Companies are interested in CRM because they recognise that the customer is their primary strategic asset and thus seek to better understand the behaviour and needs of that customer and therefore enhance their relationship.

Actual returns vary from one company to the next, but common benefits we have seen our customers achieve are:

• Higher customer retention
• Improved sales productivity
• Improved efficiency between different departments
• Shorter sales cycles
• Increased profitability
• Lower marketing costs
• Reduction in “lost” sales leads
• Increased customer service response times

You have the full control on your team permission and accesses. Many CRM systems have security profiles that enable businesses to prevent their staff from performing certain tasks. For example, if you were worried that a disgruntled employee might want to delete the company database, deletion rights can be removed. In most CRM systems there is also the option to be able to export data into an excel spreadsheet, again if this was something you wanted to stop, then this part of the system can be turned off for certain users. If this is something you are concerned about, remember to mention it to the company whom you are purchasing your CRM from.

The answer in short is yes, actually the entire idea of Media Shield is to organize your team work, most CRM systems include the option to cater for remote users. However, there are four main ways to do this:

• Remote web access – this enables your remote worker to go onto the internet and login to your live CRM system from home.
• Remote Installation – this enables remote workers to have a copy of the software on their laptop, so they can update your CRM database regardless of whether they have internet access. When they do have access to the internet and your server, they can then synchronise their data.
• Mobile CRM – this enables remote workers to access and update your CRM system, via a PDA or mobile phone.
• VPN – Virtual Private Network – where users connect to the work server, via the internet from home.