S3 Blog

When a business has been trading for some time certain practices and software become second place and everyone from the business owner to the employees plod along without thinking where changes could be made to improve the day to day running of that business. Often making changes to the way in which a business and its employees works could make that business more efficient, more streamlined, more profitable – in other words changes need to be made to the way you work from time to time to maximise revenue.

If you are a business owner who is looking for a new and fresh way to improve customer relations, build a sound database of information relating to your business and ensure that employees are being utilised correctly S3 CRM is the way forward. S3 CRM is a new type of web based software application that is designed to be fully integrated into any small to medium sized business and can change the way that you work in many ways:-

1. See your business at a glance – this is an invaluable way to change the way you work as you will save a great deal of time and effort by not having to access various applications and screens to find out basic information. Not only that but as S3 CRM has alerts to warn you of approaching deadlines you will never miss anything again as you can see everything that is outstanding as soon as you go into your dashboard.

2. Fully utilise employees – too many businesses are losing revenue due to having too many employees on one project or not managing time properly, you can say goodbye to this with S3 CRM as by using the fully integrated business wide calendar you are able to see which employees are doing what and divert resources if needed. This means that not only will you be assigning the right number of employees to each task but you will also be able to run more projects simultaneously knowing that you have everything covered.

3. Chase outstanding invoices sooner – how do you find out which invoices are outstanding in your business? Many businesses don’t have a streamlined way of identifying outstanding invoices easily so that they can be chased by your debt collection department or team. With S3 CRM you can see, at a glance how many invoices are outstanding, how long they have been outstanding for and how much they are worth. By being able to see every invoice that has not been paid you will have a clearer idea as to how much money your business is owed.

4. See the Average Revenue Per Customer – this is a fantastic tool to help business owners identify who are their best customers and this can then be used as basis for loyalty schemes and other types of reward program for good customers. It is has been proved that these types of incentives are a useful way to increase revenue and increase customer loyalty

As anyone with their own business knows it is important to keep up to date with the market they are in both in terms of products and competition. Failing to do this means that ultimately your business will not be as forward thinking as it could be which will result in losing out to competitors – something that no business ever wants to do. So what is the answer to staying ahead of your competition today? A good CRM or Customer Relationship Management application, that’s what.

There are various CRM software applications that are available at the moment but the best one of these by far is S3 CRM which is not only easy to set up and use but it also grows with your business.  S3 CRM can help you to stay ahead of your competition in the following ways:-

1. Keep detailed records of your customers – S3 CRM has unique features which allow all information that is relevant to a particular customer to be saved in that customers record. This can range from contact details to quotes and invoices to documents and even photographs of your customers if you or your reps meet with them on a regular basis. This will improve the customer service that your business provides, which is often lacking in many businesses today and this will give you the edge over your competition who might still be using outdated methods to store and retrieve customer information. Stay professional – use S3 CRM.

2. Quote and invoice with ease – quoting and invoicing often takes up a great deal of time within a business and this can frustrate your customers and lead to them going to your competition for a faster, more efficient service. Stop them in their tracks by using S3 CRM to streamline and centralise all quoting and invoicing. S3 CRM even takes the strain out of adding VAT to invoices as it will automatically add it and make the calculation for you, giving you and staff more time to spend in other areas of the business. Similarly invoices are easily produced using the same feature within the application.

3. See your business at a glance – by using the dashboard feature you can place all the areas of your business that you need to see an overview of on one screen. This cuts down the endless searching through screens to find the information that you need, meaning that you can make decisions faster and more efficiently whilst reducing wasted time – can you say the same for your competition? We hope not!

As you can see these are just a few of the features that S3 CRM provides businesses with that will help them to stay ahead of their competition and provide an efficient, customer focused and streamlined service to be proud of. S3 CRM really does make all difference to a business and after using it for a few weeks it will be apparent why as time is saved and profits are increased.

Everyone in business knows that there are ups and downs that have to be faced each year, some are financial or economic challenges and others are from other sources such as a growth in competition or changes in the market. One thing is for sure when your business is facing an economic storm you need to make sure that your CRM solution is up to the challenge that lies ahead.

S3 CRM is a new and revolutionary web based software application that can easily be integrated into any small to medium sized business and will enable business owners to make their processes and service more efficient and therefore will not only save but make money too. For any business to function correctly it’s employees need to use various software applications to record contacts, create invoices and quotes, keep track of projects, store documents and files, keep contact information for employees and customers alike and much, much more. As you would imagine purchasing, updating, running and implementing different types of software not only takes time, but it also costs money, and money during an economic storm is usually in short supply.

Using S3 CRM will help you to weather the economic storm in the following ways:-

S3 CRM is cheap to purchase – S3 CRM only costs £4.99 / $10.00 per month to set up and run, this figure is per business not per employee so as you can see there are huge savings to be made as many similar customer relationship management applications actually charge on a per user basis, something which can be very costly if you have a more than a handful of employees.

S3 CRM cuts down on the need for many different types of software applications – with S3 CRM you and your employees can do everything from creating invoices and quotes to planning and setting deadlines for projects as well as storing documents and even checking calendars – so say goodbye to having to buy different software applications just to run your business, with S3 CRM you can do it all.

S3 CRM is easy to use – if you need your employees to be working on generating more custom the last thing you need is to have them learning how to use a new application. S3 CRM offers total usability to everyone – simply log in and start working! It really is that simple, if by any chance you do find that you are unsure of how to use a certain feature click on one of the ‘Help at Hand’ sections found on each page and you will be given hints and tips on how to get the best out of S3 CRM.

S3 CRM can help you to identify customers who have outstanding invoices sooner – no more searching through files to see who has paid and when, with S3 CRM you can see all outstanding invoices at a glance and act upon them. This results in more invoices being cleared faster which adds to the businesses profits!

CRM or customer relationship management is an area of business that should be high on the list of priorities for any business owner as customer relationships are critical for a business to succeed. For many business owners implementing a CRM solution can seem like a nightmare as there are so many aspects of CRM to consider from customer contact information right the way through to managing outstanding or unpaid accounts. Due to this you will need a CRM solution that will not only work with you and your business but is also easy to implement and use on a daily basis.

If you are looking for a CRM solution that you can easily implement into your business look no further than S3 CRM. S3 CRM is a customer relationship management solution that is not only functional but it will streamline the way your business operates and this will lead to increased profits and lowered overheads. In addition, S3 CRM is not only easy to use but it is also easily integrated into your business so there is no need to send your employees on lengthy training courses just to be able to use it themselves.

CRM solutions should add that extra dimension to your business which means that customer relationships improve almost as soon as you start using it. This might seem like rather a weighty claim but it is a claim that S3 CRM will back up when you implement it into your business. Using S3 CRM could not be easier, as mentioned there are no long training courses for you and your employees to attend to enable you to use it. This is not only time saving but it also saves you a great deal of money too as no time is spent away from the business as you implement this CRM solution. Add to this the fact that S3 CRM is web based, which means you can log into your account from anywhere in the world that has an internet connection and you have a totally accessible CRM solution that will help you to stay in touch with your business regardless of where you are.

When you sign up for an account with S3 CRM you can start to implement it into your business straight away, simply log in and start inputting your employee and customer details and use this as a base to build upon. From there you can then start to sue S3 CRM each time you need to provide a quote, create an invoice, view diaries, check which projects are nearing their deadline date and so much more.

So if you are looking for a customer relationship management solution that can be accessed from anywhere in the world with an internet connection, that can be easily implemented into any business and that can help you to create more revenue than ever before see what S3 CRM can do for you.

As the vast majority of businesses today use software applications to help them with their day to day running it is important to use an application that is not only going to be useful for that business but is also safe, secure and simple. Software should be safe as no-one wants to use software that has not been fully tested and does not function as it should as this leads to wasted time and lost revenue.
Software should also be secure as any breeches of security could be potentially harmful to the business with hackers gaining access into their files and information. This could result in repercussions that can result in the closure of a business as no-one wants to be a customer of a business where their personal information could be obtained due to insecure software. Similarly no business wants the information that they hold to be accessed by anyone who does not have the necessary authority to do so.

Software should also be simple to use as business owners often do not have the time to be showing employees how to use new software for too long. Anything that takes more than a few hours to be fully experienced in should not be used in small to medium sized businesses as they cannot afford too many working hours to be spent getting to grips with new software in the workplace.

S3 CRM is safe, secure and simple and here is why?

S3 CRM is safe as it is a web based application that is totally safe to use and has been tested and retested to make sure that every feature is totally up to date and can be easily integrated into any small to medium sized business with ease. Meaning that as a business owner you can get on with running your business rather than worrying about how safe your software is.

S3 CRM is secure – only employees who have the necessary authorisation are able to log into S3 CRM and access customer and business information. Usernames and passwords are created by you, the business owner so that you have total control over which of your employees can use and work in S3 CRM.

S3 CRM is simple – S3 CRM is so easy and straightforward to use that as soon as you log in and take a look around you will be getting a feel of the application. There are no weighty manuals to read before you begin to use S3 CRM, simply log in and get started! If you do find that there is an aspect of S3 CRM that is proving to be difficult simply click onto the Help at Hand text that is located in the right hand corner of the screen for help and advice on the feature you are using.

So for a software application that is not only safe and secure but simple to use S3 CRM is the right choice for you and your business.

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.

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

Hi all,

Hope you are enjoying reading our industry articles

We have chosen a number of titles which we feel you will be interested in and may provide you with useful tips to incorporate in your business model.

We have lots more scheduled however as always, we are keen to hear from you, are they useful and are there any specific topics you would like us to address?

Hope to hear from you soon

Sarah