Several questions from a newbie

[D A G]

Good afternoon to all the community, above all wanted to thank you for all the posts because the information you guys share is very important and valuable.

A couple of months I started to read about Sugar and I installed it a couple of days ago (after having read the book SugarCRM for dummies). I understand many things but there are so many that I made clear to point out that I will explain briefly what I need for my company to see if anyone can help me:

On one hand I have people (which I plan to upload as contacts) that already have emailed us regarding to any of the products we are selling (where should i upload all the product we have available to sell). The idea would find a way to link each person with the product/products for which they asked me to go and update that information with the actions to be undertaken.

My clients are individuals and not companies. On the other hand I send mail (now through ConstantContact) and would like to send them via Sugar, is it possible?

Is there a plug-in to link the Mail software (Mac OS) with Sugar?

Is there a sale process plug-in? (to scroll through that stage of the sale process from each customer and see that action should be taken in each case?)

Thanks in advance for reading me,

Regards,

Diego

I forgot, I am using version 5.2.0k (Build 5837) with the Spanish language pack installed on a MacBook.

[susiewilliams]

Hi Diego,

You've got a lot of questions here... let me see if I can point you in the direction of some answers.

For learning more about using Sugar in a Business to Consumer (B to C) world, please check out this Knowledge Base article. You said you're selling to individuals, not companies, and that's what B to C means.

Sugar has a Products module where you can add the products that you sell. Products are related to both Accounts and Contacts so you can record which contacts have expressed an interest in which products.

You can send emails through Sugar. Check out the Campaigns functionality to send emails to large groups of contacts, much like you do with Constant Contact today. There is a five minute video that walks through the marketing functionality, and this should give you some ideas about what you can do with the software. You can find the video here and also on our YouTube channel.

Regarding steps to follow at each sales stage, that really depends on your business process. You can of course tailor the sales stages to match your company's sales process; just go to the Dropdown Editor in Admin to modify the sales stages, and also to modify the percentages (percent closed) values for each sales stage. Sugar doesn't have any pre-set tasks that appear with each sales stage, but using Workflows (available in Sugar Pro/Enterprise) you can easily make that happen.

Hope this helps!

[D A G]

Hi susiewilliams, thanks very much for your time, I really appreciate!

I can't find the Product module on Sugar! I think that if i found it one problem would be solved

I 've just done the the sales stages dropdown list modification but i got a problem, i can't find them when i log in as a non-admin member.

Thanks in advance,
Regards

Diego

[Angel]

The Products module only exists in Pro and Enterprise Editions. Are you using either of those?

I am not sure I understand your problem regarding the Sales Dropdown. Only Admin users and designated "Developer/Admin" users would have the ability to change the drop down. Are you wanting to change the list while logged in as a normal user?

[D A G]

Hi Angel! Unfortunately i'm on Community Edition. I've just installed the Open Sales Products plugin, have you heard of it?

I don't get the point of changing the "account" for the "customers" module if i got the "contact" module for that, is there any difference?

I would need to relate contacts with products and be able to track in which stage of the sales process they are.

I really appreciate your time guys! Thank you very much.

Diego

[Angel]

I've heard of it (Open Sales), but I don't have any experience using it.

Yes, there is a difference between Accounts and Contacts. Accounts are equivalent to Organizations or Companies, whereas a Contact is an individual or person.

In your environment, Accounts do not make much sense because you sell to individuals, not to Companies. You might want to consider creating an Account with the name of the individual to save yourself some of the potential linking problems.

[D A G]

Hi Angel!

I've read THIS and the suggest "One way to tailor Sugar to support your B2C requirements is to use the Account module to actually represent an individual. Using the “Rename Tabs” screen in Admin, you can alter the Accounts module, changing its name from “Accounts” to “Consumers”, for instance. Using the Studio tool, you can enter both a first and last name in the Account Name field (which you can also rename as “Consumer Name”). Or, you can add separate fields to store the last and first names. In either case the Accounts module is transformed into a “Consumers” module."

My question after reading this suggestion is, would you do that or you just use the "contacts" module to put there your customers?

Thanks in advance,

Diego

[Angel]

It would be a good idea to do it because you'll find that certain things, like Opportunities, are meant to be linked to Accounts first, then a contact. Hence the reason for my earlier comment about linking.

[D A G]

Now i get it! I think that I'll rename the "account" module and use it as it were a "product" module.

I'm having trouble setting up the inbound email, as far as i now the problem is that the IMAP is not enabled (im using godaddy shared server). I've already opened a ticket to get support.

Thank you very much guys i really appreciate your time,

Regards,

Diego