Customer Relationship Management / Contact Management

e-Contact Database

The center of Elliott's CRM / Contact Management is e-Contact. Elliott's e-Contact is an extension to the customer database, as well as the vendor, employee, salesman, sales orders, ship-to, and purchase order database (and more). It can be used not only for CRM, but for Vendor Relationship Management, Employee Relationship Management, etc. e-Contact allows you to store contact information for customers, vendors, employees, ship-to, salespersons, sales orders and just about anywhere in the system. The contact's e-mail address, shipping address, phone and fax numbers are stored in the e-Contact database. In addition, e-Contact can store password to be used for Internet access. Special ActiveX components have been developed to utilize the e-Contact database from ASP pages. Credit card information can be stored in the e-Contact with encryption for security. Therefore, e-Contact is also an important piece of Elliott' Internet shopping cart solution.

Once contact records are captured inside Elliott's e-Contact database, emailing becomes extremely easy. For example, you can bring up a customer e-Contact record from the customer file maintenance and send e-mail to the contact(s) from the e-Contact screen. During order entry, you can also decide the contact(s) for the orders. Orders with contacts can optionally receive emails for order and shipping acknowledgement.

Elliott allow users to send mass email based on e-Contact information. Filter criterias can be set up, so only the intended contact(s) will receive the Email.

You can insert notes (see Elliott Notes) to record conversations with each contact record. This capability will aid in keeping track of customer contacts similar to customer relationship managers. Additionally, the Contact Database will work hand in hand with the e-Contact Processor - mass e-mail program.

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Elliott Notes

With Elliott's Note feature, you can maintain key information throughout the system. Notes can be used to record your phone conversation with your customers, vendors, employees, etc. They can be printed on selected reports (i.e. invoices, picking tickets, acknowledgements, Bill of Lading, and more). Notes can also be searched by text phrase, creation date, type, and owner. Notes can also be printed on various documents like a picking ticket, packing slip, invoice, purchase order, and more.

Notes Knowledge Base

This function builds upon the powerful Elliott Notes feature. It allows you to use your existing notes as a knowledge base. You can search for note(s) using selection criteria. You can search for specific notes by entering a text search string, note creation date, note type, or note owner. This provides a convenient way of referencing note information within the system.

Tickler Notification/Task Manager

Elliott's tickler feature is a built in task reminder or management system. Ticklers can automatically notify you of ticklers that become due and allow you to manage your priority. Ticklers can be recurring to remind you of tasks that will happen on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. Not only is tickler an important CRM function, it is also an excellent management tool. Supervisors can assign a tickler session to their subordiantes. The supervisors can also see the current tickler status of a subordiante to evaluate the work status. Reporting functions of outstanding, past-due and history ticklers can be used to evaluate employee performance.

Email Capabilities

From the print option window users now have the option of choosing "Email" in addition to "Print", "Defer", "Screen", and "Spool To Disk". The print job will be sent as an .TXT file attachment. This is particularly helpful in emailing order acknowledgements to customers or even emailing weekly reports to supervisors. It is important to note that the Email functionality found in ELLIOTT will be greatly expanded upon in future updates.

Email Order Acknowledgement

When an order is placed for any customer, an order acknowledgement can be sent via email to the customer. This can be done at the time of completing the order entry process or all order acknowledgements can be sent at once using the included batch routine.

Email Shipping Notification

Just as with the order acknowledgement that can be sent via email, shipping notifications also have the option of being sent via email. Elliott provides full integration with leading shipping manifest software, Starship. The tracking number that is written from Starship to Elliott will be included when the email is sent to the cusotmer. This electronic shipping notification contains a hyper link that takes you to the UPS, FedEx, or USPPS website, showing details of the package shipping status.

e-Contact Processor - Mass E-Mail Handling

The e-Contact Processor allows you to send mass e-mails. This is a powerful feature, which utilize the e-Contact database. The mass e-mail program uses filters to search through all existing contacts and select the appropriate contacts to send emails to. The email may include attachments and such coded fields as customer name and credit limit. Coded Fields are selectable from a Tree View of predefined fields and their attributes.

The results of any search can be modified. Once the emails are sent to the selected contacts, a history file is updated with a copy of the email for later review.

Multiple e-mail processors may be run at the same time, even on the same machine, because each process has a separate handle to MAPI.

Export Processor

Export Processor is a tool that can be used as a report writer or to extract data from the Elliott system. Security features are also available to prevent unauthorized people from extracting data. Your salesmen can write their own report without the concerns of a salesman seeing another salesman's customer data. You can empower your salesmen by letting them have crucial information at their finger tips without compromising security.

The Export Processor allows you to compare one Elliott field to another in the selection criteria. For example, you can select customer records that have a credit limit less than the account. It also offers a batch processing capability. For reps who do not know how to set up and use templates, the IT person can set up the template for them. The reps only need to click on a desktop icon (shortcut) to get their followup user list.

The following master table are available to extract data using Export Processor: customer, vendor, employee, salesmen, item, ship-to locations, sales order header and line, purchase order header and line, GL transactions, inventory location, and many more..

Links - Document Management

The Elliott Links feature is used to link one object in Elliott (i.e an item, or customer) to a document or a URL address. For example, you can use link for the following:
1. Link an item to an image file.
2. Link an item to its product specification document.
3. Link a customer to their home page.
4. Link a customer to their contracts and corresponding letters.

Links is a system wide feature and can be accessed just about anywhere in the system. This includes customer, vendor, item, employee, salesman, sales order header, line item, PO header, PO line item and more.. A "Hot key" can be assigned to each link type. For instance, you can simply type ALT-I (or any key you choose) to bring up the item image from the item file. The design of Elliott Links is generic, so it's up to you decide how to use it.

Events Handling

Events Handling is one of the most powerful fucntions in Elliott. It is usally used to send an email in the background when an event in Elliott is taking place. It can also be used to create a tickler if email is not available. A pop-up message box can also be used if email is not available. Events can be used for many different applications. The following are some examples:

1. Notify an adminstrator when certain critical functions are accessed.
2. Alert user(s) and provide additional instruction when a menu itme is chosen.
3. Remind a salesperson to sell the accessory item when a main item is purchased.
4. Notify inventory control when an out of stock item is received.
5. Notify buyers when an item is out of stock.
6. Notfiy a supervisor via email about orders, sales, receivable and cash flow status.

Customers & Contacts Import Utility

Elliott CRM solution has the ability to import customers and contact information from other databases like ACT, Goldmine, or a list purchased from a leads database provider or contacts collected through a trade show.

Attribute

Attribute is designed to extend Elliott's database without making any modifications to the database. As a common requirement in CRM, a user can decide to track a certain piece of information about a customer or a contact and later perform analysis on that attribute field. It allow users to track any additional information as the need arises. Working in conjunction with Elliott Export Procesor, user can select and export on the specific attribute to create a spreadsheet for further analysis. When working together with the Restricted Attribute function, Attribute can also be used for license and regulation control as in the chemical and pharmaceutical industry.

UPS and FedEx Online Tracking

If using the Starship Manifest System, and Starship is configured to write the tracking number of a shipment back to the database notes, right clicking on the note will launch the Internet Browser and send the UPS or FEDEX tracking number directly to the appropriate web site.

This tool is imperative for customer support staff that will often receive calls inquiring as to the status of their current order. By looking up the appropriate order, not only will the staff person be able to determine if a shipment has left the company, but they can take the process one step further by finding out exactly where the shipment is in the UPS or Fed Ex Process, as well as provide the anticipated delivery date as reported by the carrier.