SystemsNet Blog

Monthly Archives: April 2018

What Can ACT! Contact Management Software Do For Your Small Business Or Startup?

Small business owner on laptop using ACT! Contact Management Software

ACT! Contact Management Software

How many times have you heard conversations about how a contact management system like ACT! can help you in your small business or your startup business? You have probably asked questions about how a comprehensive customer relationship management system can be integrated with your marketing, financial, customer service, and sales departments. When your vision includes an integrated business plan and a CRM system, you will immediately begin reaping the benefits.

Maximizing Customer Interactions

One of the most important elements of having a successful business is the relationships you form. In order for your small business or startup to maximize its productivity and effectiveness, one of your focuses should be on creating and improving relationships and using the proper CRM system. Conversations will get deeper if the content you are using involves insightful notes and metrics. Potential customers and clients will trust you quicker when they feel you are thinking about what is important to them. Trust will also increase when you know their likes and interests.

Easy Access To Customer Information

There will be a continued need for instant access to important information when your sales reps are out in the field. Everyone needs to be able to have quick access to the relevant information that can be found in email histories conversations, and recent sales history. In order for everyone to have instant access to this information, the mobile devices will have to be linked to the company’s database so all relevant information and updates will be synced.

Finding New Opportunities

As a business owner or someone who is responsible for sales management, you will have plenty of responsibilities to determine where future business opportunities will come from. When you are able to understand opportunity management, you will have the ability to understand the importance and scope of future revenue. You will also be able to determine where you need to place additional focus on in the future.

Finding The Right Leads

When you create marketing campaigns, you have to make sure these campaigns will provide qualified leads. When your campaigns can provide you with qualified leads, you will be able to fully optimize your time with the prospect. Every email contact should provide the relevant information and feedback that will be needed to bring in constant revenue.

Matching The Processes And Preferences

You have probably discovered that many businesses have goals and challenges that are very similar. However, businesses will also have processes and terminology that are different, and as a result, there are different new processes and tweaks that will be beneficial to them. You can gain the swiftness you need to change your processes in the CRM with a variety of ACT! CRM features. You will be able to use sales processes that are specific to the buying habits of your customers and you will be able to improve workflow management with the proper tools.

Your small business or startup is going to need the perfect service to provide you with the right assistance you need in designing, implementing, supporting, training, etc. As a business owner or manager, we know you have your sights set on greatness. When you use the right tools and processes, you will have the tools you need to be more productive and efficient.

It will be important that everyone in your workplace will be on board and properly trained on the ACT! Contact Management Software features and components. Are you ready to introduce ACT! Contact management software to your employees? Do you have questions about how you should use the software once you have it implemented and integrated? Contact us today for more information.

Website Acting Sluggish? Server Monitoring Will Tell You Why (Part 2)

Businessman troubleshooting computer with server monitoring

Server monitoring is key to network performance

Welcome back to the second half of our fantastic two-part article on how to diagnose and repair website slowness with the help of a managed monitoring system. Last time talked about the importance of a snappy website and the difficulty in speeding up the website without clues. Let’s pick back up at clue gathering.

Troubleshooting with Server Monitoring

Server monitoring is a simple phrase with a big list of applications. There are all sorts of reasons to implement server monitoring from testing your own hand-written programs to watching for malware activity. The reason it’s so diversely useful is because with server monitoring, you can watch absolutely everything about the state of your server and what it’s up to. At the most basic level, it can tell you the temperature of the CPU and going over about 85 F on a regular basis can definitely slow you down (that’s what the cleaning was for).

Beyond that, server monitoring will track things like your CPU, memory, and disk usage which are all ways to tell how many resources are available to run your website and deliver it to viewers. CPU percentage indicates how many tasks your server can do at once, memory or “RAM” is like your computer’s immediate thinking power, and Disk usage will show you how full your hard drive is (if it’s full, things stop working). If any of these seem overtaxed or approach capacity during high-traffic times, your website is likely to slow down for all users as the server struggles to serve the data they’re requesting. Server monitoring not only shows you these stats, it can keep an eye on them as your traffic fluctuates and send you an alert if any go over a designated percentage.

Tracking Your Processes

With the basics covered, server monitoring can also take an in-depth look at the processes your server is running. If you want your website to have access to 100% of the server’s resources (you do), then it’s best to remove all unnecessary programs from the computer and stop all extraneous processes. Server monitoring can show you which processes you’re running and how much of your computer’s resources they’re eating with each cycle. Not only can you discover unnecessary resource-hungry processes you can close, it may also reveal certain processes from your site that might be consuming more than their fair share of resources. This could be a clue that it’s time to update your plugins or remove features you don’t need anymore.

Identifying Bandwidth Problems

There’s also the possibility that your sluggish website is a symptom of your bandwidth rather than the performance of the server itself. With a little monitoring, if you determine that there are more than enough resources and the server is plenty responsive with non-network tasks, the issue may lie with your internet provider, cables, or network configuration instead. First, check your network settings to be sure you’re not artificially bottle-necking yourself by accident. If that’s not the case and your server is a local machine, ISPs have been known to throttle bandwidth of high-demand users, like those hosting a popular website, and you may need to buy a larger monthly package. For a cloud-hosted server, talk to your hosting provider about how you can increase your allotment of bandwidth, which will probably also result in buying a larger monthly package.

Server Monitoring as a Service

Finally, server monitoring is a wonderful tool, or rather set of tools, that allows you to keep an incredibly detailed eye on the performance of your website and the server it runs on, but it’s also incredibly complex. If you’re not personally excited by the idea of constantly checking on your computer’s temperature, resource usage, and networking speed but still want to keep your website optimized, consider hiring a professional service to monitor your server for you. They will help you determine where to set up alert points (ex: when the computer heats up over 90 F or uses over 80% of its resources) and can even help you optimize for better performance based on the information the monitoring provides.

No matter what kind of website you’re running or how many users you handle every day, you deserve the snappy page loading that only a well-optimized server can bring. With server monitoring and professional IT support, you should be able to quickly troubleshoot whether your sluggish page load is due to heat, unnecessary processes, or old platform plugins that could be updated and replaced. Whatever the cause, server monitoring will help you identify, optimize, and get your site up to speed in no time. For more great website and managed IT tips, contact us today!

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