SmileCRM version: VALHALLA - 10.24.04.28
We have noticed that a small number of clients are using the record set name assigned at list upload to build data searches.
While this is perfectly fine, the values assigned cannot be updated once a record has been created as it forms part of the audit trail.
A better approach would be to use a profile question which can be both updated and used within a search, plus this can be protected from operator update to ensure consistency if desired
With the ICO actively seeking companies who are making unsolicited calls wouldn't it be nice to know you are compliant ?
121ProData are offering 500 free number checks to SmileCRM clients - Contact us or see the C/TPS documentation for more details
If you are new to SmileCRM and making calls then you should review the getting started video about how we deal with multiple contacts.
This can be found under the operator getting started videos OR through the main help area from your top right menu
Have you have created a Zapier link to import data into a campaign?
If so, when you close the campaign remember to delete the interface or Zapier will keep trying to add/update records and so incur more costs.
If this is happening you will see a "Zapier setup error" message on your task list.
The system can send out a number of emails on behalf of your organisation - "opportunity distribution" and "new website contact" to name just two.
We have now opened these up for change, so if you want more details on these emails, then you add keywords, logos and the like to bring things more into line with your brand.
See Administration=>Manage system templates
When you get a new starter it can be a little time consuming to go through all the campaigns and allow them access.
However, did you know that adding then to the default operators area on the customer screen will automatically add them to all campaigns for that customer?
When you have 10 campaigns for a customer, this definitely cuts down the admin time !
Sometimes in the heat of calling, its easy to forget things or make mistakes that might affect performance or to skip making a proper note.
We have enhanced the "Activity today" area to not only show operator calls, but also allow contact made, reason code and note to be updated.
Use action edit to make changes, which will update statistics with the corrected information.
If the administrator has turned on the flag "Use GDPR to prevent email send", people making calls will not be able to send ad hoc emails, transactional emails or move automation onto an email step until GDPR "opt in" is set.
To support this we have added the GDPR flags to the screens that are the source of the email, so that people making calls don't have to go to the main GDPR tab in the calling screen.
To give more visibility to what is happening to opportunities going through QC, we will send an email whenever its status changes, not just when it enters QC.
This is in addition to any notes or flash messages being created.
On all the screens that show the notes for a contact or company, any note that has been flagged as "contact made", will now be shown in green to highlight this key record.
As an aid memoir, this is set on any of the outcome screens where there is a radio button asking "did you speak to the contact".
We have extended the profile "exclude from print" feature to not only hide on the opportunity prints, but on the data exports also.
This is great if you want to hide certain profile questions from being shown on exports, but allow then to be seen internally.
Examples of this are internal notes or conversion elements.
The account manager assigned to a customer is important as this is the person responsible for the account.
From today we are making it more visible on things like the lead distribution email and other similar places.
Please ensure you have the correct account manager assigned to your customers so your clients can contact the right person for rearranging appointments or other queries.
The profile questions now have two new flags.
Allow data entry - will prevent/allow the details of a question being updated by the operator. Great if you are uploading data from a client and don't want to change certain details received from them.
Hide on print - will not show the question on any of the opportunity prints. Great if you want to have a section for an operator to enter "internal" details that are not printed.
When you have a long history of calls with a contact (or have emails turned on), the actual conversations you had can get "lost" in the call history.
This weekend we have added a new option to the call screen to see only records where you have spoken to the contact or all activity.
As this defaults to the activity where you "spoke to the contact" (set on the disposition screens) this should reduce the preparation time before making a call.
Did you know that we have automation built into Smile?
This is sometimes known as cadences or sequences, where you have a series of steps for email or calling.
If you undertake anything like this, then you can use our automation feature, configured on the campaign advanced area.
Did you know you can see all your priority calls, tasks, appointment/attendance confirmations and meetings using the "staff calendar" option?
This can be changed between daily, weekly, monthly and other views.
It even can show your Outlook entries if the integration is turned on.
Did you know that you can turn off lead approval for the "internal" customer to prevent large numbers building up on your reporting?
For the default, navigate to your customer details and change this under the QC tab.
For a specific campaign, navigate to the specific campaign and use the advanced wizard. Go to the QC step and change the flag.
Priority calls are key to not missing important follow ups, but what if you do?
While we provide lots of prompts for this, one that is often overlooked is to send Flash messages. The setup is on the system settings => Advanced=> Office defaults area
These messages can be linked through our Zapier interface to Slack/Teams for an instant view.
While we cannot directly monitor external systems from Smile, we can give some pointers on core problems
For example, if you are using Zapier we can highlight if you have a brand key or campaign link problem.
This will be shown in the task area of the portal page.
A feature that people tend to forget is that we can auto-close a calling record if there has been no contact after (lets say) 5 no contact calls.
The "Spoke to contact" flag drives this on the call back popup from the call screen.
To set this up, go into the campaign wizard =>advanced setup and under the calling options use the "no contact management"
Customer groups are a great way to collect similar customers together.
A perfect example would be collecting customers that are B2B into one group and B2C into another.
This allows reasons codes to be assigned differently by group and how performance is measured to be "flexed", not to mention it makes reporting much easier!
Did you know that when you upload data we look at the country of the record to determine the time zone ?
For the United States, we additionally analyse the direct dial or switchboard numbers to see where it is in the US to determine the time zone.
Makes calling East Coast, West Coast etc easy plus it shows on the call screen and affects the call back or appointment setting.
Did you know that there are 3 underutilised fields you can use for grouping records together on import?
Franchise, External Status and Region can all be used for your own purposes to group records together for reporting.
These can be added to the call screen using the optional fields from the calling options
When you have lots of users it can be a bit of a pain to approve timesheets singularly.
Hence we have introduced a new button on the timesheet grid to approve all unapproved timesheets in bulk.
Based on client feedback, we have renamed "suggestions" to "insights" for a more accurate description of what this area actually is.
Part of the core system is to disable operators and team leads if they have not logged in for a while.
However we don't do this for admins, so might be a good idea to review your users for people that have left.
There is an option on user management action menu to "leave" the person which should be used.
We have released suggestions formally with over 50 now being generated automatically for all users of Smile!
They cover Calling, Customers, Campaigns, Data and more....
Your personal suggestions can be accessed from your portal page under the suggestions tab.
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If you really want to maximise your lead generation calls, we have released two new changes today.
Single click outcome, clicking "Call back", "NFA" or "Convert" will save the outcome with a predefined values. We suggest that you use this with "call updated" to "cycle" the data.
Autodial number on entry. The number will be automatically called on entry into the call screen. Records with multiple numbers will call the first one of mobile, direct dial and then switchboard
To enable these features go into the advanced campaign wizard and they can be found under the step "4-Calling options".
Friday humour
Nice article on LinkedIn about how to find address information from a telephone number - great if you want to do geographic targeting !
PS: For Smile customers you can use our update facilities under the Data=>"Quality checks" area to do this for you :)
Link to article is here
With Black Friday upon us, we thought we would reinstate our humour posts
Profiles have been extended to allow specific values to count toward a "good answer".
For example if you have a condition that only companies with 20 PC's are "OK", then you can set this up.
Another example might be that "do they ship more than 3 times per week" and so on.
Just a reminder about priority calls aka "I spoke to John and he wants a call back on Thursday at 11am"
They are created by using the check box on the call back screen and will appear in your portal page, calendar and be served up through call multiple before other less important calls.
On the portal and diary screens, double clicking the entry will allow you to go to the call.
Have you thought about cleaning the data or using pre-qualification before the final sales pitch ?
Our "linked" campaigns allow operators to push qualified/cleaned data from one campaign into another that is specifically for the final sale.
Today we released a simplified creation of these "linked" campaigns, just click the icon on the campaign summary to create them at the same time.
Simples!
Just a quick note about suggestion generation dates.
We are planning the next run to be 1st December, however once all the areas are on line we will be reducing this to be weekly to fall in line with the invoicing and operational reporting.
If you are an Admin or Manager, from today, you will see a new tab for "suggestions" on your portal page.
For this initial release, it will only cover customer setup and data management, however over the next month this will be expanded to cover the rest of the system.
Operator and team lead roles will also have suggestions to help with calling or team management within this time frame.
Welcome to the new feed! As you many know Twitter (X) has put public feeds behind a login. This has meant that you would not see any of our posts about changes, unless you were logged into Twitter. As this was our primary method of disseminating key sound bites, this was clearly going to be a problem. Hence we have replaced the old Twitter feed with one that is more under our control.
Minor adjustment to the menu as “manage calls” has been moved under the campaign area as “Change call records” as it was causing some confusion about its function verses “Call single”.
Second part of our performance management upgrade is available from the portal pages - see "team performance" where you can review how your team have been performing.
Take a look at the "My calling performance" tab on your portal page to see a summary of your calling and how you stack up against your team ! 😁👍
If you are calling internationally, if you upload data with a valid ISO country, you will be able to see the local time of the contact you are calling.
Pssst, want to target only those records which have a mobile ? New options under the call filters area allows you to do this 😁👍
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