REVIEW: salesnexus, an Online Contact Management Program
REVIEW DATE: January 28, 2009
RATED: 8 out of 10
RECOMMENDED: Yes

salesnexus is an Online Contact Management program. It is extremely feature rich and powerful, yet user friendly. Not often can you find this combination in a contact management program. Usually, a contact management program, like ACT! or Goldmine, has the potential to drive your company forward but will lack a user friendly interface. A user friendly interface is critical for customizing the CRM to fit with your sales process. I found that with salesnexus this road block removed.

Most businesses rely upon numerous factors to maintain their sales quotas. Trades shows, mass mailings, email campaigns, lead lists, cold calling and a large host of additional tools used. Keeping careful track of these powerful tools and their effectiveness can be quite challenging. Knowing whether your staff are using the tools can be more challenging.

Let's consider a trade show. With salesnexus, you acquire the leads from the trade show and have them emailed directly to you. Once the email is received salesnexus will parse the information and generate contact entries under a predefined activity name! Once inside salesnexus you pull up the ‘activity name' to organize your database and display only the trade show contacts. The following step will be creating what salesnexus calls a ‘campaign.' A ‘campaign' is where you list a group of automated events you want to see happen such as, thank you email sent immediately, information email sent seven days later, a mail campaign sent 14 days thereafter and a telephone call two weeks later. Each contact will receive the entire group of automated events. In addition, the leads are placed inside preset sales territories for your sales team! All this is easily accomplished for every lead received at the trade show in a matter of minutes, not days!

Another benefit I see with salesnexus is a feature they call ‘Mail It for Me' where you can quickly setup a targeted mailing campaign. When ready to implement, the mail campaign is promptly sent to a mail fulfillment company who will print, place in an envelope, stamp and post the campaign for you! This option can appear a little pricey if you have never used a mail fulfillment house, but the added benefit of having this feature is powerful. For those who want to manage their own mailing campaign will find a listing of Avery label templates inside salesnexus.

Tracking emails is another key concern for many businesses, especially since PDA's and iPhone's have hit the open market so strong. Syncing your contacts from different sources can be tedious, filled with many lost contacts and hefty price tags. salesnexus appears to have eliminated this obstacle. As an online service, written in web browser technology, emails are synced together server to server instantly. In addition, salesnexus has a feature called ‘Web Lead Capture' which captures and creates contacts from those coming to your website whom joins your mailing lists, request information, register or purchases.

From your PDA, Blackberry or iPhone you can send/receive emails that will immediately be synced to the appropriate contact inside salesnexus. The sync feature keeps the essential information such as contact data and calendar current on both salesnexus and your PDA, Blackberry or iPhone. Create a new contact on your Blackberry and it will be created in salesnexus and visa versa. There is an added charge for this particular feature although I believe it is well worth the financial investment you will make for your business. In addition, what a great backup for your contacts!

Customizing your database so that your entire sales team can get into the ‘Smile & Dial' mode is easily accomplished by scripting. Use the drag and drop function to create new fields with a drop down lists for your sales team to use during their calls. It's easy. It's personalized. It's trackable!

Finally, one of the strongest benefits I saw with salesnexus is their professionalism. Understanding the significance of the raw data you are entrusting to them is important. Keeping you hostage to their software with your data, as many CRM programs seem to, is not their goal. Let's imagine you sign up for a year, then five months into that year your business needs change. You call them up, they prorate what portion you used and refund you the amount you did not use. On top of that, they allow you to export all of your data (not just contact information). This is an amazing guarantee.

I would recommend salesnexus, an Online CRM program. It has the power of ACT! or Goldmine but with a fresh approach that is significantly more accessible to smaller businesses. I believe you can keep your pipe line fat and sassy!

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