International ACT! and v12.1

[#1]

Hello everyone,

I have been travelling of late and recently attended the Gartner CRM Event in London.  While this event is primarily focused on CRM it was great to hear Michael Dunne, Gartner Analyst, say something really important and true about ACT!.  In one session he was explaining the various vendors in the Sales Force Automation segment of the CRM space.  As he was summarizing vendors he pointed out that of all the vendors the largest user base was ACT! with somewhere over 3 Million users.  He attributed this to personalization, ease of use and familiarity by Sales individuals and professionals.  I already knew this but it’s good hear from others and interesting to watch people’s reaction when they hear such statistics about ACT!  People always seem illuminated but not surprised by this fact.  I appreciate Michael highlighting this point.  Another really interesting insight from the conference was the focus on how to get more internet and social media connected experience into an organization’s selling activities – since ACT! 2010 (v12.0), introduced in September 2009, we have had the Web Info tab.  This feature brings rich contextual awareness of specific websites and services directly into ACT! This has been a really fun, innovative and highly practical ACT! features. 

It’s also really exciting to have ACT! 12.1 in market.  This in-line release for ACT! 2010 (v12.0) retires a number of in market topics that have been reported by customers.  This release also includes feedback provided by our community.  As you know, we have the Ideas Exchange section of this community http://community.act.com/sage/?category.id=ideas.   We have hundreds of suggestions and all are taken seriously – in fact it’s a very important tool as we plan future releases.  In v12.1 the team has incorporated about 50 ideas contributed by you in this forum.  This is the kind of closed loop, hear the voice of our customer interaction that helps us help each other to keep ACT! aligned with what you need. 

If you have any interesting examples of how you have used the Web Info Tab I would love to hear from you.  I always find the best examples of use come directly from our customers like you. 

Thanks for being a member of our community and keep those ideas coming!

Larry

[#2]

Hi Larry, I have found the Web Info tab to be a real improvement in ACT! 2010.

I had a recent personal experience of receiving a sales lead that came in via email. The only information available was the name of the contact and a mobile phone number. Normally, I would have my support staff ring and qualify the lead first and then book a call for me from there. As it was late afternoon this wouldn't have happened until at least the next morning.

However, after entering the basic information that I had into ACT! I thought I would just see if there was anyting on the Web about this particular contact. They had an unusual surname so I thought I would see what the Google searches turned up. Using the options in the Webinfo tab I found a link that identified this contact as being the owner of a very large organisation in our region. This was enough info for me to 'qualify' them as someone I should ring immediately. Which I did.

As it turned out, that was worth doing. We have just successfully completed the implementation for that large project. Whilst I couldn't say that using the Web Info tab won me the business it could well have saved it for me. Like a lot of businesses we have competition and people making enquiries may well ring the next company in the Google search if the first company they rang isn't available to assist.

Hopefully, by being the first person to get back and be of assistance there isn't a lot of need for them to look further afield.

Being able to use Web Info to qualify in-coming sales leads is just one benefit of the web info tab.

I have done a Youtube video of the web info tab that I show to clients for anyone interested in seeing how this feature works. http://bit.ly/cThG4K

Cheers, Darren.

[#3]

Hi Darren,

Great example of using the Web Info tab - thanks!.  I have had similar experiences when speaking to the media. Start with a contact name, do a Google search - add information, do a Google company search - add information, search another site - add information, etc.  It's amazing how quickly you can find rich information about your contacts using just the basic search links and it's easy to have this fully in context within ACT!

The video is great!  If anyone else has some Web Info tab examples to share please do.  I imagine many of you have some really good industry specific examples of using the web info tab in your particular business. 

Other examples?  Larry