“Choose your friends wisely” – Mom

By Steve Ireland

Solve360 comes pre-integrated with a growing list of amazing web-applications, essentially offering your team a “fistful” of talent. This integration of useful applications provides enormous benefits by organizing disparate information into a single interface and streamlining how applications are used. By choosing Solve360 to manage your client interactions you’re adopting a clever and powerful mash-up strategy that offers many FREE benefits.

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“Contextual fields” is big news

By Norada Staff

Imagine tagging a contact and automatically having related, useful custom fields automatically added to the page. Now imagine being able to do the same for project blogs and companies as well. Enter a whole new way to manage context-specific data. A quick glance and you KNOW the client. It's the business we're in. One-click and those few extra contextual fields provide a simple way for your team to capture information that is specific to each situation. It's simple. It makes a world of difference. Lets learn how ...

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Breaking Up With My Girlfriend

By Steve Ireland

Another break-up story ...

I'm thinking about breaking up with my girlfriend SalesForce.com. We have been together for six years, but our relationship has become stale, she was always demanding more money and goodness gracious has that woman gain some weight! I was skeptical that anyone could meet my needs, but I have found that Solve360 is not only prettier and skinnier but more intelligent than SalesForce.com. I also like the last three numerals in her name . . . alot!

I'm plan to take Solve360 out on a few more dates before I have the talk with SalesForce.com. I want to let her down easy. . . I'm just that kinda guy.

(name withheld to protect the innocent)

Do you really think we could make this stuff up?!

Share your own break-up story ...

Recent Solve360 Success Stories

By Steve Ireland

Google Apps integrated with Solve360 CRM moves people, literally

Here’s a story most business folks can relate to — established in 1959, Taylor Moving starts with 1 truck and a handful of employees. Dad grows the business. Sons take over, expanding to 100 staff and operate a network handling international employee moves

Fast forward to the present and those sons find themselves asking “How can we stay competitive and keep growing the business?” Son Rick Taylor knew more of the same wasn’t going to cut it. “Our coordinators, our sales team, they were spending far too much time doing internal stuff and not talking to clients.”

The solution started when they looked at their email which, despite being mission critical for dealing with overseas moves, was unreliable. A friend introduced Taylor to Blair Collins, founder of Interlockit, who was asked to help. “They were paying $1000 per month for IT support yet none of their email history was backed up because it was scattered across the hard drives of everyone's computers.”, noted Collins. InterlockIT introduced Taylor to Google Apps and helped with the implementation. With email issues now out of the way they now had the resources to look at how they organized their moves.

For years, Taylor Moving managed moves through a paper-based filing system and initially a document management system seemed like the answer. The narrow access point of paper files was causing chaos and a lot of wasted time. “In the past, there would be a sales person at a coordinator’s desk eight times a day… they were always looking for information.”

But after a review, InterlockIT introduced Taylor to Solve360, which is a client management solution available in the Google Apps Marketplace. Solve360 focuses on helping businesses like Taylor manage their customers and their projects. “We quickly realized that a fully integrated CRM solution like Solve360 with its included project management could do far more for their business”, said Collins.

Taylor was quickly impressed by Solve360’s flexibility. Now any adjustments made to the move are now seen in real time, company-wide. Now everything is in one place, and easily accessed. “This is a big step up.”

Taylor and his team experience seamless integration between Solve360 and Google Apps. In fact, Taylor himself barely acknowledges a separation between the two, viewing them as a single system. The Gmail contextual gadget for quick access to contacts/projects, the ability to easily capture emails, the simple linking to Google Docs, and the Google calendar integration are key features for them. “Once you’ve got [Gmail], which I find to be a very user-friendly system, the changeover to Solve360 was far easier than I had expected. I expected a much harder learning curve.”

Streamlining the internal systems allowed Taylor and his team to turn outward and address what matters most to their business — the customer. In a service industry, you’re only productive if you’re talking with a client… if you’re doing background stuff, that’s offering no value back to your service. So, what are the things you can do behind the scenes so that you’re spending the majority of time with your clients?... That’s why we brought the system on.” Solve360 allowed his team to focus on what would really drive business forward.

Growing his business with Google Apps and Solve360 “is something he’s looking forward to”, says Taylor. “With software and servers you need to manage all the changes yourself to keep up. Now [with Google Apps and Solve360] that’s done for us automatically so we can focus on serving our clients.”

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Google Apps “Contact us” form example

By Steve Ireland

You absolutely love our patented Google Apps integration and asked to keep the love flowing. You told us that money would drop from the sky if you had more ways to collect customer data. You begged us for new ways of getting out those stubborn holiday stains.

Just in time for the New Year, our team is proud to announce the first of a brand new dimension of Google Apps integration. Say hello to the Solve360 Google Apps Form! [hold for applause] This nifty little guy gathers data with a Google form and drops the data straight into your Solve360 account... and it’s a snap to setup: Simply watch the highly entertaining dance party video and then follow the carefully laid-out steps (don’t tell cousin Jeffery aka your web guy; with all these web apps around, he’s already worried about job security).

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Solve360 and Gmail “hook-up”

By Steve Ireland

Mash-up of the Millennium

Imagine, you’re pushing through your last few Gmail messages for the day and notice an email from “Carl Farbman”.  Hmmm, it’s almost time to wrap-up, you ponder “can this one wait? Can Carl wait?" You decide that he shouldn't have to. You click on the Solve360 Gmail Gadget and BAM! Everything your team knows about this unfamiliar client is shown below the message - his contact info, who else they've talked to, what’s planned and any other special details your team likes to track.  Whoa...  You respond in seconds and earn some much needed client karma.

Welcome to the mashup of the millennium - having your valuable CRM information shown in context with your favorite email system, Gmail. Known as the “Solve360 Gmail Gadget” this feature represents an entirely new level of integration. The gadget not only shows you the related information but allows you to manage the CRM information right in context with the email message. Now how useful (cool) is that?! Reduce multi-tasking, deal with client interactions instantly and leverage team knowledge.

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Norada is Hiring - Technical Support Engineer (FILLED)

By Steve Ireland

We're growing and so busy our eyes are starting to bleed. It’s time to expand our tight team, again.

Norada is an innovative cloud-based business application provider and is looking for a special person for a full-time Technical Support Engineer position. You will provide a range of essential services to assist our clients and support Norada's day-to-day operations including:

You must

It would be ideal if you also had experience with

The best candidates would share our passion for

Preference will be given to people who are not formally schooled in Computer Science, but through a natural curiosity found a way to it (that would make you interesting). Education and experience are important, but we're more concerned about what you are capable of. It would be ideal if you were based in Western Canada, but if you’re the one I’ll make it work.

You should know where to find me.

Steve

Context is Everything

By Steve Ireland

Vijay (who describes himself as “just an average Joe, making a living doing SAP consulting for IBM” and is not affiliated with Norada) makes a strong case for why it's important to understand the context of information streaming by (re-posted with permission).

Seeing only some of the information relating to a client or project creates a distorted view of what's really happening, causing missteps and passive engagements. When your team has all related information in front of them the context becomes obvious and will alter how they react to it. Simple, eh? Read on...

image

By Vijay Vijayasankar

This happened in the year 2000. I am fairly new to USA, and sitting in my client’s IT offices in Colorado Springs,CO. It is close to lunch break – and my mobile rings. I pick it up – and it is my dear friend from India. A minute later I am telling him – in an exasperated voice - “Do not let that bitch on your bed, she won’t let you sleep one wink all night”. Next thing I know, 20 heads are staring at me with horror written large on their faces. Little did they know that I was actually talking about a dog – a female German Shepherd that I bought and sent to my friend in India to show there in dog shows. Despite me explaining to the best of my abilities, I am sure not all 20 believed me then, or ever after.

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