Everyone knows it costs considerably more to win a new customer than to retain an existing customer. It is for this reason that companies have realised the importance of offering quality service to their existing customer base.
For large companies, customer relationship management (CRM) systems help solve the problem. For SME companies with fewer staff and resources, it`s not that easy.
To bring CRM within reach of the SME, accounting and payroll software specialist Pastel Software has launched a powerful, comprehensive and affordable CRM software solution that allows SME businesses to track, manage and escalate day-to-day messages and contacts with all potential and existing customers.
"Our experience has shown that traditional CRM products have primarily been focused on and utilised in the sales function of businesses and have, to an extent, neglected the ultimate objective of true customer relations. Our solution has been designed to focus on customer relationships covering the entire spectrum of the business," says Stephen Corrigan, managing director of Pastel Software, a Softline company.
"Pastel Resolve can either be integrated directly into Pastel`s accounting software programs or can operate as a standalone system. This direct integration eliminates duplication by importing all customer-related information into Pastel Resolve, and also allows users to generate invoices for billable contracts from within Resolve and to update them into their Pastel accounting software program. Designed for use by SMEs, Pastel Resolve also incorporates specialised features that cater for the contract billing, service industry or distributor-dealer type environments, particularly those with telephonic helpdesk facilities."
He adds that when tracking contact with customers, users of Pastel Resolve have swift access to information about the history of incidents involving each customer and can monitor pending activities as well.
"Armed with this information, users are able to track all sales, support and admin activities associated with each customer. The program records information such as the details of the customer who initiated the incident and the company agent or agent group that dealt with them, allowing management to easily monitor these activities to ensure that customers get the very best possible service."
"Management can also use this information to monitor the performance of their staff - their response time to an incident and the manner in which it was handled. This information is invaluable in that it will highlight deficiencies in the training of frontline staff, allowing swift corrective action to be taken. Pastel Resolve is geared to keep existing and potential customers happy using efficient, cost-effective incident management techniques."
Pastel Resolve consolidates the departments within a business into an efficient, co-ordinated and focused organisation in which all interaction with customers is recorded in a central database for future reference. Corrigan says this individual customer incident history is invaluable: "Equipped with this information the company agent dealing with a customer will understand the history of not only the customer but of the problem as well, and will be in the position to offer the appropriate solution the first time round. Having the right information at the right time facilitates maximised customer retention."
Another important feature of Pastel Resolve is an escalation function that allows incidents to be escalated to different levels within predefined parameters. After the set time period, if the incident is not satisfactorily closed, it will escalate to a higher level and ultimately to the managing director`s desk should it remain unresolved.
The program has e-mail functionality that is not only used to speed up response time to incidents by allowing documents to be linked and quickly dispatched, but is also used to automatically create incidents from e-mails received, intelligently placing them into the requisite department by recognising the address to which the e-mail was sent, such as sales@ ... or admin@ ...and so on.
There is also a powerful report writer that allows users the flexibility to design proprietary reports covering all aspects of the program. In addition, Pastel Resolve boasts a contracts feature that allows the agent entering a new incident to determine the precise service terms relevant to that particular customer. These service terms can either be time based or allotted on a quantity basis.
Pastel Resolve seamlessly integrates with Pastel`s accounting software, allowing users to seamlessly update Pastel Resolve with their Pastel accounting customers. This integration also allows users to generate invoices for billable contracts in Pastel Resolve and to update them into their Pastel accounting software program.
"These, and other features in Pastel Resolve are dedicated to empowering SME businesses to ensure that they provide the best levels of customer service. Knowing what the company did in the past empowers managers to make informed strategic decisions for the future," concludes Corrigan.
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