The Cloud and Contact Management
One of the areas where Cloud Computing is having a big impact is in Contact Management and Customer Relationship Management (CRM).
Going back to the early 80’s, I was working for a US CAD/CAM start-up company with 35 European employees. When I left almost 5 years later they had just under 3000 European employees. Obviously, to achieve this level of growth each sales person had to meet or exceed pretty aggressive sales targets. This meant working in a highly structured manner, which we did with the help of a mini-computer based system but prior to this, it was all recorded manually with the help of diaries, wall-planners, Post-It’s and Rolodex’s.
If you could take yourself back to a time when there wasn’t even computer based Contact Management readily available, let alone Cloud Computing (ie early 80’s), plus imagine using a keyboard for the first time (with no typing experience) no mouse, no Windows and no drop-down menus – just use of the Tab key! This is second nature to us now, but back then it was like learning to write all over again.
Bearing all this in mind you can see the resistance to using such a system, but even taking into account the time required to enter data, it quickly caught on as the top earners demonstrated what could be achieved by using the system. This then had a snowball effect throughout the organisation and as I recall we had great fun too.
Since those days I have used a number of CRM systems and contact managers such as GoldMine, and found them all wanting in one way or another. The best system I ever used was the DOS version of Sage’s old Telemagic contact manager, now superseded by Act. It was very simple, fast and effective. It was one of the few programs affected by the Millennium bug where the year 2000 became 1930! I never found a system to match it so that’s why we developed virtualCONTACT with Cloud Computing based Contact Management very much in mind.
Clearly speed, ease-of-use and simplicity are major concerns for sales teams and are key areas that we have addressed in our software, with Cloud Computing playing a significant role.
In today’s economic climate companies must realise that they need to do all that they can to keep their sales teams as enthusiastic and as motivated as possible if they’re to maintain revenues, never mind increase them.
virtualCONTACT is the first Cloud Computing based Contact Management/CRM solution designed by sales professionals for sales professionals, a powerful tool that really does put you back in control, making your life as a successful sales person more enjoyable and rewarding than ever before.
Our guarantee is simple; if we don’t increase your sales revenues by at least 30% in the first year, we’ll give you your money back!
Please contact me: richard@virtualcontact.biz or on: 020 8755 4866.
For more details regarding Contact Management please click here.
For more details regarding Cloud Computing please click here.
For more details regarding Key Performance Indicators please click here.