The speed with which cloud computing vendors are adding new features and services is overwhelming. How do you know when it's safe to use a new service?

Cloud technologies are always moving very fast. Things you may be working on implementing yourself are often provided as a service later. Cloud vendors such as Amazon tend to implement services as they see the need in the community; common problems that are difficult to solve are where they thrive. Unfortunately, it can be very hard to determine when it's better to implement yourself, and when it's time to move to a hosted solution.

The answer for every situation is different, but the general rule is to only switch if it will save resources. That could mean that it will be cheaper for you to run, or it could mean that it frees up your time to work on other developments.

The best time to integrate or begin investigating any new cloud service is after there is a decent amount of community activity. That way, when you do run into issues or questions, you will be able to turn to the community, people who use the service -- not people who built the service -- for support and questions.

5. Create a loyalty program

Rewarding customers for their loyalty is a valuable way to encourage return visits and purchases. Customers love to be rewarded and what's better than a combination of a CRM and an application like PerksPlus Loyalty program to make customers think about you due to the nature of 'incentives at work'.

Using all or just a few of these tips and tricks can help boost sales and keep your customer base informed and interested!

4. Let's play a game

Gamification is the science of using the principles of gaming to increase user engagement. When applied to marketing, this engagement could mean more responses to your campaigns. How about rewarding your customers appropriately when they take the effort to call you? How about using a point system to track customer engagement? Using points, ranks, and badges is not only fun but also highly effective. Go ahead. Play games. iActionable created "Engage" – an app available for Salesforce.com on the Salesforce App Exchange that uses rewards, points, leaderboards, etc., for doing just this.

3. Provide continuous information

We all need information to make decisions. Customers form their decisions based on information fed to them at the right time, including what others think about the brands, products, or services that they plan to buy (think social media). That's why strategic engagement of customers and keeping them interested by sharing relevant, important and unbiased information is paramount to business success. Send them exclusive information through email; invite them to special webinars only for them. Sophisticated CRM systems make this easier for you. So, why stop with the sales pitch?

Tip #4 on Thursday......

Tuesday's Tip #2......

2. Keep the communication going

Communication is the bedrock of all relationships - business relationships notwithstanding. One of the most common mistakes businesses make is that in spite of the fact that their CRM's would capture email addresses, phone numbers, names, addresses and other details, the lines of communication are severed prematurely. Since the cost of communicating with your customers is just your time, keeping in touch with your customers – regardless of their level of interest or readiness to buy – is most crucial. CRM's can automate this process for you. So why stop at the first, second or third attempt?

Tip #3 to follow on Wednesday.....

Customer Relationship Management tools are great for businesses. You can stretch it even further and make your CRM software do a lot more than it's designed to do for you. By using a few ideas listed in this post, you can increase your customer base by expanding the sales funnel, enjoy better conversions, and close sales more effectively. Here are five ideas to make your CRM work harder for you.

1. Show up everywhere

 It's believed that for most of us to succeed, we just need to show up. For businesses looking to implement CRM, it's crucial that once your customers are introduced to the business, they need to know that you exist, you care, and that you are standing by. Customers only buy when they are ready to. Businesses typically use CRM systems to source and nurture leads effectively. Thanks to the features available in modern CRM systems, it's possible for you to stretch your CRM such that you show up everywhere, and especially at the most opportune times such that your customers notice, remember and take action.


Tune in tomorrow for tip #2......