August 29, 2006

Entellium: What Makes Its CRM Different

There are a LOT of CRM solutions on the market - some software and some hosted. Whichever one you choose, you've got to look at the features that are important to you and pick the solution best for you. It's also important to make sure that you are comfortable with the corporate mind set of the company serving you. Are they focused on customer service and offer a premium for it? Do they offer the lowest prices but hope you don't call that much?

Entellium provides CRM solutions as a software application or hosted. Their corporate mind set is that while the rest of the industry is focused on user adoption (getting sales reps to use the CRM tool), Entellium is focused on user effectiveness - actually increasing the number of leads, opportunities, and incidents a given rep can handle in a month.

To ensure that customers are successful, every Entellium customer receives a named account manager and 24x7 online support for free. This eliminates all hidden costs for training, deployment and data backup.

CRM can be confusing to shop for and there's a few key things that you should consider when looking for a CRM solution. Entellium gives the following insight:

The most important factor a small business should look at is whether the solution is easy to use and actually increases salesperson effectiveness. Too many CRM solutions are designed for managers and do little to help the salesperson. As a result, the salespeople stop using the system and the CRM seems like a poor investment. Entellium encourage customers to conduct head-to-head usability comparisons between Entellium and competitive products to get real-world input.

Small business should also carefully investigate the pricing model. Many vendors start off with a low price but then hit customers with hidden fees that drive up the actual cost in hurry. These range from consulting fees to support contracts to extra features that should be part of the core functionality. At Entellium, their prices are published on their Website and there are no additional costs.

To drill in a bit further, customers should start with these big-picture questions:

1. How will the CRM solution make your employees more productive?
2. Will reps be more likely to meet and exceed quota as a result of using the solution?

Drill-down into the actual CRM tool, and ask:

* How will the solution help my sales reps create, schedule, and complete more day-to-day activities?
* Can I set quotas based on activities to easily diagnose what my best reps are doing to bring in more business, and course-correct with underperforming reps?
* What level of automation is included for routine and mundane activities like report generation, lead handling and personalized email campaigns?
* Can I implement several "best practices" for the way my team sells (i.e. inside sales, major accounts, channel sales, etc.)?

Also, since you're buying "Customer Relationship Management," ask each vendor what level of support they give you after the deal is signed - and how much it costs for support, training, deployment, and so on.

And like every other piece of software you buy, it's important to ask about the product roadmap the vendor is working on - and ask how well that will match your needs in the long-term.

What I really like about Entellium is that their web site is VERY extensive and RICH in information - you actually LEARN just from spending some time on their web site.

If you want CRM, I'd highly recommend you consider Entellium and see if not just their technology but their CRM philosophy is for you.

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