Qasper Home

Brave New World

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 7:50:00 GMT

Understanding concepts and having the courage to implement change in the SME

More at: http://site.dalcotech.com/?p=83

Information is the key to SME success

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 7:47:00 GMT

There's a reason why so many CRM implementations fail and why so many of those that don't fail also don't do the job...

More here: http://site.dalcotech.com/?p=131

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Put a brand on it with CRM

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 2:48:00 GMT

It’s not often that a CRM solution can be credited with enhancing the image your product or product line has, but it does play an important role.

More here: http://site.dalcotech.com/?p=138

The SME gets screwed

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 6:57:00 GMT

I've been looking back over some of our Qasper customer experiences and I've noticed an encouraging pattern - the decision makers in many cases are a small team that usually includes office and admin, an executive and one or more reps from the sales team.

I think it shows that SMEs recognize the value of information at both the deep and broader levels, where information can benefit more than the sales team and a few of the support staff. And it shows they understand that CRM implementations have a far-reaching effect on the business.

More here: http://site.dalcotech.com/?p=140

Give your customer an anonymous voice

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 12:04:00 GMT

Don’t you really hate when web sites demand an email address and other information before they’ll let you access some white papers or view a demo?

That’s like a department store clerk refusing to talk to me until I fork over my credentials. It’s nonsense, and it’s no way to build an association with potential customers. All it does is tell me that I’m going to be in some salesperson’s email blast within a short time, followed by a sea of never-ending, non-personal pitches.

More here: http://site.dalcotech.com/?p=147.

Let me count the ways

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 9:22:00 GMT

Sales fundamentals and Qasper: record and track leads, assign accounts and tasks, create opportunities and build a pipeline.

When you set out to develop a versatile, multi-person solution for business, one of the difficulties is ensuring that specific groups within the environment have everything they need to do their job. Otherwise, your product becomes a jack of all trades – master of none.

In addition to specialized software, most SMEs have a couple of basic software needs: accounting for financials, CRM for sales development and tracking, email for communication and various office products (Word, Excel).

Recently, since Qasper includes CRM as part of its solution, we were asked about some sales fundamentals in Qasper, specifically:

More here: http://site.dalcotech.com/?p=156.

Do you have a customer database?

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 10:19:00 GMT

As the Business Development Manager at Qasper, over the course of a year, I’m in touch with hundreds of SMEs. I’m constantly impressed how few respond positively to the question, “Do you have a customer database?”.

With so many, the response is often, “Yeah, I know I need one”, “I sort of have one” or “I’m working on it”.

More here: http://site.dalcotech.com/?p=182.

Preparing for SocialCRM

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 4:58:00 GMT

You may have come across the term, SocialCRM, and wondered how it applies to you as a small business. Well, there’s three possibilities:

it does apply to you or,
it DOES apply to you or,
IT DOES APPLY TO YOU.

The first possibility is that, sure, it has potential for you but it’s not at the top of your priorities. The second has some urgency and you should be paying close attention to its development. The third screams, “YES! you need to do it! Now! Don’t delay!”.

The impression I get from a lot of the reading is that we all fall under the 3rd possibility...

More here: http://site.dalcotech.com/?p=208.

How culture affects sales

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 3:16:00 GMT

During our development phase, as we saw Qasper evolving into a cohesive set of modules that touched many more areas in an SME than just the sales group, we began to see what culture in an SME is all about, and how people working together can truly transform the way a company does business. I'm not talking about the "rah, rah, let's do it!" approach of some companies, but rather the quiet and forceful impact a unified approach brings, and the effect is has on the bottom line. As I discuss a bit further on in this post, that unification brings culture, and along with culture comes synergy.

A typical business is segmented into groups or units (departments) and levels (hierarchies) that each seem to have their own culture; their own network; their own meeting places. Often, the only time they all come together is at the annual Christmas party. Taken together, the effectiveness of each unit and level defines the company as a whole.

Fundamental, right? A lot of the time it produces great results.

But I'm talking about going the next step, beyond that typical structure.

More here: http://site.dalcotech.com/?p=212.

Champagne CRM on a beer budget

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 4:31:00 GMT

Is there any such thing out there?

Information solutions fall into these categories:

- specific group focus (typical CRM)
- analytical business intelligence for specific users (BI solutions)
- periodic event handling (bulk email, campaigns)
- document management, time recording
- internal communication and messaging (IM)
- office production and financial accounting (word processing, accounting)

Here's an ideal information solution for the SME:

... designed specifically for the SME (Small and Medium size Enterprise)
... has a fair cost that encourages, rather than penalizes, additional users
... provides complete and private control over data: no commingling with other businesses
... includes modules that extend its usability throughout the company
... enables and promotes internal communication and collective collaboration
... provides customer communication tools
... can be accessed from anywhere, any time
... goes beyond traditional, linear CRM to include CEM and Social CRM capability
... incorporates fixed and customizable reporting and querying
... handles multi-phase marketing, email, phone and paper campaigns
... syncs with Outlook and external devices
... is highly customizable and provides granular control to the user

More here: http://site.dalcotech.com/?p=215.

Managing information in a connected world

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 4:00:00 GMT

We’ve written about this before, but I think it’s worth a repeat…

Today’s typical employee is significantly more computer savvy than even just 2 years ago, thanks in a large part to social sites like YouTube, MySpace, Facebook and Twitter, along with Google, the premier information search engine.

Newspapers are closing as the transition to customized news over the Net becomes more available. People are turning to the Internet as their prime information source. Blogs are becoming the way of providing information and opinions. RSS feeds from companies rapidly disseminate information to the world on the company’s events and products.

Today, the majority of the working population are more than just email-capable; they are now quite computer literate. They use search engines to investigate issues and products, they commonly access retail web sites for pricing and product information, they buy over the Net and peruse and participate in forums in their search for answers and information.

As a result, they come in contact with a lot information, some of which can be very valuable to the company they work for.

More here: http://site.dalcotech.com/?p=219.

Qasper and customer communication

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 5:38:00 GMT

It's vital that customers have open and easy channels to access your company and its people.

Scattered solutions in non-integrated systems are typically the ways SMEs handle this, but we think Qasper has something better and easier for you.

Although Qasper is certainly a business information environment, its functionality extends to provide both interactive and social elements.

Those elements tie into your central database and Qasper's CRM functionality and significantly enhance your sales and marketing capability.

More here: http://site.dalcotech.com/?p=231.