6 Ideas to Succeed with ACT! in 2012

Are you happy with the results you're gaining from Sage ACT?

Is it helping you save time? How about the quality of reports you're able to produce?

If you work in sales is the software helping you keep on top of your active opportunities?

How much more productive could you be if you could benefit from just 5% more of ACT's features?

The start of a New Year is a great time to assess how much you're achieving from ACT! and identify how the software can work more effectively.
If one of your 2012 resolutions is to do more with ACT! here are 6 tips to help you plan:

1. Exploit time saving ACT! functions

ACT! offers a wealth of features to help users be more productive, here's a small selection:

• Create personalised Word and email templates to avoid typing repetitive messages
• Rollover uncompleted activities so all tasks are on the same page
• Set automatic synchronisation with Outlook so activities and contacts are always up to date in both applications
• Track new activity types in ACT!, for example leads, marketing responses or enquiries, that better reflect your processes for improved reporting and communication filtering
• Set activity priority levels and alarms to ensure important items are always prominent
• Set smart tasks that automatically remind you about anniversaries, renewals, agreement expiry and other date based alerts
• Install the free ACT! Scratchpad application that tracks quick notes and sets simple reminders even if the main ACT! application isn't open
• Track your active sales leads in the opportunity area to clearly see where deals stand in your the selling cycle helping you to follow up with the right prospects at the right time
• Use Outlook to create new ACT! contacts and schedule activities
• Save your frequent searches as groups to segment contacts based on mailing lists, products purchased, record manager, region and other criteria

2. Assess what information you're gaining from ACT!

How are ACT! reports and dashboards helping you make decisions or are there blind-spots in several areas? Are any reporting limitations caused by poor data quality?

Do the standard ACT! reports fit your requirements or do you need data to be presented in a different format?

Would your ACT! reports be more effective if users were prompted to enter more data in ACT! or if they used the software more consistently.

How easily can you assess the health of your sales pipeline & run sales forecasts? To fix this and other sales challenges please see our earlier post.

3. Check your version of ACT!

Earlier versions of ACT! may not work with Microsoft Office 2010 limiting their benefits. If you're using an older version you'll also be missing out on many productivity improvements in later releases including smart tasks, better integration with Outlook, a virtual notepad and new search tools that find data stored in attachments.

A summary of the latest updates are shown on our main site.

Further improvements can be gained from the Premium edition of ACT! including web access, extra user security controls and team dashboards. 

4. Share ACT! with more people & share expertise

Teams are more effective when everyone can easily share customer and contact information from a single database.

Are all your team able to access ACT! or are some people, for example, mobile and remote users still left out in the cold and continuing to rely on spread-sheets or phoning in to request information?

ACT! can easily be shared across network connections including Virtual Private Networks and Terminal Services and supports remote working enabling mobile users to work offline and sync their database updates. 

5. Using ACT! to be more proactive

ACT! offers numerous ways to stay in touch with customers and make proactive communications. These include:

• Scheduling recurring activities that prompt you to keep in touch
• Dynamic groups that automatically manage mailing lists so new contacts are automatically included
• Integration with email marketing applications like Swiftpage & dotMailer for sending captivating messages, tracking results and reporting user actions
• Searching on the 'date of last contact' field to identify which customers haven't been in touch recently
• Using the web tab to link ACT! with individual contacts social media profiles

6. Review the quality of your contact data

How quickly can you find relationship information when customers call in? If not, consider what type of detail you need at your fingertips and amend your database layout by editing or adding fields?

Do you have the right type of fields? For example, should some free-format ACT! fields be replaced with drop-down lists or tick boxes that will make it easier for users to enter data and improve data quality?

Would extra mandatory fields enable better quality information to be tracked when new contacts are added to your database? 

Recommended options

1. Discuss your findings and recommendations with colleagues to share expertise and develop better ACT! processes that will improve data quality and help everyone save time.
2. Set your objectives for an intensive ACT! training day that will develop user skills and give you advice for how to adapt your database to fit your processes.
3. Your review may reveal some requirements that can't be adequately dealt with in ACT! so could suggest a requirement for a more scalable CRM solution. If so, please contact us to find out what Microsoft Dynamics CRM could offer your business. 

By wbutler@preact.co.uk