How best to use Sugar

[vab3]

My company generates the large majority of our leads through our web site. People give us their name, email, and phone number in order to download our software demo. Once they are in our system, we send a "bulk" email about once a week to keep our contact information in their in-box. We also try to call if they left a phone number.

So far, I'm assuming I will be importing these people as "leads". If we get no response by a certain time, we stop sending emails, and eventually delete the information. I'm assuming most of this can be automated, and a salesperson would periodically browse the list for new leads with phone numbers.

Once we make contact with an individual, we try to follow up with personal emails, and phone calls. My assumption here is that this is the point to convert a lead to a contact, create an account, and an opportunity. This is where I am not exactly sure how to proceed.

Ideally, I would have some type of list to work through on a daily basis. I would try to contact each potential customer via person email or phone, however, if time does not permit, I would like to send a "form" email just to remind the customer that we are interested in him/her. In most cases I'm just trying to follow up in a reasonable amount of time (say 2 weeks). In a few cases I will set a specific date with the customer, or have some task to do, like mail information or demos.

How would I set this up? Should I attach a task to the "opportunity" that is created, and then work through the tasks each day? Or, is there some sort of view or report where I could see how long it has been since the last activity with an active opportunity. Then I could save tasks for specific things. I'm not sure about using the call scheduler, because I rarely specify a time for a call.

Any thoughts would be helpful. I'll be working through various approaches before we go live.

[craig4wd]

Not sure if this will help but here's what I do. I put everything into leads to start with and I schedule a call with every lead, I set the date but I dont care about the time. The lead status is New. I manage all activity for the lead under leads. If they are not properly qualified but I am working on it (e.g. have left a message or are corresponding) I change the status to In Progress. If they dont qualify I change them to Dead. If they qualify then I convert them and ensure that all details are correct in the system. The lead is changed to Converted and then all Activity is managed against the Account. It is only when a lead becomes an Account that I assign an opportunity. I put everything against the Account first and if there's an option I'll include the contact. This way when i look up a company I can see the activity for all contacts. I need this but others might not, so whilst I find this a good way you may need a different process to handle your type of accounts.

[djacobson]

Generally, a lead is a contact that has expressed some interest, but has given you little in terms of the specifics of their need, the volume or number of units of your product they'll want, or any other defining metric that allows you to apply some gut feel for probablity or characteristics of what the engagement might acutally turn into.

Once you have some of this information and know what you could be selling to them, I would convert the lead to an opportunity. The account will be created automatically, the contact will be created, but you can then start to define more specifics about the opportunity.

For example, with a little customization, you could easily have certain repetetive tasks like sending product details added to the opportunity as activities or tasks as soon as the opportunity is created from the lead. You could even add some custom fields such as "Do you need to schedule a call?" with a yes / no answer that appear when you create the opportunity, and then the response from this could trigger the creation of key activity or document records that get generated.
One of the beauties of SugarCRM is that it allows you to pretty easily change the application to match your busienss process, you just need to decide what the most effective sales process is for you.

[Hanson]

DataSync (http://www.discoverefficiency.com) is a software development and hosting firm out of Sioux Falls, SD. We create integrated information management solutions a variety of industry verticals.

More specifically, we are Silver Partners with SugarCRM (http://sugarcrm.com). We picked Sugar because it can be HIGHLY customized. Because it's open source, it is much more flexible and can grow with your business. We have extensive experience with Sugar customization, module development, deployment and maintenance. We have worked in a variety of industries and are committed to learning about your specific business model, and how our services can move your firm forward.

We would like the opportunity to explore a possible relationship further, and are excited about doing business in the future!


Steve Hanson
Account Executive - DataSync
Office: 605.275.4100 ext. 701
Cell: 605.270.2266
steve@datasyncorp.com