Latest CRM Software Industry News

–Soffront Streamlines and Automates Processes, Supports Remote Workers–

Fremont, California, May 8, 2006  — Soffront® Software Inc. (www.soffront.com), a leader in mid-market CRM, today announced that Javelina Software has deployed Soffront’s popular CRM software to replace disparate systems and databases. Soffront’s CRM solution is helping Javelina, a producer of network administration software, to streamline and automate numerous processes and better support its remote workers.

Using Soffront CRM, Javelina Software replaced various databases such as contact, accounting, technical support, and web-site downloads into a single, comprehensive CRM solution. Additionally, the company can now support their remote workers – an estimated eighty percent of their staff – because of Soffront’s web-based interface.

Javelina selected Soffront over other CRM solutions because of price, comprehensiveness, configurability, and web access. “We purchased the software because it was more cost effective in the long term to own the software, and we didn’t want core customer data in someone else’s hands,” said David Ritchie, president of Javelina Software. “We looked at other on-premise solutions, but ultimately selected Soffront because the product was more robust than the competition.”

Javelina Software is using the software to automate processes such as lead entry and marketing campaigns, saving the company several days of manual work per month. Prior to Soffront, the company would manually extract emails from numerous databases, remove duplicates and unsubscribe requests, import the list into a separate email list program, and finally send out an email campaign to the massaged list.

“We eliminated duplicate databases and reduced manual data entry through automation, yet we’ve increased the recorded information for each customer and allowed all employees direct access to this data,” explained Ritchie. “We can easily create email marketing campaigns and reports/queries to evaluate customer trends, sales productivity, and marketing effectiveness. And finally, we have automated the workflow in general, but specifically for sales leads and technical support incidents.” 

– Soffront Chosen over Well-known CRM Solutions –

Fremont, California, March 14, 2006 — Soffront® Software Inc. (www.soffront.com), a leader in mid-market CRM, today announced that Vicor Corporation (www.vicr.com) has implemented Soffront Software’s popular CRM solution to improve communication and collaboration in sales, marketing, application engineering, and customer service. OpenBOX (www.openbox.net), a provider of CRM solutions and a Soffront partner, was instrumental in the implementation of the software.

According to Robyn Wheaton, Director, Worldwide Customer Service and Systems at Vicor, the company wanted a comprehensive CRM system that would provide quick and easy access to a single repository for customer and prospect information globally. “We needed to streamline and standardize key processes including bookings and shipment forecasts, project registrations, marketing campaign management, lead tracking, quoting, and reporting worldwide,” explained Wheaton.

Vicor established a CRM review team to gather requirements, research solutions, and conduct reviews. During an extensive three-month review period, they evaluated CRM solutions such as Salesforce.com, SalesLogix, ACCPAC, NetSuite, Onyx, Pivotal, Siebel OnDemand, and OnContact. The team chose Soffront with almost one hundred percent agreement. “We selected Soffront CRM because of its robust functionality, ability to customize and integrate with our PeopleSoft ERP, flexible licensing plan, and strong implementation partner, OpenBOX,” said Wheaton.

“Soffront provides us with a single data source and consistent, global business processes,” concluded Rich Chiodo, Senior Director of Sales at Vicor. “We now have a powerful reporting tool at our fingertips that also streamlines our forecasting process and provides seamless communication between all areas.”
Headquartered in Andover, Massachusetts, Vicor Corporation designs, develops, manufactures and markets modular power components and complete power systems to the communications, data processing, test equipment, industrial control and medical and defense electronics markets.

Headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island, OpenBOX Technologies implements Soffront CRM for small, mid-sized, and large businesses.

–Automatic Ticket Routing and Priority Notification Saves Time, Money, and Improves Customer Satisfaction–

Fremont, California, January 10, 2005 — Soffront® Software Inc. www.soffront.com, a leading provider of CRM software, today announced that Avocent Corporation, www.avocent.com, has improved efficiency in their help desk using Soffront CRM. Avocent Corporation (NASDAQ: AVCT) is the leading supplier of connectivity solutions for enterprise data centers, service providers and financial institutions worldwide. Soffront CRM is helping Avocent save time and improve customer satisfaction through automation and priority notification of trouble tickets.

Avocent initially rolled out Soffront CRM in their Alabama office in 2004 and has now expanded it to support their entire global infrastructure. Teams located in Alabama, Florida, Washington, Canada, Ireland, and Hong Kong use Soffront CRM to track and manage IT infrastructure problems and resolutions.

“We selected Soffront over other CRM solutions because it offered a robust, feature-rich, web-based solution that was also easy to customize,” explained Tom Ridinger, administrator, Avocent Corporation. “Now our IT managers have instant access to overdue tickets, projects, and open issues across all sites.”

According to Ridinger, the company’s previous solution was a time-consuming, manual process. “With Soffront, the tickets are routed immediately using rules based on the employee’s location and the type of problem identified.”

Avocent’s technicians can now quickly manage tickets, resulting in improved customer satisfaction. “Each time a ticket is submitted, the routing rules determine which technician can most likely solve the problem and what type of notification is required,” said Ridinger. “Depending on the priority or type of employee submitting the ticket, notifications are sent directly to a tech’s cell phone within seconds.”

Avocent also uses Soffront CRM to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley legislation. “Our Soffront installation has become the central repository for answering any audit related question,” explained Ridinger. “We use it to document and track all electronic approvals for access control changes, saving us time and money.”

Fremont, California, March 7, 2006  — Soffront® Software Inc. (www.soffront.com), a leader in mid-market CRM, today announced that THEMA Consulting (www.themaconsulting.ch) has upgraded to the latest version of Soffront CRM. A Soffront customer since 1997, the Swiss consulting firm is using Soffront CRM to improve the efficiency and management of their help desk and software development.

“We have found Soffront CRM to be feature-rich and flexible, allowing us to improve the workflow and integration of our help desk and software development,” said Francesco Mollisi, senior consultant at THEMA Consulting, SA. “In addition, the features included in Soffront Help Desk are robust and useful–features such as email notification, statistics, query, and report manager.”

THEMA Consulting originally selected Soffront because it is web and Oracle based and because of its customization capabilities. “We have stayed with Soffront and continue to upgrade the software because it is easy to configure and customize.” – added Mollisi.

“Soffront CRM allows a user to add fields on the fly, modify the views of each object, add new database tables, link to other parts of the system and create workflows–all without writing a single line of code,” explained Manu Das, Soffront’s president and founder. “When these changes are completed, the system automatically generates all the code that is needed–a unique approach in the CRM industry not available in other systems. 

“In the past several years using Soffront CRM, we have improved the efficiency and management of our customer service, help desk, and defect tracking departments,” concluded Mollisi. “We are pleased with the quality of the software and the excellent customer service that Soffront provides.”

Headquartered in the Swiss city of Lugano, THEMA Consulting, SA is a consulting company with a focus on financial services. THEMA Consulting was established in 1994 and has branches in Zurich and Trento, Italy.

Fremont, California, Monday, November 7, 2005 — Soffront® Software Inc. www.soffront.com, a leading provider of enterprise and hosted CRM Software in the mid-market, today announced a more powerful Advanced Outlook Integration Module. This module provides greater flexibility and functionality to file Outlook emails easily within a CRM system. The new module saves time and enhances record keeping, thereby improving the sales process.

The Advanced Outlook Integration Module allows users to easily link incoming and outgoing Outlook email messages to any record within their CRM system. It also adds a revolutionary subject-oriented capability to better collaborate among employees and customers (whether they are CRM users or not) about support tickets, defects, work orders, or any thing else in the system.

Although most web-based CRM solutions offer some form of Outlook email integration, they do not allow users the freedom to link with all relevant records, nor do they allow collaboration among internal and external users. Without this capability, it is more difficult for users to access information when it is needed, and it limits collaboration among users.

Soffront CRM is the only software that allows the user to link incoming email to any record in the CRM system, thereby improving sales information. For example, a sales person receives an email from a channel partner about an opportunity. The sales person wants to associate this email with the prospect’s record and add it to the opportunity record. With Soffront, the process is completed in a single step.

“These enhancements allow CRM users who use Outlook to easily file emails when and where they are needed and to better collaborate among members,” says Manu Das, president of Soffront. “Better information means better communication, coordination, decisions, and results.”

Fremont, California, Monday, December 05, 2005 — Soffront® Software Inc. www.soffront.com, a leading provider of CRM Software, today announced improved IT asset discovery and management capability for it’s Help Desk software. This improved capability allows companies to audit computer assets in remote locations such as home offices. This capability solves a critical problem of taking inventories of hardware and software assets and managing software licenses for remote employees.

Soffront customers can now use Soffront Help Desk to audit and manage IT assets, both within and outside of the company’s facilities. IT support companies can now use Soffront Help Desk software to manage IT assets of their clients – remotely.

Remote IT asset auditing and management is difficult and time-consuming. The need to keep information up to date complicates the problem. Without this capability in the help desk software, a company has to resort to costly manual approaches that are inaccurate, and expensive to update.

Auditing remote IT assets using Soffront Help Desk is efficient and straightforward. Soffront help desk sends out Audit email to remote users at scheduled times. User simply clicks on an URL to audit his computers and sends the audit information to the help desk. Soffront help desk updates current assets, adds new assets and links to the employee, flags and reports to the right people – if necessary.

Further, Soffront help desk monitors asset audit results and notifies if a user does not respond, or any unauthorized software installation, or any license expiration. This greatly increases a company’s ability to manage software licenses and IT assets.

“Introduction of remote IT Asset auditing shows Soffront’s commitment to solve our customer’s problems. This ability solves a critical problem of today’s IT managers by providing an efficient way to manage internal as well as external IT assets” – says Manu Das, President of Soffront.

Palo Alto, Calif. — September 27, 2005 — Frost & Sullivan’s recent analysis, selected Soffront, Inc. as the recipient of the 2005 Entrepreneurial Company of the Year Award in the customer contact center CRM software field for its trailblazing efforts in providing affordable and end-to-end CRM solutions.

Each year this Award is given to an emerging technology company with a vision that has enabled it to not only have nurtured the development of a key technology, but one that has also allowed it to grow despite the inherent odds confronting small companies. The Award signifies the company’s identification of a unique or bold product or service solution with significant market potential and successfully meeting the challenges that are associated with bringing it to market.

“Soffront’s mission has been to cater to the end-user needs for superior CRM software and it has both a product and service CRM offering,” says Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Haritha Ramachandran. “The product offering revolves around its CRM software while the service offering consists primarily of implementation and consulting services for customers.”

The software is characterized by an integrated Web-based system. It consists of multiple features ranging from the main CRM module to a quote, order and commissions management system. Besides many standard features, this system also has a comprehensive list of modules consisting of marketing automation, sales automation, customer support, defect tracking, order processing, knowledge management, employee support, asset management, and Mobile CRM.

The CRM portal plays a very important role in increasing the interoperability of the system and enables the use of multiple applications on a single portal interface. The ability of the system to act as a doorway for several applications through a single interface helps enhance end-user productivity. It also helps in better resource optimization and time management.

One of Soffront’s innovative technologies is its ability to generate program code based on user’s specification – providing the greatest ability to customize easily. User specifies a business process or designs a custom form – Soffront generates the program code necessary to support the process or the form.

“One of the key advantages of Soffront’s CRM Software is its ability to be deployed on a modular basis,” notes Ramachandran. “It can not only help automate the customer service operation and offer self-service operations through the Web, but also ultimately help enhance the overall corporate sales and marketing efficiency.”

Soffront has also developed other innovative solutions that can aid engineering and IT departments track defects, manage development projects, and carry out effective asset management.

Soffront’s product solutions present a relatively sophisticated approach to meeting present day contact center requirements. Over the last decade, this company has carefully worked its way up to become an organization with a diverse product portfolio geared towards important verticals. It is for these reasons Soffront, Inc. has been recognized with Frost & Sullivan’s 2005 Entrepreneurial Company of the Year Award.

Held in Las Vegas, Frost & Sullivan’s Mobile Communications Awards Banquet honors world-class companies for innovative developments that deliver unparalleled insight on wireless and mobile strategy, technology, platforms and services. An annual event, the banquet recognizes the quality and merit of distinguished individuals and companies.

Fremont, California, Monday, October 17, 2005 — Soffront® Software Inc. www.soffront.com, a leading provider of enterprise and hosted CRM Software in the mid-market, today announced that it now offers a Seminar and Event Management module. This new module improves a company’s ability to plan, execute, and measure the effectiveness of seminars and events.

The Soffront Seminar and Event Management module simplifies the complex task of seminar and event marketing, enrollment, and management. It enables a company to easily complete the following activities: invite attendees by email (and direct mail), provide a portal for attendees to register, produce registration lists and name tags, track purchases, facilities, presenters, and conduct post-event surveys.

The Soffront Seminar and Event module also provides a complete 360-degree view of the seminar or event. This view includes all aspects of the event such as enrollment, resources required, purchases, facilities, presenters, the seminar or event team, activities and more. It also provides “count down” communication processes to send confirming and informational email and direct mail to those enrolled in the seminar/event. All communications can be scheduled and sent automatically based on business needs. The portal automates the registration process and reduces the effort required for this critical process. It also allows the marketing manager and the executive team to view key performance indicators and real-time information in their dashboards.

The Soffront Seminar and Event Management module is tightly integrated with Soffront CRM and can be integrated with other back office products through Soffront’s best in class Back Office Integration tools.

“This new seminar and event module shows our commitment to extend CRM to all customer-facing operations,” says Manu Das, President of Soffront. “It is one more way we bring more value and productivity to our customers.”

Fremont, California, Friday, June 19, 2005 — Soffront Software Inc. (www.soffront.com), the leading provider of enterprise and hosted CRM solutions in the mid-market, today announced that integration is now available between Soffront CRM and Intuit’s  (www.intuit.com) QuickBooks (R) financial software. This integration offers a higher level of productivity and effectiveness to Soffront CRM users.

This integration features seamless integration between Intuit’s QuickBooks and Soffront CRM. It improves the lead-to-cash process, and significantly reduces paperwork and processing delays. It provides critical information about customer’s credit history, invoices and payments information to the Soffront CRM users increasing the effectiveness of their efforts.

The two-way integration between Intuit QuickBooks and Soffront CRM preserves the investment in your accounting system while extending critical back office application functions into the front office to eliminate duplicate work and to increase visibility.

“Integration with accounting systems is an important part of our integrated CRM strategy,” said Mr. Manu Das, president and founder of Soffront. “This integration will increase productivity and effectiveness by eliminating duplicate work and by providing access to customer credit history, invoice, and payment information.”

This two-way integration ensures data integrity, delivery, and security. It enables the user to add customers to QuickBooks automatically when the first order is processed in Soffront – eliminating the need for duplicate entry. This link also brings invoice and payment details from QuickBooks to Soffront CRM.

Soffront’s integrated CRM system can now manage the sales process from the new lead through the order entry, invoicing and payment processes. This enables better customer management and retention, improved productivity, and better sales, marketing, and customer intelligence.

Fremont, California, June 26, 2005 — Soffront® Software Inc. (www.soffront.com), the leading provider of enterprise and hosted CRM Software in the mid-market, today announced that it offers Concurrent (Floating) user licenses to its on-demand (hosted) customers. This new offering reduces monthly cost for most customers. This licensing option continues Soffront’s goal to offer more flexible purchasing options to their customers.

Most hosted CRM vendors offer only ‘named’ or ‘dedicated’ user licenses. This means that each user of the system must have a separate license, adding to the total cost. Customers that need, for example, round-the-clock operations in a support center, benefit from concurrent licenses. They add as many users as necessary and do not remove users from the system as employees leave the company. Also, they are able to track each user’s activity and productivity.

Situations where concurrent user licensing is beneficial include support centers that operate on more than one shift, international operations with facilities in different countries (and time zones), and companies that have significant numbers of occasional system users. Until Soffront offered concurrent licensing, each of these users either needed their own license, increasing costs, or to share licenses, preventing the ability to track, monitor and schedule activities individually.

“Concurrent user licenses for our hosted customers is an important part of our on-demand CRM strategy,” said Mr. Manu Das, president and founder of Soffront. “We have always been a value leader — this can save 40% or more for most companies. This also increases the scope of CRM by increasing the number of people within the organization who are able to use the software cost-effectively. Additionally, customers can mix the concurrent and dedicated licenses as per their needs and can change the mix without any added cost.”