How to Update The Act! License Count
For Act! v18.2+, Act! corporate changed the licensing software component. If you add or remove users from your initial purchase, we have seen the user count on workstations not reflect the latest user count.
So, it’s a best practice on each workstation and the server to manually refresh the activation count. The screenshot below shows you how it’s done. The database doesn’t have to be open. Once you refresh the activation, restart the program to see the updated count. Directions:
- In Act! go to the File -> Close menu.
- Go to Help -> Refresh activation.
Zoho Announces Free Remote Support Tools
We’ve been routinely supporting our clients remotely for over 15 years. We can get you up and going in a hurry.
We want to do all we can to help in this time of crisis. COVID-19 is a big deal, and it has everyone scrambling. You’re putting out too many fires right now to fuss with keeping your team productive remotely. As it happens, keeping teams productive remotely is in our wheelhouse. We can help with cutting through all the variables so you get the right fit, at the right price, and don’t miss a beat.
We’re fluent in many of today’s remote workplace platforms, including Remotely®, Zoho’s comprehensive, all-in-one solution. We can bring you all that fully-functioning productivity firepower for free until July 1, 2020. That’s right—free. This is NOT a “freemium” version. And chances are pretty good we’ll have you up and running in a day or two.
Contact us today and we’ll look at your business’ unique requirements and fit you with a solution that works. Remember, discovery calls are always free.
How to deactivate an Act! license
Since the end of 2018, Act! corporate has cracked down on how many PCs can be installed per Act! user license. In other words, if you have 5 Act! licenses, you can install it on 10 PCs. As you replace PCs, you will need to de-activate the license on the PC you are about to replace before installing Act! on the new PC.
If the PC hardware failed before you can do this, you need to call Act! corporate customer service and manually request they de-activate the PC off their list. Act! corporate tracks by using the UNC name of the PC (ex: \\MONDO-LAPTOP). This video shows you how to deactivate the license.
Customer Experience in the B2B Space Matters
Customer experience has become even more important in the 21st century as buyers gain power.
Customer churn kills growth. And because it’s ultimately unsustainable, it kills companies. Is there anything more important to the bottom-line health of your company than delivering great customer experiences consistently? We’d argue, nothing. So it begs the question, “How can you deliver great customer experiences if you don’t know much about your customers? That’s where we come in. (Do you think you’re already delivering great customer experiences? Think again. Blind surveys with actual customers say otherwise).
But what if you’re a B2B enterprise? It turns out your B2B customers expect experiences consistent with what they get in when they’re consumers in the B2C space. I happened upon this article recently that profiles 10 B2B companies who deliver great customer experiences.
It means having a good CRM matters, not only for your internal benefit but you can leverage the same data to create great experiences such as:
- Automate sending birthday or anniversary cards.
- Have all the customer's history on one screen, so no matter which sales rep picks up the phone, the rep knows what's happened. The customer doesn't have to repeat the same story multiple times to get something resolved.
- Create self-service portals so customers can view their order history, retrieve serial numbers and place help desk requests anytime.
How do you plan on creating better customer experiences? Let’s take a look at your churn rates and lifetime customer value data. We can certainly help. Feel free to bounce some ideas off me. Discovery calls are always free.
Staying Organized Outside of CRM
Productivity has increased dramatically over the last 20 years, but at what cost?
We are overwhelmed. All of us.
During the 2008 recession, businesses learned they can get an employee to fill the jobs of two or three people for fear of losing their own. The impact on everyone’s quality of life has been devastating. How do you keep everything straight?
You may think of me as a CRM guy who designs databases for a living, that I am uber-organized. In some ways, I am. But I get overwhelmed, too. That’s just life in the 21st century. There are many items in my day that don’t fit neatly into a CRM construct. For instance, new product ideas, client solutions, articles of interest, meeting agendas, even my website color scheme.
A few years ago, a client gave me a book called Getting Things Done (GTD) by David Allen. The GTD method takes these items and places them where they can be acted on later.
Some people use post-it notes. Over the years, I’ve found that Evernote is a far more powerful tool. Others out there include Microsoft’s OneNote and Zoho’s Notebook as part of the Zoho One platform. I combine Evernote with CRM to keep everything on point, even the stuff I do that’s not associated with an individual contact in CRM. This works for me, especially when I have to reference a Power BI formula I wrote over a year ago, for example. Pairing the GTD methodology with great CRM keeps my desk clean, yet I have access to what I need at any time, wherever I go.
I combine CRM & Evernote to keep things organized.
How do you manage to keep all your plates spinning? Everyone has a life hack.