Wizard Systems

The Future of CRM in 2024: Smarter, Integrated and Experience-Driven Solutions

Customer relationship management (CRM) solutions are undergoing major changes thanks to emerging technologies and evolving buyer expectations. By 2024, CRM platforms will look almost unrecognizable compared to early 2020 models. Here are the key ways we see CRM progressing and improving over the next few years:

AI and Predictive Insights Will Be the Norm
CRM platforms will leverage artificial intelligence, machine learning and predictive analytics to provide actionable and timely insights. From predicting customer churn to recommending optimal cross-sell offers, CRMs will act as true data-driven advisors to sales, marketing and customer service teams. The future CRM will enhance decision-making versus just tracking interactions.  Already, our Freshdesk, Gator and Sage products contain AI features and more will come.

Unified Customer Profiles Through Expanded Data Integration
As customer data volumes grow across channels, CRMs will evolve into more holistic “customer data platforms” (CDPs). Leading CRM tools will unify data from web, mobile, social media, chat and offline sources into consistent profiles. This will allow for omnichannel personalization while also connecting to marketing automation and ecommerce systems for execution.  Zapier.com is a great integration tool we use for linking Workbooks easily with hundreds of other apps.

Specialized Vertical Solutions Will Emerge
Industry-specific CRM solutions are also rising—for example in healthcare, financial services and retail. These incorporate built-in model and data elements for that vertical while meeting domain compliance and security standards out of the box. The end result is faster ROI in CRM by matching business needs.  Don't discount the more generic CRMs.  They too can be customized to meet the specialist requirements of a vertical.

CRM Capabilities Will Flexibly Integrate Across Technology Ecosystems
Easy integration between CRM software and adjacent sales, marketing and service technologies will accelerate. CRM platforms may act as hubs, thanks to modern APIs and low-code connectivity solutions. Companies expect ecosystems over isolated software these days!

Deployment Flexibility, From the Cloud to Embedded Everywhere
While the CRM cloud model currently dominates, companies will demand flexible options in 2024 - public cloud, private cloud, hybrid, etc. Additionally, CRM capabilities will be increasingly “embedded” across websites, mobile apps and business applications. The CRM becomes distributed versus a single destination.

Intuitive and Consistent User Experiences Across All Interactions
Ease-of-use and intuitive interfaces will define next-generation CRMs, helping drive employee adoption across sales teams, CX agents and other roles. Consistent branding and navigation will carry over from web to mobile applications. The future CRM must be immediately familiar!

The bottom line is that CRM in 2024 is set to become far smarter, extremely well-integrated across systems, flexible for different deployment models, and focused on great experiences for both employees and customers. What worked three years ago will no longer suffice in the age of the mature digital customer. Now is the time for firms to start investing in next-generation CRM capabilities to outserve and outsell the competition!

Streamline Quoting with QuoteWerks Templates

 

Creating professional, error-free sales quotes can be a time-consuming process for any business. However, leveraging templates in QuoteWerks quote software can help you accelerate the quoting process without sacrificing quality.

One of the most useful features in QuoteWerks for faster quoting is its library of ready-made templates. With a few clicks, you can build a template for any type of quote - whether its a complex project proposal or a simple one-time sale.

Once you save a template, you can reuse it any time you need to create a similar quote. Just open the template, update any customer-specific information, make any required product/pricing adjustments, and output the polished quote document in seconds rather than minutes or hours.

Templates save time in several ways:

- Header/footer information is already populated for your business
- Standard terms and conditions are pre-written
- Common configurations are set up as bundle/groups
- Logo, color schemes, fonts are designed professionally

Leveraging templates allows your sales reps to spend less time formatting quotes manually and more time serving customers and closing deals. And with quotes produced faster, businesses can capitalize on sales opportunities more rapidly.

The template functionality in QuoteWerks streamlines one of the most frequent and important processes in sales - quoting. Ultimately, less reps' time spent creating quotes means more time focused on revenue-generating activities.

Try leveraging QuoteWerks' quoting templates to accelerate your business's ability to deliver quotes and close sales faster than ever before.

Get More Bang for Your Buck with Lead Scoring

As a business owner or Sales Manager, you know the value of your leads. After all, leads turn into paying customers, which is the lifeblood of any successful company. But not all leads are created equal. Implementing lead scoring in your CRM can help separate the hot prospects from those that will fizzle out, saving your team time and maximizing revenue.

What is Lead Scoring?
Lead scoring assigns values to individuals based on certain activities and characteristics to gauge their sales readiness. Each factor, like downloading an ebook or frequent visits to key site pages, is worth a set number of points. The total score provides insight into where leads are within the buyer’s journey. Leads are then categorized by their score, for example:

Cold (0-20 points)
Warm (21-40 points)
Hot (41-60 points)

Benefits of Lead Scoring
Lead scoring offers several advantages:

1. Focuses efforts on hot leads
With finite resources, sales and marketing teams shouldn’t be wasting time on cold prospects. Lead scoring helps identify those most likely to convert and routes them appropriately.

2. Provides context
Understanding lead temperature provides critical context. Sales staff look at leads differently depending on score, tailoring outreach accordingly.

3. Automates lead management
CRM systems generate and update lead scores automatically based on set criteria and behaviours. This takes the guesswork out of qualifying inbound inquiries.

4. Identifies gaps
Looking at score patterns helps reveal weaknesses in the conversion process. Are plenty of cold leads visiting your site but few becoming hot prospects? That signifies issues with lead nurturing.

 

What Goes Into A Lead Score?
Lead scores are calculated from several key actions and attributes. Typical criteria include:

Demographics - Company size, industry, location, or number of employees
Contact Profile - Job title, department, role
Recent Activity - Site page views, downloads, email opens/clicks
List Membership - Signing up for newsletters or promotions
Source - Marketing campaigns, tradeshows, or webinars
Lead Age - How long the prospect has been in the pipeline

By tracking behaviours like eBook downloads, companies gain insight into a prospect’s interests and intent. Account details and firmographics help assess buying power. As leads generate more signals and fill out profiles, scores will adjust accordingly. Weighting these factors based on ideal customer analysis also improves the model’s accuracy and predictive capabilities over time.

I've expanded on what contributes to lead scoring, including both attributes/firmographics as well as the behaviours the article previously referenced. Please let me know if this information on the various data points and factors provides more helpful context or if you'd like me to elaborate further.

Implementing a lead scoring system pays dividends across the organization, from marketing to inside sales. Don’t leave easy revenue on the table. Use lead scoring to drive growth and boost your bottom line.

 

New GoldMine 2024 now available

If you're on GoldMine Maintenance, you can now access the new version.  What's Fixed in GoldMine Version 2024.1

GoldMine Premium 2024.1.0 / GoldMine Connect 2024.1.0

40638 Outlook Sync warning for different Time Zones appears when Operating System language has been changed and cannot
be adjusted correctly
72597 GoldMine Plus Outlook Using Exchange Server mailbox with cached mode (recommended by GoldMine) + using
autolinking Sent >> sent email will always be replaced by the Exchange Server with an unlinked copy of the sent email
78219 GoldMine Web - iPhone Safari/Mac OS Safari/iOS Chrome/Firefox - User cannot log in and gets always You are already
logged in as: MASTER logout and try again
78328
GoldMine Link Outlook: Using Exchange Server/Office 365 mailbox with cached mode (recommended by GoldMine) >>
sent email will always be replaced by the Exchange/Office365 Server with a copy of the sent email which may then be
unlinked
86499 Automated Processes - Emails sent by selected user - Emails will queue into attaching user's outbox but also in selected
user's outbox - if the selected user will not care about these Outbox emails they may be stuck there
88818 Scheduled recurring meeting invite cancellation emails show the wrong time for GoldMine users.
89115 GoldMine Emails - Replying to emails show different times in original message (GMT time +/- xxxx) which confuses users
and on longer email threads the sent and received times can be completely different than expected.
89297 Email Center - Background retrieved email release selection of emails in the inbox although FolderRefreshDelay is set to
not refresh the Email Center folders
90916 My GoldMine - Failed to load for most pre-defined RSS feeds (E.g. also default Ivanti RSS feed)
91046 When a user remains on the online folder until disconnected and deletes an email, it appears as if the email is deleted, but
it isn't
93197 When sending emails, they stay in the outbox, and errors e.g., firewall block or wrong account settings. However, the
emails have been sent successfully, so there are now 2 records of the same email (History and Outbox/Pending)
93448 Task Manager reveals gmw.exe Credentials, also Windows Services >> GoldSync Service properties
93731 Default email account changes sporadically, usually when replying to emails that were received from a different account
(still in 2023.2 and 2023.3)
93997 Next and Previous are not working correctly when browsing through a lot of contacts (also when a large filter is active) -
Skips suddenly 1000s of records, and users cannot get anything in between
94459 GoldMine Link for Outlook - Sent attachments are added multiple times in the Links tab when the AutoName assignment
is necessary.
94889 Incomplete or no results are returned for reports where at least one record is completely curtained.
98792 When the Record Type rule contains Field value-based selection and uses a user-defined field >> The GoldMine Connect
Log file records constant error: The given key was not present in the dictionary.
99085
GoldMine Link for Microsoft Outlook: Unlink emails on masse of the same contact record results always in a 0 emails
unlinked message when the contact record (RECID) is not available anymore
99153 GoldMine Link for Microsoft Outlook: Outlook Link doesn't automatically link to OTHER emails

For more information about items in What's Fixed, please contact Wizard Systems

Power Up Your Quoting with QuoteWerks

Generating professional quotes and sales proposals is a crucial but often time-consuming part of running a business. However, the QuoteWerks sales quoting software aims to simplify and automate this process to help businesses save time and close more deals.

A key capability is the ability to integrate QuoteWerks with common CRM and accounting platforms like Salesforce, SAP, and QuickBooks. It can sync client and product data between systems so that information only needs to be entered and updated in one place. This seamless integration prevents businesses and sales teams from constantly needing to manually transfer data between platforms.

The automation provided by QuoteWerks provides major time-saving benefits. It can take client and product details from CRM systems and quickly turn them into complete, customized quotes in a matter of minutes. This improved efficiency allows businesses to respond faster to quote requests and get accurate pricing over to prospects more quickly compared to manual quoting.

Additionally, the standardized and professional quotes created by QuoteWerks can lend credibility to businesses. The quotes display all necessary details from integrated systems and are branded for each specific company. This level of personalization and accuracy helps businesses make a polished, professional impression with every automatically-generated quote they distribute.

In summary, QuoteWerks’ system integrations and automated quote building abilities accelerate sales cycles for businesses. Teams can redirect time spent on manual quoting tasks to other revenue-focused activities. The software also produces customized quotes that showcase attention to detail and professionalism to prospects. Adopting QuoteWerks can thus drive both time savings and increased sales.

Choosing the Right CRM for Your Solo Enterprise

As a sole trader or one-person business, customer relationship management (CRM) software can be an invaluable tool to help you stay organized and provide great service. However, with so many CRM solutions out there aimed at companies of all sizes, choosing one tailored to your needs as a solo entrepreneur can be tricky. Here are some key factors to consider when evaluating CRMs for your small but mighty operation:

Simplicity & Ease of Use
As an army of one, you need software that is intuitive and easy to use from the get-go, without a big learning curve. Opt for an interface that is clean and simple, with features that are readily understandable. Complex enterprise-geared CRMs with extensive features you won’t actually use will only slow you down.

Mobility
You likely move between various locations to meet clients or run your business on the go. Choose a CRM that has a companion mobile app so you can access all your customer data and touchpoints from your smartphone no matter where you are. This keeps you connected and your records updating in real-time.

Scalability
While you may be starting out alone now, your customer base is likely to grow, so find a CRM that can scale up with ease. There should be different pricing tiers available so you can upgrade to more features and users as your company expands down the road.

Affordability
Cost is surely a major concern, so opt for a CRM solution that is affordable for very small businesses. Many software vendors offer basic “sole proprietor” tiers at budget monthly rates or discounts for yearly contracts. There are also some CRMs catering specifically to solopreneurs at reasonable price points worth checking out.  Look at the total cost of ownership and annual costs.

Third-Party Integrations
To maximize efficiency as a one-person show, make sure your CRM seamlessly integrates with other everyday business programs you rely on. Examples include email marketing, accounting, ecommerce platforms, and payment processors. This unified tech stack saves you time on administrative tasks.

The key to CRM success as a sole trader is streamlining the software to your needs rather than functional overkill. Let the above criteria guide your buying decision towards a system that empowers your business productivity and customer service at an owner-operator level. The investment will pay dividends by keeping your client interactions, sales pipeline, and records well-managed.

And Wizard Systems have over 30 years experience of supplying affordable CRM solutions to sole traders.  Looking for a new CRM?  Give us a call!

Stand Out with Branded Sales Quotes in Workbooks CRM: Creating Cutting-Edge Customized Quotes to Win More Business

The Power of Personalized Sales Quotes

You just finished an initial sales call with a promising lead. They seem interested in your product or service and have asked you to send over a quote to move things forward. What should that quote include beyond just the price, terms and basic product/service details? Personalizing that quote with your logo, branding and tailored messaging is key to turning that lead into a loyal customer that advocates your brand.

Here’s why you should customize every sales quote:

It Builds Your Brand
Each sales quote is a branding opportunity and chance to create positive associations with your company identity from the very first interactions. Include your logo, tagline, company colors and other visual elements that are signature to your brand. This type of consistency across every touchpoint and external communication helps boost brand awareness and recognition.

It Establishes Trust and Credibility
Investing time to present quotes professionally on branded templates or letterhead communicates quality, reliability and attention to detail. Personalized quotes differentiate you from competitors and demonstrate credibility as an authority that stands behind its products/services. Customers will feel more assured in doing business with you.

It Caters to Your Customer
Any good salesperson knows it's vital to understand key details about customers and cater to their specific needs. Sending a generic quote may communicate disinterest or lack of attention to what the customer really wants. Personalized quotes that include details they care about show you’ve listened and aim to provide tailored solutions, making them more inclined to buy from you.

It Encourages Loyalty and Referrals
Making customers feel uniquely valued from day one through personalized sales documents helps nurture loyalty. Meeting their specific needs through customization early on makes them more likely to trust you to deliver solutions in the long run. And loyal, satisfied customers that feel “known” by your business will enthusiastically refer people in their networks as well.

As you build out your sales process, consider all the ways you can customize interactions for customers right from the initial quote. Consistently branding and personalizing this crucial document wins more sales and loyal brand advocates.

Don't Miss Out on Azure SSO in QuoteWerks Web!

QuoteWerks Web now supports Microsoft Azure SSO (Single Sign On) for Authentication in addition to the existing text message 2FA capability, Authenticator Apps (Google, Microsoft, etc.) and Duo Multifactor Authentication (MFA).

Workbooks CRM 7.2 will be rolled out this weekend 20th Jan 2024

We are pleased to announce an update to Workbooks this weekend.

PLEASE NOTE: The Workbooks service will be intermittently unavailable between 06:00 and 10:00 UK time on Saturday 20th January 2024. If you log in on Saturday morning, you may see a message informing you that your database is being upgraded. Your database should be available for use within approximately 30 minutes of receiving the message

Key updates include:

• • Adding a "My Activities" calendar view
  • Allowing landing page views in the Springboard
  • New sales forecasting fields in Opportunities
  • A kanban view for Opportunities
  • A beta "Snapshot Reporting" feature

There are also some other minor updates mentioned like changes to database export limits and where to find targets.

Modern Theme no more:

In our first step towards creating a newly–themed Workbooks, we are first removing the old theme. You will now all use the ‘Clean’ theme, and ‘Modern’ will no longer be available.  You can still go to your Preferences to change how your taskbar and background look.  Keep an eye on future communications for details of the new theme we are building.  You might also spot that the Clean theme has changed slightly, with section headers changing from a grey to a white background, and shortcuts changing to white.

My Activities:

Last release, we created a new View called ‘My Activities’, which uses our editable Calendar View to show you the Activities you have going on this week. We have added this as a tab to your Springboard. If you haven’t started using a Springboard yet, click here for information.  Springboards should be your go-to for all the areas you need to access in a day, so including the ‘My Activities’ tab will now make it even easier to plan your days.  Remember, you can amend the display order or turn off the tabs shown in your Springboard by clicking on the cog in the top right and then navigating to ‘Items’.

Views in the Springboard

We have extended the options for the tabs you can have on your Springboard. Previously, you could only add Dashboards, but now you can add Landing Page Views. Just like the ‘My Activities’ View that we have done for you, you could add an ‘All Open Opportunities’ View or ‘My Open Cases’ View. This can help you reduce the number of windows you need to pin or open on login.  TOP TIP: The Springboard will keep the View in the format you have it saved as, including the filters and whether you are displaying it as Cards or Kanban, so remember to save your Views in the mode you use frequently! See our Knowledge Base page about customising Views.  You still get all the same options to amend filters or adjust columns from within your Springboard.  To add a View to your Springboard, navigate to the View, click on the ‘View’ button in the top right, and choose ‘Add to Springboard’. You can find more details about your Springboard and how to customise it on our Knowledge Base.

Opportunities - New Forecast Fields

We recognise that a frequent requirement of a Sales Team is to see the weighted value of their pipeline, so we have built in a couple of new fields to help you achieve this. The first is the ‘Sales Forecast Status’ field, which by default will contain the values ‘Commit’, ‘Possible’ and ‘Upside’. This field provides an alternative to the way of forecasting using the Opportunity Stage, as we know that early-stage Opportunities can sometimes already be a known win, and alternately, late-stage Opportunities might still have a low possibility of winning.

This ‘Sales Forecast Status’ can set the ‘Probability’ field. This is important for the next new field, “Weighted Value”, which will automatically calculate the Opportunity Net Value multiplied by the Probability, meaning it no longer needs to be calculated in reports. You can display the ‘Weighted Value’ field in grids, in the new Kanban view (see below), and in reports.

You’ll need to enable the new fields, and decide whether you want the Probability to continue to be set using the Opportunity Stage, or change it to use the new Sales Forecast Status field. Some migration may be needed in the databases that have the older ‘Forecast Status’ field in use at the moment. See our Knowledge Base for more information.

Kanban View

The Kanban View we created for Activities is now also available on Opportunities. This means you can see your Opportunities by Stage, Assigned To, Close Period or any other Opportunity picklists. We’ve also enhanced it further to allow you to see Totals for each grouping, helping to give you an overview of your pipeline.

Some other small changes

Reports now have the option to be exported, and can then be imported back into another database, making deployment of things from UAT to Live easier. Please note, all custom fields used in the exported report must also exist in the destination database, with the same field names.
If you use Targets, you’ll note these no longer show in the Start menu. However, they do still live within Reporting. Instead of Start > Reporting > Targets, you’ll now navigate to Start > Reporting, and then pick the ‘All Targets’ View from the Report Landing Page.  Database Exports are now restricted to 20GB. If you need to export a database larger than this, please contact the Support Team.

Sage CRM 2023 R2

Sage CRM 2023 R2 - Taking Customer Relationship Management to the Next Level

Sage recently released Sage CRM 2023 R2, the newest version of their popular customer relationship management (CRM) software. This latest release takes Sage CRM to new heights by providing users with powerful features aimed at enhancing productivity, streamlining workflows, and enabling deeper customer insights.

One of the biggest highlights of Sage CRM 2023 R2 is the new interactive dashboard. This customizable dashboard provides a visual overview of important CRM metrics like sales pipeline, open opportunities, customer satisfaction scores, and more. Users can drill down to view more detailed analytics and track progress over time. The interactive charts and graphs make it easy to identify trends and gain actionable insights.

Another key capability is the enhanced workflow engine. Automated workflow rules can now trigger actions across multiple departments, ensuring seamless handoffs between sales, marketing, and service. There are also new workflow templates specifically tailored for different industries to accelerate implementation. This means teams can optimize processes faster than ever before.

Sage CRM 2023 R2 also introduces a new flexible UI framework with drag-and-drop customization. Users can tailor screens, tabs, lists, and other interface components to match their precise workflow preferences. Additionally, there are new modern mobile apps that allow access to information on-the-go from any device.

When it comes to reporting and analytics, Sage CRM 2023 R2 takes major strides to unlock impactful customer insights. The new interactive relationship analyzer tool lets you visualize links between contacts, companies, and deals. Predictive analytics capabilities also allow you to identify risks and opportunities earlier in the sales cycle. And with AI-driven recommendations, reps can get suggested actions to progress deals forward.

From driving sales productivity to elevating customer experience, Sage CRM 2023 R2 introduces user-centric innovations to help businesses reach new heights of success. The flexible and intuitive platform makes it easier than ever to manage the entire customer profile and build lasting, profitable relationships over time.