S3 Blog

Customer service or more importantly good customer service is an area of business that many people either find difficult to define or difficult to achieve. After all what one business may see as good practise and therefore good customer service might appal another – but who is right and what makes good customer service?

It would be accurate to say that good customer service is a set of practises that a business adopts in order to deliver what they promise to a customer and to achieve a sense of wellbeing towards themselves by the customer. In recent years customer service, or good customer service has been somewhat in decline. Many people blame this on the emergence of internet based businesses that do a great deal of trading online, which means less customer contact by telephone as orders are placed online and emails exchanged between the customer and the business. However this should not mean a drop in customer service, just a change in the way that it is delivered – and this is where a great deal of businesses go wrong.

As with anything customer service needs to keep up with the changing times and the future of customer service now lies with using good CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software. Using CRM software will not only allow you to maintain a more efficient and profitable business but it will keep you in touch with your customers so that you can better identify and deliver what they need from your business. You might not always see your customers face to face but this does not mean that customer service should be any less important to you and your business.

The customer service of the future will be more to do with communicating with customers via different methods such as - email, instant messaging, VoiP, webcams and maybe even podcasts. So as a business owner it is essential that you recognise and welcome such changes to customer service practises in order to provide the best service that you can. One type of CRM software that offers outstanding features for good customer service is S3 CRM which as well as creating customer accounts can do so much more so that no piece of information relating to a customer will ever go missing again.

There is nothing worse than contacting a business to find that it seems as though they have never heard of you before even if you are a regular customer – S3 CRM puts a stop to this terrible practise. All information relating to any customer is saved in the customers file, from quotes and invoices to contact details and even photos. This means that every time one of your employees speaks to a customer they will have every bit of information that they would ever need about them at their fingertips. This results in customers who feel valued due to increased knowledge about them and their ordering patterns and needs which then results in repeat orders and more revenue for your business. S3 CRM is the future of customer service – don’t miss out on it.

Commoncraft have come up with a nice overview animation on web search strategies which some of you may find interesting.

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Regards

Dean

When people hear the term “Web 2.0″ they think technology or some sort of IT infrastrucuture. In reality its an approach which leverages a set of technologies and styles to engage the customer in conversation. eg. Listening to them and then taking their feedback and building better products and services around it.

In the “old old” world where we actually live - marketeers still want to dictate to us.  I found this great video clip which highlights the traditional way - its quite amusing but very informative.
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Regards

Dean

Hi all,

As always, times are very busy at S3 CRM.

Over the next couple of weeks we are concentrating on making improvements and enhancing our existing functionality.

We are also going to be focusing on our marketing site.  We have a new ebook which we will be making available to all, the topic is CRM for small businesses and how S3 CRM can help.  Also we are in the middle of creating new video tours for all the functionlaity within S3 CRM which will aid with navigation for all our users.

So, lots happening and as always we welcome your feedback.

Thanks

Sarah

As communications and the methods of communications change it is important, as a business, to stay in touch and up to date, otherwise you will be left behind. Communication today is a far cry from even ten to fifteen years ago with the development of new and more advanced means of staying in touch with one another both for personal and business purposes. Mobile phones have more memory inside them now than the majority of personal computers back in the 1980’s and many of these now have wireless Internet capabilities so that the owner can access the Internet on the move. In fact today it seems as though the entire world is connected to the Internet as more and more businesses trade, advertise and even recruit online so the Internet is suddenly very important in your business.

It is easy to think fall into the trap of thinking that there are only a handful of businesses like your own which trade on the Internet – but have you ever taken the time to find out how many of your competitors trade online and have their own website and online presence? If not it is time that you did so you can see exactly how important the Internet is for your business, and more importantly how the Internet could benefit your business.

The Internet growing daily and more and more businesses are realising that they must make use of it to increase and maintain their sales if they are to survive in the marketplace of today. If you have never considered the Internet as being important to your business here are a few reasons why it should be –

• Increased sales – having a website which customers can order from will boost your sales and increase revenue to your business.

• Your business will in effect, be open to trade 24/7 – even if you are outside of business hours customers will be able to view and order from your website or leave queries for you to address during working hours. This will also bring about increased sales which are always welcome in business.

• Reach more customers – having a website for your business means that you can reach even more customers than ever before, you are in effect opening your business up to the world which results in more orders and more revenue.

• Keep ahead of your competitors – using the Internet for your business also gives you the edge when making sure that you are in front of your competition. You can check out their prices and services to make sure that you remain competitive and fresh.

As you can see these are just a few of the reasons why you should realise the importance of the Internet in your business. Using it will help your profits to increase as you steadily increase your customer base and this is invaluable to you and your business. So if you want to have a healthy bottom line that is continually growing you need to get Internet savvy.

Last week saw the market launch of S3 CRM, Tierlinear’s a new and innovative Customer Relationship Management solution. S3 CRM is a safe, simple, secure application aimed at small to medium sized businesses.

S3 CRM is a safe, simple to use, secure web based software application that has been designed to be not only a CRM solution but also provide features to boost the efficiency and productivity of a business which include:

1. Instant quoting and invoicing tools;
2. Document storage;
3. Fully integrated business wide calendar;
4. Project planning;
5. Email marketing which enables new email marketing campaigns to be created, sent and stored within minutes;
6. Access from anywhere in the world that has an Internet connection;
7. Dashboard feature which allows users to see the business at a glance;
8. Customer records which can have relevant paperwork attached.

For those of you who already have an account will know that S3 CRM is easy to use.   For those of you who have yet to register for your 30 day free trial account please do so straight away, http://www.s3crm.com and let us know what you think

Sarah