What comes ready to use 

There is no shortage of customer relationship management (CRM) software available out there. A CRM’s out-of-the-box capabilities are often where you can begin to draw differences in determining which one best meets your business needs. Some are free and others of course are not.

In this post we are going to take a look at the out-the-box capabilities of a relatively popular and free CRM, HubSpot CRM along with the Infor CRM system. Previously we wrote about Comparing Infor CRM to HubSpot CRM + Sales Pro.  

Before having to worry about add-ons and upgrades, it’s important to not only know what you’re going to get from the start but also where you can get the most for your investment. It also helps you to determine what you don’t need because there’s no need to add unnecessary complexity.

#8 of our 18 requirements for business success with CRM states "First, Use as Much Out-of-Box Functionality as You Can"

A well-used CRM should provide a list view that shows key summary information about each business account or contact within your customer or prospects.

Yes Infor CRM has group lists that can be easly used and enhanced with the powerful use of fiters but I find that many CRM users are unaware of the Summary view of Group lists.

"All Accounts" group List view

If a detail record is chosen use the 'hamburger' icon  to show a listing, spreadsheet type view.

Each entity in Infor CRM:  Accounts, Contacts,  Tickets, or Opportunities and even custom entities have a summary list view.   It is a simple matter to clicking on "Summary" or "List" to see one of the other view

It is important to have sales acceleration tools that work inside Infor CRM to guide the sales conversations, apply consistency so nothing is forgotten and to auto record the notes for historical reference.

Sales Pilot is an extension of InboxGuru and adds a true sales engagement tool to the system for your sales team.  The solution helps your sales team by allowing them to create and/or manage highly personalized lead and prospect communications.  

Sales pilot sales pallet view helps your sales team set and execute on a series of phone and email communications for large or small sales teams.  It helps the managers plan out a cadence of communications with prospects for the sales team. It helps the sales professional organize and prioritize their day. More on sales acceleration....

Using Sales pilot and call down list

A priority "Call Down" list, close up view:

Each Infor CRM user can enhance their use of Microsoft Outlook Address book contacts when linking to the Infor CRM contacts.  This article covers using the Address book, scheduling an appointment and some recent enhancements.  For more visit, What's new with Infor CRM, mobile and Xbar in 2017.

Using Infor CRM Address Book in Outlook

One of the capabilities of the Infor Xbar implementation is the use of the Infor CRM address book.  This is configured by clicking on Options gear icon under the Infor CRM Connector options panel from the Outlook menu bar.

Then from the Address tab the user can determine how to show contact names- either by first name or last name order.  Next select what do you want to show when the Address book is accessed in Outlook.  In the following example, it is set to show the Infor CRM Groups as separate folders and Show Accounts as Distribution lists.  

For a salesperson, you'd  want to show Leads and maybe show opportunities as distribution lists.  For a CSR in customer support the "Show Tickets" would be helpful.  Optionally you can have the address book also display the CRM users.

What is Event Marketing

Event marketing describes the process of developing a themed exhibit, display, or presentation to promote a product, service, cause, or organization leveraging in-person engagement.  Events can occur online or offline, and can be participated in, hosted, or sponsored.  The promotion of these activities can occur through various inbound and outbound marketing techniques.

In today’s buyer-empowered world, marketers need to seize every opportunity to build relationships, generate goodwill, and earn the trust of prospective buyers and customers. The modern consumer wants more than a pitch when evaluating solutions or making purchasing decisions. Events offer a unique opportunity for them to interact with brands to get a firsthand sense of a company’s focus, perspective, and personality. Event marketing needs to be an integral part of the demand generation mix, and a strategic combination of offline and online events are essential to any company’s bottom line.

The main Infor CRM software product has new updates every two months and here are the latest updates for 2017 as of March with Update 06. Also released where updates to the Infor mobile client and the Microsoft Outlook Integration and Infor Xbar panel.

View "What's new and useful in version 8.3" here

View "What has changes in version 8.2"

Highlights include performance improvements such as the new Favorites for groups and in exporting lists of records. There are updates to Xbar with Outlook Integration, including drag and drop functionality for all browsers and not just Microsoft IE. Finally, with every release Infor corrects open issues and defects from prior versions.

A sales cycle if full of unknowns.  We can clear up a few things for you.

One of the helpful and smart features of InboxGuru marketing automation system with Infor CRM is the "Daily Report Alert" that each person gets in their Inbox for the prior day's sent emails. This includes:

• A count of the emails opened compared the number of emails sent to be tracked
• A count of the embedded links what were clicked from within the email, such as a link to your web site product page.
• A count of the number of PDFs viewed that were attached to the tracked emails sent out.   This can help to determine if that important proposal was viewed.
• A count of the number of YouTube videos viewed.
• A count of the number of web pages viewed on your web site.

An instant way to sell smarter!

Attention Infor CRM users of Infor version 7.54, 8.2 or 8.3

You now have effective marketing automation tools running inside Infor CRM.  With the current availability of InboxGuru the game changes for marketers and sales professionals using Infor CRM.  We know that the core strength of Infor CRM is how well it customizes to each individual customer and how it brings in traditional back-office data from ERP into CRM.  With InboxGuru, the marketing system speaks directly to the entire Infor database including custom tables. Additionally the system leverages dynamic groups for enrolling individuals into drip and nurture campaigns.

 “If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes.” – Albert Einstein

When it comes to choosing the right customer relationship management (CRM) solution and developing an effective CRM strategy, it is important to choose a CRM-business growth partner that knows the power of listening and asking the right questions. So, this should be someone that first takes the time to listen.

How do you tell if they’re listening?

When they ask the kinds of questions to help you reach your business goals. And when they can help you determine if their CRM solution can accommodate your business relationship strategy and make satisfying your customers the focus for your business. Ultimately there should be a collaborative CRM experience that helps you grow a more profitable business

In order for any company to attract new customers and retain current ones, Customer Service and Sales teams must have a collaborative relationship. Infor CRM makes this possible. 

Recently when we talked about how customer service teams use Infor CRM to solve and manage  
important customer relationship issues, we only briefly touched on how it relates to the sales force. Attracting new customers relates to sales activities, while retaining current customers points to customer service activities. In essence what we are talking about is how customer service teams and sales teams work together to grow customer loyalty and increase sales productivity.