Continue reading »]]> Many of us are just old enough to remember the UPS commercial about the company that launched their new online store.  The handful of entrepreneurs cheered as they saw the first orders come in.  When the orders picked up and number more than 100, they screamed. Then 1000 orders…unbelievable. Then, as the numbers continued to grow, the mood became somber? Now what do they do?

That same scenario applies equally today. You’ve built your new Magento eCommerce site. It’s branded to reflect your company image, SEO is effectively in place and you’re getting great visibility and traffic. Orders are coming in, you’re getting paid. But what happens when the calls start coming for support? How will you manage customer requests that can’t be managed in 5 minutes or less and require follow up? What about return requests? What if the caller is a reseller who has special terms and price lists that the call center agent needs to know about when they answer?

These are all key needs that products like SugarCRM address. For growing and successful merchants, you’re online store front is just one piece. Continuing to build the requisite infrastructure needed to handle the call center, latest shipping and billing information from your ERP system, and provide customer interaction history is an important step to ensure your company can scale effectively as online order volume grows.

To solve this issue Magento and SugarCRM are uniquely well paired. As Enterprise class open source applications, each provides the architectural framework to allow these two systems to be tightly integrated so whether you’re taking orders online, on the phone, in the store, or all 3, your customer service team can have one common view and representation of all that is occurring for that customer and your business.

Levementum, as the world’s largest SugarCRM partner, and Magento’s 2011 Emerging Partner of the year, has experience in bringing these two heavy weight champions together in an integrated solution set.

Levementum helped Valtim Marketing Solutions achieve this success by integrating SugarCRM and Magento Enterprise Edition to accommodate all customer touch points.  You can read the brief Valtim Marketing Solutions Success Story for additional information on how this integration helped Valtim achieve the customer and sales success they were looking for with a completely integrated end-to-end solution.

Continue reading »]]> A few questions to consider:

• Is your company one of many that sells not only direct to consumers, but also through partners, affiliates, and/or distribution channels?
• Have you discussed expanding your web presence to capture more online sales but held off because you view your direct to consumer (B2C) business too small to invest in?
• Are you looking to find ways to lower the operational costs (or cost of sales) with supporting your channel sales model to allow investment in other growth areas?
• What about giving your existing sales force the ability to service a larger number of clients, particularly new and smaller ones, without having to invest the same amount of sales time and effort?

One of the recent trends we see is companies that typically sell their goods and services through channel partners (resellers, distributors, affiliates) are looking to augment their traditional field or inside sales model with a more robust ecommerce solution.  For B2B companies, it is common to multiple price lists per customer or customer tier, separate or even bonded inventory, and alternate payment terms and purchasing rules for their different sets of channel partners.

As these companies continue to grow, the cost of expanding their customer base through traditional means not only becomes cost ineffective, but it often results in declining customer value because the typical sales person can only support a certain number of target customers through manual processes.

Enter eCommerce solutions and Magento Enterprise. The Magento solution stack provides the framework for taking all levels of complexities per account or account type, and simplifying them into set or repeatable and high automated workflows that are integrated directly to your ERP system.

This system integration allows for consistent, up to date pricing, inventory levels and lead times, as well as greater customer self-sufficiency.

Levementum was able to create this efficiency for Troxell.  To read more about how this solution helped Troxell and their customers by utilizing eCommerce technology to enable the next level of scale and growth for their sales force, read Troxell’s brief Solution Summary or the complete White Paper.

Continue reading »]]> Leads Management is a part of every good CRM package and we are implementers of two such packages – Model N for the Semiconductor Industry and SugarCRM for everyone else. Over the course of implementing leads management for a few dozen companies I have had the opportunity to go back and talk to the occasional sales manager, marketing manager, or IT person responsible for implementing leads. There is a common theme amongst those who feel their implementation of leads management was successful – they don’t rely on the software. Leads management is not all about the software or the tool, like building a house is not all about a hammer. An effective and successful leads management program requires planning, execution, and evaluation. The software tools may assist in all three of these key areas, however all three also involve active and focused attention by committed individuals to be successful.

1. Lead Planning and Generation – this stage consists of planning the entire campaign, determining lists, developing messaging, selecting the medium, setting the timing, planning the marketing project. The tools help, but can’t do it all – plan and organize.

2. Execution – this stage consists of sales/marketing management and staff capturing, distributing, qualifying and nurturing leads. If this is not an actively managed function, you get marginal benefits.

3. Evaluation – this stage may be the most important. Only through active analysis and evaluation of past successes and failures can your lead management solution become increasingly successful. A business intelligence solution that drives continuous improvement in the planning and execution stages results in greater leads efficiency, improved scoring of leads and ultimately more leads converted to customers.

Levementum is a system integrator of CRM software for the enterprise and has successfully implemented leads management in many industries and companies of all sizes.