Act! emarketing Enhancements
New Act! emarketing administrative features allow admins to designate which users can send emarketing campaigns, and from which sender profile.
 
Act! Premium For Web Enhancements
Act! Premium for Web updates enhance the usability of Opportunities by allowing users to manage Opportunity processes and products from the web client. Additionally, Act! Premium for Web users can streamline management of Contacts using the Copy/Move Contact Data option, making it easier to manage the integrity of their Act! data.
 
Enhanced Security And Control
Additional administration and security options for Act! Premium Web API gives administrators expanded control over how the Web API and related integrations are used within their business.
 
Quality And Performance Updates
Dozens of performance and quality enhancements across the product portfolio based on user and partner feedback.
 
Looking for more information or ready to upgrade?

The new Act! Web API is a modern development integration service. This application runs on your Act! Premium (access via web) server and allows you to seamlessly and easily connect and integrate your Act! Premium Contacts, Groups, and Activities with additional services as part of a Premium Subscription. It provides do-it-yourself integrations and automation, as well as effective and flexible custom development capabilities.
 
Act! Connect is the Act! Marketplace now updated for a new generation of connectivity. Integrations using the new Act! Web API are available in Act! Connect for active Act! Premium subscription customers. Quickly and easily set up connections between Act! and: ​

Enrich your Act! data and trigger actions that save time and accelerate your sales and marketing efforts. The improved installation of Act! Web API with Act! Premium for Web ensures you have the tools you need to get started with Act! Connect services, or create custom integrations.
 
Looking for help installing the Web API or creating Connections? Want to learn more about how you can use the Act! Web API to benefit your business?

Want to save money on KSC support? Sign up for one of our KSC Support Plans or pre-pay for two or more hours of support through our online store.

The latest version of Act! allows you to customize the global toolbar to improve your productivity and make Act! fit the way you work.

NOTE: Before changing any default toolbars or menus, think carefully about what you are trying to achieve. Altering existing toolbars or menus could make it difficult to perform tasks and follow instructions in the Help, guides, and Featured videos, as they refer to a standard configuration.
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The global toolbar cannot be relocated or undocked from its location. However, you can:

• Modify the global toolbar by adding or rearranging buttons.
• Remove buttons that you rarely use.
• Create custom commands and add them to the global toolbar.

The first question you should ask yourself is “how can I tell who really likes us?”  Of course, off the top of your head you probably can name quite a few people with whom you do regular business.  But if you can set up Act! to tell you who is interacting with you and when, then you can get a clearer picture of who your best clients are.

Of course, what you consider your “best client” may vary.  Do you want to thank clients who buy a lot in net purchasing?  Or is it the clients who are consistent return customers?  Or do you have clients who always make contact with you around the holidays?  All of these things can be tracked in Act!.
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Once you decide what your criteria is, you can set up Act! to stratify your clients.  Creating a field called “prospect level” or “client level” gives you a place to track what kind of client you have.  You can then choose a method of tracking them.  You could go with a hierarchical classification, like assigning clients “A” through “D” status, or you can use descriptors, like “frequent customer” or “loyal promoter.”  Once your contacts labelled in this way, it’s easy to run a search for everyone who is an “A level” client or a “frequent customer.”
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From there it’s up to you how you thank your customers.  Whether you want to provide them with free, valuable white papers, send them hand-written thank you notes or do something else, making the effort is a guaranteed way to be sure you’re letting the clients who appreciate you know that the feeling is mutual.

Need help setting up client stratification? Contact us via email at info@kristismith.com or phone (847) 520-0860.

Your last day to upgrade to a newer version of Act! with preferred pricing is September 30, 2015.

What this means for you:
A) You can choose to do nothing, and keep your current version of Act!. If you decide at a later date to purchase a newer version, you will be paying full price, and will not be eligible for an upgrade discount.
-OR-
B) You can choose to upgrade Act! at this time and receive preferred upgrade pricing (pricing varies, please contact us to discuss).

Why upgrade now?

• Innovative new features
  

          - History List view provides an insightful look back
          - Automation and customization options
          - Integrations to Dropbox, SharePoint™, iCloud®  etc.

• Ensure compatibility with popular business applications  like Windows®, Outlook 2013® and Google™ to name a few. 
  
• Flexible new monthly or annual subscription plans (permanent licensing is also still an option). Subscription plan benefits include: 
  

          - Feature and platform updates
          - Basic technical support provided by Act!
          - Basic Act! emarketing accounts
          - Video tutorials 

• Deployment flexibility: manage Act! on premise or host it in the Cloud. Act! Premium Cloud subscriptions include:
  

          - Secure Cloud hosting
          - Automatic installation
          - Nightly backups

• Integrated emarketing services  including Team Access, Lead Capture and Smart Task options.
  
• Usability and system improvements driven by customer feedback.
  

Remember, all users sharing the same database have to be on the same version of Act!.  After September 30th, you will no longer be able to buy additional ACT! 2013 licenses. Upgrade today to maintain your business continuity.

Click here for a version by version comparison. Learn more about Act! v17.

Ready to try or buy? Contact Us.

Summer is finally here! And while summertime is lovely for all things outdoors and vacation related, it can also be a slower time for business. Completing projects that help improve how your business runs is a great way to make productive use of any summer slow down.

Organizing your database to track client anniversaries is a small but effective project for Act! users. Why do this? Sending anniversary cards is a nice way to say, “I recognize how long you have been using our services and I appreciate your business.” In fact, that’s almost exactly what you can say in your anniversary cards. So how do you use your Act! database to track client anniversaries?

1. Create a custom field in Contact view and name it “contract start,” “client start date,” or “anniversary.” When you create the field, you can set it as an annual event to make running your anniversary tracking query quick and simple.

2. Make it a habit to fill out your new custom field whenever  you gain a new client.

3. Ready to send out anniversary cards? If you set your custom field type as an annual event, you can easily go to Lookup>Annual Event, select your custom field from the dropdown menu, select the current month, and then click Find Now. The list that pops up is all of your contacts with anniversaries in the current month. From the search window you can print the list, schedule a to-do, or even pull up the contacts as a lookup for further refinement.

What you want your cards to say is up to you and can reflect your company’s values. We recommend scheduling a recurring activity for someone on your team to send out anniversary cards on a monthly basis. You can send cards through the mail or use Act! Emarketing to create an anniversary e-card template.

Need help setting up custom fields, sorting the contacts you already have or using Act! Emarketing? Contact Us

Are you meticulous about your sales pipeline? Are you using ACT! to help manage your prospects and projects? Because if you already have ACT!, you could be using the opportunities feature to manage and track sales opportunities as they go through the sales process, and even better—you can then analyze your past opportunities to gain insight into your strengths and weaknesses as a salesperson.

To successfully leverage your opportunities in ACT!, you can start by adding prospects you meet to your database and then creating opportunities for the potential services or products that interest them. Then as you move through the sales process, you can update the opportunity to reflect where you are at. If the default list of stages in a process does not mirror your own, the stages are editable. This means that ACT! can be customized to match your business needs, giving you the ability to be nimble. ACT! will keep up with you.

Once you’ve started creating opportunities for prospects and potential projects, you can then fully manage your pipeline through ACT!. You can easily pull up your opportunities by opening the opportunities tab on the left navigation panel, and then filter which opportunities you would like to see. You can then get a feel for what business may be coming in in the next few weeks, months, or years (for those longer sales cycles). And because each stage in a process has a probability for closing, you can calculate the probability of what your business can expect to bring in.

You can also pull up opportunities from the past—in particular those marked lost. What part of the sales cycle were you in when the opportunity was lost? Do you see any patterns? By examining your lost opportunities, you can better understand what you may want to work on to get better results in the future. If you pull up your won opportunities, you can similarly review what made deals go well to assure you continue with those practices.

With these features geared toward selling, ACT! helps set you up for success. By providing you with tools that support an effective sales process, ACT! can help you fast-track your business.

Would you like training on using ACT! for sales success? Contact us at 847-520-0860, or email us at info@kristismith.com

Summer is finally, maybe, just about here—depending where you live, of course. And summertime, while lovely for all things outdoors and vacation related, can also be a slower time for business. Due to this slow down, some businesses find themselves looking for projects that are aimed at helping improve how they run their business.

Well if you use ACT!, we have a small project for you: organizing your database to find customer anniversaries. Why do this? Sending anniversary cards is just a nice way to say, “I recognize how long you have been using our services and I appreciate your business.”

In fact that’s almost exactly what you can say in your anniversary cards. So how do you use your database to send out these cards?

Easy. Create a custom field on your contact view and name it “contract start,” “client start date,” or “anniversary” and make it a habit of filling it out once you gain a new client. When you create the field, you can set it as an annual event to make running your query even easier. If you set it as an annual event, you can easily go to Lookup, Annual Event, and then you can simply select your custom field from the dropdown, select current month, and then click Find Now.

The list that pops up is all of the contacts with anniversaries in the current month. From the search window you can print the list, schedule a to-do, or even pull up the contacts as a lookup for further refinement.

What you want your cards to say is up to you and can reflect your company’s values. We recommend scheduling a recurring activity for someone on your team so they can remember to send out the cards every month. This method makes it easy to say thank you to your clients without having to spend a lot of time trying to track whose anniversary is when. Plus it will give you something to do this summer that will make your clients happier.

Would you like some help setting up custom fields or sorting the contacts you already have? Please call our office at 847-520-0560 for help.