Shared with gratitude from our friends at ActToday

Date Posted March 17, 2017
Written by Cate Dempsey

When you make an investment in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software, you want to see a return, therefore its vital to understand how CRM can be an asset to your business. For some people, they simply want a central store for their customer details. However, for many, they see CRM as an opportunity to reshape the way their business is run and maximise their business opportunities.

Although Act! is a simple and affordable tool, it gives you incredible power to improve sales and marketing effectiveness and drive results for your business.

Here are our 6 steps to maximise the power of Act! CRM

1. Make sure data is tidy and up-to-date

There is nothing worse than having data that is irrelevant. For this reason, the data in Act! should always be up-to-date, allowing you to use it for marketing campaigns, grouping and segmenting your database. Keeping your data as current as possible means that your team will know everything about your customers at all times.

2. Invest in Training

The most common mistake that people make is they don’t invest in training. CRM training is crucial. If your staff don’t have training, then they will most likely not use it the way you intended and they will be inhibiting the business from achieving what it set out when it invested in the CRM system originally. Think of Act! like a high performance car that you have invested in. You wouldn’t let someone drive it that doesn’t know how to drive. Not only could they damage it but they won’t be able to gain the full experience like someone who knows how to drive it.

3. Make sure it drives business decision making

Act! should be the central hub of the business, therefore, it should be used to make informed business decisions. Whether this is for sales, marketing or staff, Act! should allow you to make decisions with confidence and give you a clear outlook of what is expected.

4. Integrate with your accounting software

One thing that will make Act! an even greater asset to your business is by integrating it with your accounting software.  With the Act! Accounting links (MYOB, QuickBooks, Xero) your staff get a 360 degree view of all customer interactions from within Act! such as estimates, invoices, sales and payments. The links also eliminate duplicate data entry as you only have to enter contact data once saving time and data inconsistencies. With Act! Premium v19.1, you have the ability to connect Act! with six leading eCommerce platforms (WooCommerce, Etsy, Shopify, BigCommerce, Ecwid, and Volusion). Order details from your online store are automatically recorded on the History tab of the contact so that your Act! users can view the order ID, quantity, price of items ordered and the order total giving them a more comprehensive view of your contacts. 
See the 9 Benefits of Integrating Act! with your Accounting software.

5. Invest time in email marketing

Integrating Email marketing with your CRM is a cost-effective way to grow your business. According to Hubspot, businesses generate 58% of all revenue through segmented and targeted emails. (Source: https://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics). With Act!, emarketing is easy as it has it’s own in-built e-marketing tool that takes the guesswork out of marketing and follow-ups. Act! emarketing enables anyone to create marketing campaigns, track open/click-thru rates and update customer information. Act! emarketing also uses social media such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to maximise the reach of your communication. For more information, take a look at Act! E-Marketing.

6. Have an Act! Business Partner work with you

Our business partners are trained and skilled in helping you maximise the benefits of Act!. All good businesses have someone from outside the organisation to help them achieve their goals and an Act! business partner is exactly that person. They are there to work with your business at all times and when you invest in Act!, you can do so confidently with the assistance of our business partners.

The above topics list a few ways to make sure Act! is an asset to your business. To find out more about how Act! can be an asset to your business, please call the Act! sales team at 1-800-857-0558 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..