We’ve really pleased to have just released our referral program after lots of feature requests by our users – we wanted you to be able to share in our success, so all do you need to do to start earning 20% of all paid for plans is login and visit the admin section.
You can sign up for the referral program and start earning straight away. Full details are on the Tactile CRM website, and you can track referrals in real time from your account:
The brief: Tactile CRM’s website is need of an overhaul, and as part of the plan this year we’re measuring and reporting on the the changes we make to see what is and isn’t succussful. We want to increase our conversion ratio on sign ups so we’re currently doing some market research on sites that people have felt comfortable buying from and leaving the credit card details.
The current list includes:
Are there anymore you have brought from, or can suggest?
2009 is going to see a fair few exciting changes and new things for us at omelett.es. One goal is a big push on the number of signups for Tactile CRM
With the new features we have released (and will be), the platform is really great and we know will be of great benefit to people. Part of this push will be some updates and tweaks to the website, which leads on to my main question:
Have you ever brought [business to business] services based on presentation/brand, not just price? If so, who from?
Let me give you an example, I am about to send off a stack of business cards to Cloud Contacts, however I was recommended several other companies, but chose them on their website presentation and look and feel of the business. Hopefully, I won’t regret it, but the decision was certainly based on looks.
As 2009 begins we are entering a time of change. From the uncertainties of a recession and falling exchange rates to a new President in the White House it will, without doubt, be a tumultuous year.
For businesses, 2009 will be year that makes us. It is the wake up call we have needed after enjoying the times of plenty and a swift reminder that the ‘economy can go up, as well as down’ (speak with any financial adviser and these will be one of the first lines they speak when talking about investments). Our businesses are our investments, from the hard work our staff give on a daily basis to the technologies we work with, we need to keep an eye on them and nurture them – data, information and they way it is analysed is key to a successful investment.
Agile companies will be those that succeed – the ones that can shift their businesses rapidly to take account of changing circumstances, new developments and trends – but to make the decisions required to be flexible businesses need information. Acting on a hunch may work for loveable /rogue television detectives but in the World of business it’s worth backing up your hunch with a bit of real World information and analytics.
We live in a World where data is king – Google ‘index the World’, the big supermarkets send us customised magazines with content and offers specific to our buying habits, and we are entering an age where we have the World’s information in our pocket with devices such as Apple’s iPhone. These are changing our buying habits and forcing retailers to think differently, December saw the demise of several large chains that couldn’t adapt, but with all the information they had to hand should it have been so?
As agile businesses there is no need to let this happen – use the information to hand, collect more when/where possible and act before it is too late. Accounts and sales figures are information businesses are used to having, a list of customers and their contact details is a luxury for some. The costs are low to collect and analyse business data with today’s technology and an investment should be made in these tools. They will help businesses prosper and thrive. Now is not the time to scrimp and save on these invaluable tools.
Every business has a variety of data they can collect and analyse. This can help build the bank of information on hand to influence critical business decisions. The difficult part is working out which is useful and worth spending time on.
Big businesses collect huge amounts of data – used to influence their ordering (you should see more cold drinks on a hot day in supermarkets because they tie in their ordering with weather forecasts), or send you specific offers and deals. Smaller businesses can make similar gains with the host of tools already available and the information they can collect and make available. Don’t think that this doesn’t apply to your business/industry – you may already be making use of the information you have, but there is always more that can be collated and acted upon – those businesses that see this and take the opportunities will be the ones that emerge from 2009 bigger and better.
2009 will be the year where Darwin’s ’survival of the fittest’ will be played out in front of us.
I’m pleased to say the Spend Meter got built for Operation Canine and it looks like an awesome application (if I do say so myself!).
Full details are on the Spend Meter website, and there’s a screenshot below of what it looks like:
I’m on my way to London for a reception for Digital Mission companies and it’s turning into a mission.
First of all I tried to get the Oxford Espress and they don’t take cards – I can understand that, but not having a cash point at the park and ride bus station is stupid. So back into the car to drive to the train station in Oxford city centre. I already knew that I would have to pay for parking, but it’s not an obvious system if you haven’t used it before – which I hadn’t.
The main problems I had was that you have to stand by a stand on the platform next to the tannoy. Trying to speak your registration number, brand of car and colour whilst an announcement is being made doesn’t work. If you shout ‘piece of crap system’ at it, it puts you straight through to an operator. This wasn’t much better as he couldn’t hear me and got my details wrong the first time.
If you’re in a hurry trying to get all of this done before you get onto the train would be a nightmare. I had 5 minutes to spare and still only just did it before the train arrived. As there is a person manning the carpark, why can’t I pay him instead?
This week we are building and launching a new product which we will donate 50% of the first year’s profits to charity. The product is called Spend Meter, and we’re live blogging progress at Operation Canine.
I’ve been ‘on’ Linked In for a far while now, and understood the basic idea behind it (I understand it as a service to manage and grow your network of business contacts), but never really understood the value behind it until now.
It has been big in the US and elsewhere for a while, but in general the Americans are much more into their ‘networking’ and making connections than we are (you can see that from the regional split of my contacts).
However, I am now beginning to see the value in it. With a recession fast approaching/upon us/finished (depending upon when you read this post), many people are starting to worry about their jobs and future roles. The value of Linked In now comes from the fact that your network is all in one place, outside of the company you work for, and you have access to it when you are no longer there.
Linked In is CRM for people, if you want CRM for an organisation, can I suggest you try our excellent Tactile CRM. I’m on Linked In, but don’t have any plans to leave omelett.es/Tactile CRM!
In the current economic situation it is the companies that keep it simple (stupid) and streamline their processes who will be the winners.
When it comes to pricing this couldn’t be more true, and is often an area that is overlooked. At Tactile CRM we’re currently simplifying our pricing structure, to make it easier for current and prospective users to understand our pricing bands. We think this is important from a ‘user acquisition’ point of view (please excuse the buzzwords) as it will help us to sign up more paying users.
However, not everybody has the same reasoning. I recently tried to join the local gym when I moved to Oxford, and nowhere on their website do they display pricing (correct me if I am wrong, but I haven’t found it yet). As a result, Esporta made me give up some of my weekend to visit the gym where I was still not able to find out the costs – two people on reception didn’t know them, and after a 15 minute waiting to see ’someone’ I still hadn’t got any further and left.
I was quite happy to make an appointment to see somebody but nobody seemed that clued up – maybe a simple CRM system like Tactile CRM would have been a help.
Obviously I don’t know their pricing, but I’d imagine they are currently down about £1,200-£1,500 a year as my partner and I are now looking elsewhere. Hopefully my situation will have been a one off, but I have written to the manager out of courtesy to let them know what happened and given them a chance to redeem themselves.
I’m very much a believer that ex-customers are as important as those you currently have, as you can learn from them how to make your product/service better. That’s a blog post for another time though!
British Rail (or whatever they are called these days – National Rail, it turns out) are a great example of how this should work, the recently updated their ticket pricing from lord knows how many down to 3:
First of all a big thanks to Stewart at Sun Startup Essentials for our stand at FOWA – it meant we increased our presence from myself, to a total of four of us each day. Not only that – we saw a significant increase in coverage of our Tactile CRM product online, via popular blogs such as Paul Carr, Iain Wallace, a decent amount of Twitter traffic, and a video interview by Dennis Howlett.
We met a lot of people interested in Tactile CRM, and the general consensus was that an API would be really useful; we caught up with the Soocial guys and would love to put something together with their product when we have our API in place, and many more.
As always Ben from Redcat Co was on-hand to take my blog photo for the day (see below)!
Highlights for me where Andy from Huddle, talking about life outside Silicon Valley, and Jason Calacanis with Tom Nixon talking about work/life balance.