Communication Without Borders

There are many good SMS marketing companies out there. However, there are others you wouldn't want to touch even with a 10-foot pole. These are companies that can leave you with a bad experience, loss of money and a possible date with the courts. So how do you go about choosing a great company? Ask these five questions:

Is this a real company?

Sometimes I wonder how business owners make decisions without asking such a basic question. You need to establish background information. Find out how long the company has been around. Check the experience, testimonials and track record. Call the references provided if need be and ask them for their opinion. It is better you take a little time establishing the authenticity of the company than to regret later.

These days, having a customer-relationship management (or CRM) system is often seen as an essential tool for businesses as it enables them to monitor their sales, marketing and customer relationship objectives. A CRM will allow businesses to pull together data on their customers that can then be analysed, enabling the organisation to organise and refine its everyday activities so that it is dealing with its customers in the most effective manner. More importantly, a customer-relationship management system provides company-wide information, so all of the business' departments are feeding into improved customer management. What we find is that a CRM system helps businesses to monitor and target their external strategies, plus it can also be used to improve staff productivity, including front-line personnel.

As you can well imagine the effective exchange and collection of information is a vital element of any CRM program, and this is where mobilised CRM can pay real dividends. Increasingly, companies are realising that a mobilised CRM system will help them gain competitive advantage by facilitating real-time data collection and distribution, which creates a more effective sales force and increases customer satisfaction. For example, a mobile customer-relationship management system can improve staff productivity by: