You are what you eat.

This is true of people and CRMs. With people, it’s more about what they eat, and with CRMs it’s more about how they’re fed. A CRM that relies on user updates only will quickly fall into disuse because each time you log in the data will be exactly as you left it.

You’ll have the field data you entered, the appointments you scheduled, and the notes & histories you logged, and nothing else. 

Now, what if you logged in and found new tasks created from online forms you’ve published to your website, or follow-ups scheduled for quotes your prospects viewed, or even appointments created from your online booking software?

Would that make logging into your database each day more rewarding? Of course, it would. For a CRM to be useful, truly useful, it must function at the heart of your software ecosystem. This includes feeder links from your website, your marketing, social media, quoting system, event management, you name it. All roads must lead back to your CRM for users to feel its value.

Most CRMs are designed to be inert. The only change they see from their existing state is brought about by user input, which can be tiring, unreliable, and lead to disuse. By building a host of feeder systems into your CRM, your database becomes a source of user activity, and the destination for all your lead generation, capture, and conversion efforts.

This is why we built the Linktivity Suite of Products. Consider how the following products interact with your customers, prospects, and ultimately you through your CRM.

• Link2calendar: by inserting your calendar link in your signature, webpage, or social media, people can check your availability online, and book a time with you at the earliest mutual opportunity.
• Link2forms: create easy forms or surveys to engage customers’ input and include them throughout your website to create “calls to action” or CTA’s. There is nothing new about online forms, but Link2forms feeds your database directly, and schedules follow-ups for the users, so no lead gets missed.
• Link2quotes: quoting is often the final stage in pre-sale customer engagement, but mistakes often lead to squandered opportunities. Link2quotes not only creates the quote and the corresponding Opportunity quickly and in one step, but it also provides click-thru feedback, automated reminders, and follow-ups, as well as instant reporting on the acceptance of a quote.
  What’s more, Link2quotes has tons of time-saving tools that make pipeline management a snap.
• Link2events: If you host public events to generate leads and showcase your products and services, the process should leverage your CRM, not be siloed from it by using other 3rd party apps. For instance, imagine using Link2events to create and publish sign-up forms for your event with all responses feeding back into Act!. This feedback would include creating new contacts when needed, and then recording the captured data in the history of the new or existing contact. It would also include organizing respondents into groups, reporting on results, and then automating reminders and post-event follow-ups to maximize turnout and conversion opportunities.

By positioning your CRM at the center of these online services, your Act! database will always be a hive of new activity that delivers a steady and reliable stream of new leads and automated follow-ups to help grow your business. And most of our Linktivity products work with Act! Pro, Act! Premium Desktop, and Act! Premium Cloud.

If you’re not getting enough from your Act!, ask yourself how it’s being fed.