Maximizer enhances CRM solution

Maximizer Software has announced the launch of version 8.0 of its customer relationship management (CRM) software program, Maximizer Enterprise.

The new version incorporates workflow automation, sophisticated reporting and data mining options, enhanced sales lead and account management, and a sophisticated customer service module. The program has improved speed of deployment, and provides users with a return on investment within days and weeks, not years.

Maximizer Enterprise CRM is aimed at mid-market businesses and corporate divisions of large enterprises. Its purpose is to share customer information between the sales, marketing and customer service departments, to help each department communicate efficiently and effectively with its customers and prospects by telephone, letters, fax, mail campaigns, e-mail and Internet. Maximizer Enterprise is flexible, and can adapt as an organisation`s CRM and eCRM requirements develop and expand.

New features of Maximizer Enterprise 8.0:

* Workflow Automation to monitor business systems and respond automatically to critical activities with alerts and actions.
* New sales lead and account management.
* Improved list and campaign management for more effective direct marketing by measuring campaign response statistics such as email open rates and landing page click-throughs. A new "do not solicit" function and enhanced data security ensures you comply with new privacy, anti-spam and do not call legislations.
* Advanced integration with Microsoft Outlook. Compose HTML emails and access your Outlook contacts from within Maximizer Enterprise.
* New Crystal Reports bundle.
* Improved Customer Service and Support module.
* New Accounting link designed for use with QuickBooks and Accpac. Pastel link currently in development phase.
* Industrial-strength Web Portals for employees, partner and customers now built on .NET technology.
* Easier to install. Stronger and faster remote synchronisation with MaxExchange.
* New calendar for better time management and collaboration with the new "My Work Day" home page for a quick summary of the day`s appointments, tasks and company announcements.

For more information on the Maximizer product range or training or support, please contact Max-Active SA on (011) 462 5174, info@max-active.co.za or visit www.max-activesa.co.za.

See below for more information on Maximizer Enterprise 8.0:

Monitor your business systems and respond automatically to critical business activities with new Workflow Automation powered by KnowledgeSync^1. Save everyone time and make sure no opportunities slip through the net. Simply apply your business context and logic to configure Workflow Automation to monitor the massive amounts of information coming into your business every day and alert people or assign tasks automatically.

Examples:

* Automatically send an alert to the sales manager and schedule a follow-up call for a client if a hot lead has not been contacted in five days.
* Automatically schedule a report to be sent to the customer service manager every Friday morning with information on the team`s phone logs and account activities.
* Configure your system to monitor Web leads or incoming e-mails and schedule a series of automatic e-mails back to the prospect, and alert the account manager in their territory for a follow-up phone call.

Maximizer Enterprise Workflow Automation gives you an edge on your competition and makes building successful relationships seem so much easier.

* Identify and manage leads and convert them easily to customers.
* Assign leads to business partners and resellers, then automatically send an e-mail alert to ensure no leads slip through the net.
* Track lead status and source to monitor the sales funnel and success of marketing programmes.
* Assign account managers to take ownership of leads and customers, and then report on the sales funnel, forecast, or phone logs, by account manager.
* Understand influencers and decision makers with your clients by tracking the reporting relationships within their organisations.
* Show important information upfront when a customer record is opened by assigning key user-defined fields. Improved list and campaign management for more effective direct marketing
* Automatically measure campaign response statistics such as e-mail open rates and landing page click-throughs so you see your campaign ROI and maximise your marketing rands.
* Effectively manage opt-in and opt-out lists for targeted direct marketing and newsletter lists. New do-not-solicit function and enhanced data security ensures you comply with new privacy, anti-spam and do-not-call legislations which protect your customer from unwanted solicitations and you from costly penalties.
* Increase the reach to your customer base with automated multi-phase e-mail, fax, and print campaigns too. New categorised and multi-level user-defined fields give you more control of how you organise and sort customer profile information. Help sales and service staff find information faster to accurately enter information and better service customers when they`re on the phone. Plus you can maintain data integrity by including descriptions and `requested by` information for each user-defined field.
* Easily perform searches under multiple criteria, such as purchase date, country and product interest, with improved complex searching.
* Ensure campaigns are running smoothly and hitting customers on schedule by sending automatic alerts to the marketing manager and system administrator when there`s an issue with an e-mail or fax campaign.
* With tighter integration between account information and marketing campaigns, know which promotions or newsletters your customer or prospect is receiving so you can tailor your sales message effectively.

With Outlook integration, users who are accustomed to this interface can read Outlook e-mail inside Maximizer Enterprise and also save messages to customer records. This way, you don`t have to look through the Inbox, Sent Items, and other folders when you and your colleagues need quick access to customer communications history. You can now compose HTML e-mails and access your Outlook contacts from Maximizer Enterprise so you can include colleagues in customer e-mail communications. If you prefer to use Outlook for all your e-mail, you can synchronise your customer list from Maximizer Enterprise into the Outlook address book - no re-formatting or re-typing required.

Create, edit and produce customised reports to gain further visibility into your customers using best-of-breed business intelligence reporting tool, Crystal Reports, now included with every Maximizer Enterprise user. With Crystal Reports, use the Expert and Wizard tools to quickly and easily produce cross-tab, drill-down, summary reports and more. Highlight the information you need by grouping and sorting data, and then add charts. Further analyse data in a familiar Excel environment, and publish reports to colleagues in PDF, Word, HTML and other standard formats.

Even analyse data in other database applications such as your accounting or ERP systems, against the customer data in Maximizer Enterprise to get a complete view of your customer history, transactions and relationships. Then automatically have reports delivered directly to key stakeholders that need to see critical information either on a regular schedule or dependent on critical customer activities, using Maximizer Enterprise Workflow Automation. Maximizer Enterprise 8 now also supports Crystal Analysis for multi-dimensional analytical views.

Respond faster to customer inquiries and make Maximizer Enterprise truly a one-stop shop for customer information by giving your employees a complete view of your customers in one interface, including financial information from your QuickBooks accounting database. See a complete history of quotes and invoices, plus credit limits and balances - directly in Maximizer Enterprise. Save time by using one application to create quotes including access the QuickBooks inventory and up-to-date price list. Then close deals faster by converting that quote to an order.

Effectively and efficiently manage, track, escalate and resolve customer service cases to keep customers satisfied.

* Manage service level agreements and track resources effectively through billable hours and rates.
* Ensure customer service enquiries are resolved in a timely manner and customers are satisfied, by seeing how long a case has elapsed.
* Personalise communications with customers throughout the sales cycle by including customer service details in merge fields.
* Easily import and export documents in the Knowledge Base in XML format so you can convert your existing documents and share them with others. Industrial-strength Web portals for employees, partners, customers
* The Web-based Employee Portal, Partner Portal and Customer Portal are now built on .NET technology so it`s easier to manage and integrate with other applications.
* Through the Employee Portal, enable remote and mobile staff to access important customer, schedule and sales information through a Web browser.
* With the Partner Portal, effectively manage communications, leads and sales forecasting with third-party resellers.
* With the Customer Portal, create unique online experiences for customers, including customer self-service.

Stronger and faster remote synchronisation with MaxExchange With the fastest deployment in its class, Maximizer Enterprise is now even faster and easier with an installation wizard that helps you get up and running quickly. Plus, MaxExchange is now even easier to configure and manage remote users. Transfer data faster and automatically be alerted of data transfer errors to ensure remote users have the most up-to-date information.

The brand new `My Work Day` home page helps staff manage their day by seeing a quick summary of the day`s appointments and tasks, plus important company announcements from managers. The brand new calendar helps you collaborate with team members by seeing multiple users` calendars in one view. You can also book boardrooms, meeting rooms and other resources such as projectors.