purchase, client’s needs and remarks if any thus, keeping complete information handy for a new salesperson contacting the customer. Precisely, it rules out massive load of individual communication among the huge sales team. Take orders and sales returns – Mobile sales automation system makes it easier for the salesperson to book the orders on-the-go and the same information can be accessed by the back office instantly that starts processing the order delivery. If there is any sales return by the distributors or dealers, the same can be updated in the mobile CRM software. Significance of mobile sales automation solutions For field sales force Customer calls and order recording – Salespersons are better prepared to take customer calls and have instant access to complete customer information on mobile. It also gives them more time to be in the field than in the office. Orders booked are automatically recorded giving a comprehensive view of order history. Monitoring dealers and distributors – Salespersons have a different set of understanding and relationship with different dealers that requires on their part to be careful while offering specific discounts and margins to them. All such credentials can be administered via mobile automated system. It even helps them by storing contact information of the dealer. Managing sales territories – To shed the load of managing numerous territories, a salesperson is better equipped to access and manage information about different territories and customers, right with the tap of a finger. Assists in generating proposals and quotations – As soon as the customer gives the requirement, the salesperson is expected to present the proposal with the relevant quotes. The software negates the manual formation of complex proposals. Suggestions about product promotion – A company with a long product line catering to different market segments require the salesperson to use appropriate promotional campaigns. It gives a fair idea to the salesperson by suggesting a suitable option. Update about new stores opened in the corresponding areas – The system is well-managed to alert the salesperson about new stores added in the area. It

Read More »

An Introduction to Human Resource Management System

As a small business owner, you might be handling your staff payrolls and leave management through manual register entry or MS Excel data entry or other similar data entry record maintenance offline platforms. But it becomes extremely difficult to follow these traditional methods for your business in a rapidly expanding market where the number of employees also grows to serve more customers. Maintaining paper-based files for each employee requires a lot of labor and space. Besides this, it not only consumes a lot of time and money but decreases the productivity thereby reducing focus on core areas of your business. It is time to incorporate Human Resource Management System (HRMS) which can handle your personnel load efficiently with a flexible approach. Broadly, HRMS contains numerous benefits for business operation and functioning. HRMS adds value to your business Strategic function – The management has an easy access to HR information which helps them to have a better insight into strategic issues and corporate decision making. Administrative function – HRMS streamlines the workflow in your organization and facilitates horizontal integration across different departments. Besides this, it also sends workflow alerts to employees to abide by the deadlines. Workforce alignment – HRMS helps you in the recruitment of key talent and align your workforce to your organizational objectives. It also helps in optimizing the number of employees performing a particular task. Learning and development – The more your employees learn, the more they can teach new recruits and colleagues. The self service modules help the employees to learn more about work practices responsible for their overall development and promotion within the organization. Business process automation – The common tasks in your HR department including performance evaluation of staff, travel reimbursements and bookings are easily taken care of with HRMS through its automated system. Key features of HRMS Administer payment of salary – It ensures accurate and timely payment of all your employees. It can easily handle salary, allowances and over time rates for a complex grading structure existing in your organization through its well-defined formulae. Managing common administrative tasks – We often see that individual handling of time consuming tasks like travel reimbursement, change in personal information of employee, expense reporting etc adds a lot to the cost of labor. HRMS will assist you in handling such tasks and save your HR department a lot of time that can be focussed on strategic issues. Talent retention – HRMS helps you design employee retention strategies and programs so that you don’t lose your talented workers to your competitors. So if the attrition rate is high in your organization, HRMS will support you to come over this problem. Manage leave entitlement – HRMS accurately administers leave entitlement, leave encashment, number of leaves taken and the balance left without any hassle. Performance management – HRMS simplifies appraisal process by taking KRAs into account. It also keeps a track of punctuality and attendance of employees. Streamlines the recruitment process – HRMS tracks the applications received for a job posting, shortlisted candidates and interviews conducted till the appointment of an appropriate candidate. Effective communication – A transparent and easy flow of communication between HR department and employees facilitates a healthy relationship between the employee and the company. It makes sure that all their concerns are promptly addressed by the company. It also makes reporting much easier as we all agree that most of the companies follow a hierarchical protocol. Managing staffing requirements – HRMS helps you determine the type and number of employees required for a particular job. If though you are starting as a small business, appropriate fulfilment of staff requirements will make you grow. Medical allowances – If you offer medical allowances to your employees and their family members, HRMS will take care of it by tracking and maintaining medical entitlements. Employee training – Your employee needs constant training depending on the job profile he is in. HRMS manages the training requirements of your employees and monitors the cost required to train them. HR portal – HR portal gives the employees a secure access to their due salary and keep a track of salary history, leave entitlement, leave balance and a lot of other private information.

Read More »

Top 5 CRM Tools You Can’t Avoid

As a small business owner, you are often loaded with managing your business operations through multiple applications including client relationship, project management, address books, task list and many more but having a resourceful cloud-based CRM application for your mobile devices or laptops will make lead generation, selling and opportunity management fairly simple. Now get rid of any apprehensions of expanding your business as it is going to streamline the information exchange and augment your relationship with the ever increasing list of customers. There are many feature-rich CRMs available in the market today but we have chosen 5 CRM applications of the many • Insightly Insightly is an easy to use application that links together your clients, projects, tasks and any other custom field you wish to add on a single dashboard. It has an integrated search feature which enables you to search email attachments as well. It smoothly organizes your emails on the basis of clients, projects and teams so that all your interlinked information is grouped together. Apart from that, it integrates with Gmail & other Google applications, social media platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter. • Nimble Nimble is a social media oriented CRM tool which integrates all the mediums of interaction with your client including LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Skype, phone or email. Identify the contacts looking for your products through search on social media websites and track their activities to know them more. Besides this, it automatically searches for your client’s profile on social networks and lets you update status or send messages to anyone. Nimble also integrates with Hootsuite which increases social selling and engagement opportunities. The Unified inbox interface listens to all the relevant communication occurring in social networks and present it on a single platform. • Batchbook You can easily import all your contacts into Batchbook by mapping the relevant fields. It gives you the freedom of merging records and tagging your contacts. Drag vcards and spreadsheets from your PC to any screen on Batchbook and it’ll be saved in an appropriate location. Get complete information about your customer, as it coagulates all sorts of communication including tweets, follow ups required, blog comments, at one place. Assign tasks to your team members and manage your leads & deals. Create custom fields to keep a track of important data in Batchbook. Like Nimble, it too integrates with Hootsuite and social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. • Greenrope GreenRope is a simple to use cloud-based platform to combine all your business operation and marketing needs. You can send emails and newsletters, manage events and set automatic reminders. Its social media marketing tools help you integrate with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc and you can view all the activities via social dashboard. GreenRope integrates with Zimbra to streamline your business email inbox and enhance productivity by collaborating with your team members through shared folders, documents and calendars. This CRM system even allows you to do SMS marketing by easily sending SMS to your contacts. Its real-time tracking feature allows tracking your marketing campaigns and knowing who is reading what. GreenRope easily synchronises with Microsoft Dynamics to quickly send the contact details from latter to former. • SugarCRM SugarCRM’s modern web calendar keeps you on time with your schedules and meetings. It also maintains the history of meetings with your clients which is easily searchable. SugarCRM email syncs with Microsoft Outlook, Lotus Notes, Gmail, Yahoo Mail and IMAP based email servers. Its call center kit enables the call center agents to have a comprehensive view of customer information on a single screen. Like Insightly, it too integrates with Google apps including Google docs, maps, calendar, Android etc. Sugar Project and Activity Management helps the users to manage their tasks and enable seamless integration among the team members. Its reporting tools help you generate reports on market analysis, performance of sales reps, sales forecasting and much more. It offers quick search for data located anywhere in the CRM. And like many other CRMs, it integrates very well with leading social media networks. All the above mentioned CRM tools can be run on mobile devices, a great advantage for salespersons to save time while being on field. But one must chose the CRM system best suiting his business needs.

Read More »

How to Optimize Business Communication with OpenERP

There are many reasons why you should have some of the best tools of communication in place. They help you to make contact with your leads and convert them to opportunities. The very same communication tools help you to convert opportunities into customers and increase your company’s profitability. With that in mind, it is important to have an excellent enterprise resources planning system in place, which is not only affordable but also easily customizable. OpenERP and Business Communication Go Hand In Hand OpenERP meets all these requirements and according to us, it is one of the best ERP tools to manage communication with various kinds of people. OpenERP is one of the best ERP tools to pursue your company’s business opportunities effectively. However, some of us may be more attuned to using certain email programs more than the new ones and learning a new email program may decrease efficiency. For this reason alone, OpenERP allows you to use normal communication tools by interfacing them with OpenERP. Nothing is lost, and you will only increase your productivity and efficiency in communication. Integration of Email Tools in Enterprise Resource Planning Systems OpenERP is one of the most versatile ERP solutions available at the moment. It effectively integrates all your email programs without you having to go through a steep learning curve. The two most used email platforms, Outlook and Thunderbird, can be effectively interfaced with OpenERP and you will not have to learn a new software program. OpenERP itself requires a little bit of learning and there are professionals who help you to learn the basics or they extend their own services to help you achieve your targets. However, by reducing the number of modules that you need to learn, you will directly increase your growth and productivity, which means, your profitability increases as well. Various Forms of Business Media Brought Under a Single Software Business communication often deals with social media, email, telephone and video conferencing. OpenERP allows you to use all these forms of communication effectively when you interface it with these different media. Let us take a look at how it will help you to integrate existing modes of communication with its ERP solutions. Using Social Media with Enterprise Resource Planning OpenERP effectively integrates social media into your existing system and allows you to share documents, files and media with people all around the world. OpenERP understands the importance of social links and social feeds, which is why it can now be customized to enter social network details of your contacts and partners. With that in mind, it becomes easier to contact them through Skype, instant messaging, email, and other forms of communication. When social communication is boosted, business naturally improves. It is no secret that social media has taken over the business world and businesses cannot simply use an ERP system without using social media. Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and other social networks can be integrated into OpenERP and when combined together, you will have a very powerful enterprise resource planning system in place. You will not only be able to contact your business partners and clients but will also be able to track their conversations which are public. It is always easier to know what they like beforehand so that your communication is more effective. For instance, when you have access to a lead’s Twitter feed, you will know the likes and dislikes of that particular person. You can change your sales pitch to suit their tastes and effectively convert them into opportunities or better still, customers. Business communication is often taken for granted even when companies assume they are taking it seriously. There is no way one can shift through various social feeds and contact details when your business grows. Using an ERP system like OpenERP becomes extremely important when it comes to business communication. With that in mind, OpenERP can be an effective tool to bring your email tools, social media, marketing campaigns, sales programs and client communication under a single umbrella. The resulting communication will be holistic and will satisfy not only you but also your prospective clients and customers. If you were looking for more information about ERP systems or how best you can increase the level of business communication that exists within your organization, do not hesitate to contact our professionals who are well versed with OpenERP and other enterprise resource planning systems.  

Read More »

Why OpenERP Is Awesome to Optimize Sales Cycle through Opportunities

The sales cycle often confuses managers and executives alike. It is no wonder that most people depends upon enterprise resource planning solutions to handle all the data and to make contacts with leads, opportunities, customers and clients. Software programs like OpenERP are very important and crucial in managing the health of sales cycles and to optimize your sales cycle, you will need to use software programs like OpenERP. OpenERP is an open source enterprise resource planning software which has often been described as one of the best tools to drive sales and increase productivity. It is a well known fact that increased productivity also leads to increased profitability. How OpenERP Helps You Convert Leads into Sales Opportunities OpenERP is specifically designed to help you to convert your leads into opportunities. Leads are usually handled by the dozens but when a program identifies opportunities, they are usually contacted on a one-to-one basis so that negotiations can take place that result in sales. Opportunities can be connected to email gateways in OpenERP and each time an email is sent and the lead responds, they may be added to the list of opportunities. When it happens that a person is not responding to repeated sales emails, you may remove that person from the list of leads altogether. OpenERP is designed to help you choose whether you want to create a new partner or merge a contact with an existing partner. This allows you to know where a contact belongs. Once you know that a lead is certainly interested in what you are offering, you can mark them as opportunities in OpenERP. OpenERP Helps in Sales Organization If your sales organization is composed of several teams and individuals, you can make sure that OpenERP divides them according to certain criteria. This may include different products, different markets, certain demographics and also particular clients. Sales performance tracking can be done based on such reorganization which OpenERP helps you with. OpenERP and Defining Key Steps of Sales Cycle OpenERP allows you to create sales cycle that is unique to your company or organization. Each company works differently and thus OpenERP conveniently modifies itself based on how you prefer to work. OpenERP helps you to identify different stages and for each stage you can define certain criteria. Only when these criteria are met will OpenERP move to the next stage. For instance, you can define a stage as a territory which segments your opportunities. When interest is generated or when you know they are interested, you may move them up to the stage of ‘Qualified’. From there, you might want to move them up the ladder for ‘Sales Proposition’, where you can identify what the opportunity actually wants and if you can meet the demands of the client or customer. The next stage in OpenERP could be ‘negotiations’, which help you to know for sure if this opportunity will become a customer. Once you know that the opportunity has agreed to your sales proposition during negotiations, you can mark him or her as ‘Customer’. The next option would be to plan your next actions. These actions may be automated and OpenERP can also help you to plan your meetings and calls effectively. It all depends on timing and the right form of communication. OpenERP automates many of these procedures so that you do not need to spend a lot of time over it. Finally, you can get OpenERP to schedule and close dates. This will help you to know what is going on with certain clients and how best it is to move forward to increase revenue. Sales cycle differs from company to company and every organization is not the same. OpenERP helps you to define your goals, your plans and your targets so that sales organization can be automated to the maximum level possible. OpenERP ensures that automation is as non-intrusive and robotic as possible as it involves human actions and decisions as well. This is what sets OpenERP apart from the rest of the software programs. If you would like to know which ERP solution is the best for your company, do contact our professionals. There are no one-fit-for-all software programs that can help every company’s requirements but professional guidance will help you to choose and install the right software for your business.

Read More »

How to Manage Address Book Using OpenERP

There are many people who use open source software programs not only because they tend to be free at basic levels without any support, but also because of ethical reasons. With that in mind, OpenERP is one of the most popular enterprise resource planning software that is open source integrated. It was founded in 2005 by Fabienm Pinchaers and is a unique ecosystem that consists of several professionals who strive to make it one of the best ERP systems around. Today, let us take a look at how OpenERP can help you manage your ever increasing address book, and manage your contacts without getting carried away by too many programs that claim to do a lot of things. How OpenERP categorizes Your Contacts The key difference between OpenERP and other CRM and ERP tools is that it differentiates contacts between partners and contacts. A partner is a person or entity with whom you conduct business. It could be an employee, prospect or a customer. In other tools, a partner is usually referred to as an ‘account’. A contact is someone who works for a partner, and the contact is also the person you will need to contact if you need something to do be done from the side of the partner. Integration of Email and Boosting Retrieval of Information Related to Contacts The best feature of OpenERP is that it integrates email into your ERP in a big way. For instance, if you use an email gateway to receive and send emails, you probably will be using Outlook or something like Thunderbird. What you will need to do is that you have to register an email address for each contact so that the gateway catches all the incoming emails to the correct partner. This helps you to know what kind of communication has taken place between you and a partner (account) when you open the database. This is very crucial in understand certain aspects of communication, which may otherwise not be available in usual email threads. It removes a lot of ambiguities, which can affect your company in a negative manner. Categorizing and Classifying Partners When it comes to running a business successfully, you should be able to categorize all the accounts or partners that you have. All partners are usually not equal and some need certain requirements while others may need something else. Depending on what your partner requires, you can categorize them in OpenERP. Your address book will no longer have to be a haphazard collection of names, numbers, email addresses, and residential addresses. Instead, OpenERP allows you to categorize information based on which category a partner belongs to. In order to take a look at available partner categories, you need to go to the sales tab, click on ‘Configuration’, hit on the ‘Address Book’ panel and finally choose the ‘Partner Categories’ that is mentioned there. Of course, you can customize the categories the way you want to. This facility makes OpenERP superior to other ERP systems as it helps companies to manage contacts even when they run into hundreds of thousands. You can divide your partners according to their status. For instance, they could be your customer, prospect, supplier, distributor and so on. Base Contact Module Offers More Flexibility and Customization What makes OpenERP one of the best contact management software programs is that it offers the easiest way to customize the way you want to enter contact details. OpenERP also provides an alternative called ‘base_contact module’. The module allows users to manage contacts with even more flexibility than regular ERP systems. The software understands in a ‘smart’ way, who your partners are, if your partners are also your contacts, and if your contacts can sometimes be partners. All these complex relationships can easily be handled in OpenERP. When it comes to managing the address book, we should remember that it is very important to classify, categorize and input important information. It is equally important to store your data in the cloud so that information can be retrieved when necessary. We believe OpenERP can solve many existing problems related to contact management and that it is one of the best address management tools that an organization can use. If you would like to learn more about contact management and optimizing your address book with your existing ERP or would like to know more about other ERPs suitable for your business, do contact us.

Read More »

Manage and Grow Your Leads by Using OpenERP

Every company has a list of leads that it thinks will provide them with enough sales to increase profitability. However, several studies have noted that profitability is directly correlated with the kind of ERP you use. If you use an efficient enterprise resource planning system, it automatically helps you to generate more leads simply because your organization becomes more efficient and has enough time to hunt for leads and follow up using the same ERP’s contact management tools. With that in mind, we should consider OpenERP as one of the best tools to manage your leads. In this article, we shall take a look at how OpenERP can help you manage your leads and increase profitability. Who Are Your Leads and Why Are They So Important? If you would like to know what or who leads are, they can be described as contacts who are potential customers in the future. It is assumed that leads have an intrinsic motivation to buy your products or services. Thus, it is important for you to find out who your leads are and how best you can manage them. Also, a lead is someone with whom you still have not developed any relationship. Future sales opportunities can be realized when leads are managed effectively. Unfortunately, most leads are lost or buried in the canals of software programs where they are left forgotten indefinitely, and they never surface to the list of people-to-contact that your marketing and sales team often creates. Storing lead information is one of the most important components of managing leads. It is only when you store information related to your leads in a manner that it can be accessed easily, can your leads become customers. OpenERP allows you to store lead information and also help you to generate leads with the help of existing customers. How to Use OpenERP to Add Leads and Manage Them OpenERP allows you to create leads either manually or automatically. When someone sends an enquiry to your company’s generic email address, that person is assumed to be a lead and entered automatically into the list of leads. On the other hand, if someone lends you a business card at a party or an exhibition, you could manually enter their details into the list of leads. OpenERP can also help you to import CSV files from a given sector or region. These potential customers can then be contacted individually so that they are given special attention. Using OpenERP Email Programs to Contact Leads OpenERP also has email programs that help you to send mass emails to people who need further follow-up. You can also get OpenERP to create forms which can be filled up on your website by prospective leads and when they fill up and you think they are worthy enough for further efforts to be contacted, you list them under leads. Those who are in marketing and presales will often work with leads. Thus, for the success of any marketing campaign, it is important that your team uses important ERP tools, such as OpenERP. Using OpenERP to Convert Status of a Lead OpenERP is specifically designed to create, add and manage leads. It also converts your leads into customers especially if you have online stores or if your call centers process sales as well. All you need to do is click on the ‘Sales’ tab and then hit on ‘Configuration’. Once you do that, you will have to choose ‘Leads & Opportunities’ and click on ‘Stages’. Salesmen can use this button to change the status of a prospective contact to lead or to a customer. You may also create options wherein you can turn some of your leads into priority leads, so that the sales process can be hastened. Organizations and companies need to pay more attention to lead management than anything else. IN fact profitability of a company begins at recognizing the importance of looking for leads and then nurturing them. Once these leads are converted into customers, you can use ERP tools like OpenERP to provide customer service as well. If you need more information about how you could install an ERP system across your systems, do contact us. Our professionals will assist you in choosing the right software program for your business.

Read More »

Using SugarCRM in Education Industry

If you run an educational institution or a training institute, you will often know that students tend to be as elusive as they are omnipresent. They can be found easily but to get them to enroll in a course is as difficult as moving mountains. Only, you need to know who would be genuinely interested in your school or university and in the programs that you offer. So then, how exactly can we go ahead and make sure that students and apprentices are targeted easily so that profit is increased? One will have to use a customer relationship management tool that is specifically optimized for students and education. This goes a long way. Why Do Educational Institutions Require CRM Tools? Whether you are recruiting students for profit or whether it is to answer queries related to admission or to ensure that grades are allotted to the right student, a CRM tool always comes to rescue. Of all these tools, SugarCRM is one of the best and is widely used in education settings. There are several universities and colleges all over the world that use SugarCRM as the main software to understand students’ needs and to communicate with them, and also get profitable. Let us learn how SugarCRM helps education. Communicating with Prospective Students and the Journey of Recruiting them Universities and colleges deal with an enormous amount of competition. Students are well informed and they know that there are a number of universities waiting for them. This results in a situation where universities and colleges have to actually market enrolment programs as if they were products. Thus, students are often treated as customers more than young scholars. This competitive pressure has resulted in the formation of certain management strategies which includes using customer relationship management tools. These tools help universities and colleges to streamline internal processes and become productive. Secondly, they help universities and colleges to operate efficiently and cut costs. This is one of the reasons why universities and colleges often contact us with respect to CRM tools. The best CRM tool for universities and colleges is SugarCRM, according to a number of users. These organizations have to focus not only on students, but also on parents, alumni, donors and others who may be helpful in increasing the profits of the organization. How SugarCRM Helps in Managing an Educational Institution SugarCRM can be used for applications, filling up forms, maintain database about students who had expressed interest in a particular course, managing their reports, grades and feedback and even to assess their progress when they are in the university. It can be used to understand the market that is most amenable to your campaigns and also to focus on certain demographics. Contacting People Who Matter and Raising Funds Using SugarCRM Parents, who are major decision makers when it comes to education, can also be contacted with the help of SugarCRM. Their queries and concerns can be tackled and they could be encouraged to spend more on extra courses and frills. Once students graduate and leave the institution, they can be contacted each year for alumni association meetings and also to seek help for canvassing or for raising funds. Likewise, external donors can be contacted or communicated with, with the help of SugarCRM. SugarCRM is great software for educational institutions and will continue to boost revenue for such institutions. It needs to be seen how many universities will begin to start using CRM tools instead of old software programs that are outdated now. SugarCRM is being used across educational institutions increasingly. SIM University, Ottantaventi Formazione, ROC Eindhoven, Kalamazoo, The Catholic University of Lyon, GROUPE HEC and others have begun to use SugarCRM extensively. The future seems to be vested in using CRM tools like SugarCRM effectively in order to ensure increased profitability and margins. If you run educational institution and need assistance in choosing the right ERP or CRM, do not hesitate to call us up or contact us. Our professionals will be able to guide you and help you with the right tool for your educational institution. After all, students are some of the most valuable customers who will spend a significant duration of their lives in your institution. Ensuring that they are satisfied and happy is one of the reasons why you must invest in a CRM tool.

Read More »

Why Is SugarCRM the Best Call Center Software Solution?

It is simply too much to expect that a call centre executive will be able to retrieve a lot of information from different programs in order to get the complete history of a client or customer who is waiting on the other end of the phone to get something resolved. If problems are not solved immediately and if information is not pulled up immediately, the client will get irrigated and may hang up or never do business with you. Thus, it is very crucial to ensure that the right customer relationship management system is used to resolve customers’ problems quickly and effectively. SugarCRM Is Great for Call Centers SugarCRM, which is a popular customer relationship management tool, is a great way to ensure that the call center works smoothly and efficiently. SugarCRM for call centers is the right way to approach the problem, especially when customers will usually not have a lot of patience. SugarCRM ensures that the calls are short, effective and the customer hangs up happily instead of with a frown. Let us try and understand how SugarCRM can help you to achieve the results you want in a world that is quickly being dominated by different kinds of CRM platforms. Call Centre Executives Can Perform Duties with Renewed Vigor SugarCRM is designed to ensure that call center executives do not waste time in retrieving information about the caller. In fact, it is a great platform for government agencies and companies to construct their call center applications and let their executives use a multi-channel desktop program that provides them with all the information that is necessary from a single app. It reduces time, increases efficiency and keeps the customer happy. Let us take a look at the various features of SugarCRM for call centers. Fast Agent Desktop This program helps customer service executives to get a 360 degree view of the customer’s concerns. All the information is available on one screen so that they do not have to toggle from one program to another. It provides with all the identification details and it will be easy for the executive to confirm the identity of the caller. This leads to increased customer satisfaction and quicker call resolution. B y allowing the executive to get all the information right on the desktop screen without wasting any time, SugarCRM increases productivity and reduces call duration. Lengthy calls can be avoided because information is available right on the screen. CTI Integration Computer Telephony integration (CTI) is very crucial in call centers. SugarCRM does this like a piece of cake and it will integrate your existing telephony program into its own so that a lot of confusion is eliminated. Most companies have their own CTI systems installed. SugarCRM usually helps them to integrate CRM into CTI so that call center executives do not have to waste time unnecessarily, when it comes to attending calls and resolving issues. Smarter Commerce Now that a lot of transactions take place online, many customers call up in order to ask about online transactions. SugarCRM helps executives to actually make sales when there is a call without any delay so that a prospective caller who could become a customer again is not wasted. No opportunity is wasted, when it comes to SugarCRM. Ecommerce is growing tremendously and it makes very good business sense to have call centers in place which can also conduct sales. This will help companies to increases sales and revenue, and they will be able to see better margins and profitability. Customer Support There is nothing more important than providing customer support in a call center, SugarCRM is specifically a customer relationship management tool and it helps call centers to provide customer support easily. It turns existing customers into repeat customers and also helps in locating new ones. It comes with several features such as Inbound Email, Knowledge Base, Self-Service Portal and Case Management. SugarCRM is one of the best CRM tools out there, and when it comes to call centers, it is certainly one of the most affordable and effective ones. If you would like to know which software suits your call center the best, please contact us so that we can help you choose and install the right CRM tool across your systems.

Read More »
MENU
CONTACT US

Let’s connect!

Loading form…

CONTACT US

Let’s connect!

    Privacy Policy.

    Almost there!

    Download the report

      Privacy Policy.