SellingPoint Overview: Management

Those in management can make use of the following features:

Customer relationship management

• Allows management to gain control over the timely dissemination of resources to dealers and sales teams.
• Connected CRM technology allows management to get a view of all activity out in the field at any time. See what activities sales people are working on and who is being contacted. This data can be useful in forecasting scenarios to gauge product or promotional popularity.
• Customer support activities and interaction history is viewable at anytime to gauge customer satisfaction.
• SellingPoint also fully supports and integrates with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3/4 and Sugar CRM.

Reporting

• SellingPoint supports reporting standards, enabling the manufacturer to generate reports on their terms and according to their needs. Reports can be created in a number of ways, using the powerful built in report designer or third party authoring tools such as Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services or Crystal Reports.
• There is no need to buy expensive third party reporting tools as SellingPoint includes report authoring that meets the needs of most companies. Additionally, most reports included in SellingPoint can be altered the way the manufacturer likes.
• SellingPoint makes it easy to get data in the format that is most convenient for specific reporting needs. For instance, it may be advantageous to view portions of data directly in Microsoft Excel for quick graphing or charting. SellingPoint supports this and other formats such as SQL Server so that you always have the latest data in the format you need.

Data Mining and Analysis

• Deeper analysis and aggregation of data can be necessary at times to identify trends and perform forecasting. SellingPoint offers full compatibility with Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services to meet these ends.

SellingPoint Workflow

• The concept of workflow is a vital component to today’s enterprise software. Workflow represents the ability for software to change how it works in orders to fit an organization’s business processes. In the past, companies were usually forced to fit their business process to the software, not the other way around. Today, workflow technologies make it possible to not only describe what you want to do, but how, when, and why. For instance, most companies have a process is place for accepting orders. This includes the obvious: what information should be on the order. But it also includes the details such as the order in which information is collected and presented to the user, when is pricing displayed, should materials be applied on a global project basis or an individual product basis. Each company has a slightly different way in which they process orders and SellingPoint Workflow is the vehicle that makes incorporating those variations into SellingPoint possible.
• Basic workflow actions such as sending out emails or faxes when an order is completed are easily accomplished within SellingPoint Management Studio.
• Advanced workflow actions and state management can be implemented by a developer experienced with Microsoft WF technology. This makes it possible to seamlessly integrate human actions and line of business application activities into your processes. An example of this would be an order moving toward completion needs to be signed off by a manager in the shop. SellingPoint will wait hours, days, or weeks, however long it takes for that manager to sign off. Then the next step might be for the order to progress to shipping, in which SellingPoint automatically enters shipping data into a LOB application. Finally, SellingPoint waits for confirmation of receipt and payment, at which time the necessary data is entered into the accounting application and the order is marked as complete in the ERP system.

Direct links to the SellingPoint Community

• Gain direct access to the community of other SellingPoint users. Post questions or private messages to the community directly from SellingPoint Management Studio.
• Access the forums to browse for additional ideas and opportunities.
• The SellingPoint blog is updated regularly with information directly from the SellingPoint team, offering tips and tricks to help enhance your usage of SellingPoint.

Organize access to multiple online stores

• A lot of work has gone into making the managing and interacting with multiple online stores as easy as possible. Throughout SellingPoint Management Studio, a common tree view appears allowing you to organize online stores into folders. Managing these accounts can be done from any place the tree view appears. Additionally, editing the settings of an online store is done by double clicking on an account node, making even the most advanced configuration settings only a couple clicks away.

Each online store is customizable according to different business rules and design standards

• Each store can be secured in or open to the public, depending on the need. If secured, the store can be secured so that a user must enter their account credentials to gain access. Another option is to have a common password to allow access to the site. This is good for temporary stores for private events or when targeting a particular group where users do not already have accounts.
• Sales tax can be configured to fit the needs of the company. These tax rules are then applied in the store at check out time.
• Access to each store can be controlled for SellingPoint Sales Edition users. For instance, allowing salesmen to submit orders or download catalog information and if passwords are required to perform such functions.
• SellingPoint allows for extensive customization to every aspect of the online store’s appearance. Virtually every element can be changed to suit the needs and preferences of the company. The SellingPoint online store is based on web standards and common technologies that are familiar to virtually any professional web designer and developer. This makes it an open and safe choice for companies that don’t want to be trapped in proprietary web software.
• User accounts can be created in multiple ways. Visitors can create their own accounts, a feature called self service account creation. This feature can be turned on and off according to company preference. Additionally, accounts can be created by the company, allowing a higher degree of moderation in who is allowed access to the site. This is especially useful when dealing with partners and professionals that you want to set up accounts for.
• Order number and quote numbers can have a unique mask applied to ensure randomized, yet consistent identifiers for all orders and quotes.
• Pricing can be turned on and off across a specific store. This is especially useful when pricing is not needed or is not yet completed and the store needs to go live. In such cases, pricing can be turned back on at any time with the click of a mouse.

Works anywhere there is an internet connection

• SellingPoint software allows you to work anywhere that there is an internet connection. No special network connections or VPN’s required.

Based on open standards

• Where ever possible, SellingPoint makes use of open standards that are common across the tech industry. This makes it an open and safe choice for companies that don’t want to be trapped in proprietary web software.
• SellingPoint makes use of open database technologies, including Microsoft’s SQL Server, ensuring that you data is always available in a format that can be used elsewhere.
• All communications between SellingPoint applications and web services are done using SOAP standards and are fully compatible across platforms and languages. Where possible, all data is moved in standard XML.

Continue to Part 4: Marketing