As an ACT! Certified Consultant and reseller, I love it when the product I represent wins awards, so hot off the presses is the latest:

Sage North America announced today that Technology Marketing Corporation (TMC)’s TMC Customer Inter@ction Solutions magazine (www.cismag.com) has named the ACT! by Sage contact and customer manager as a 2009 Product of the Year Award winner. ACT! was cited for outstanding innovation based on new user navigation, social media integration and subscription-based E-marketing services introduced in 2009.

ACT! by Sage is the #1 selling Contact and Customer Manager worldwide with over 2.8 million users. ACT! users can organize all the details of their customer relationships in one place to improve marketing effectiveness, attract new customers, and create more value from existing relationships. Complete sales pipeline visibility helps ACT! users identify and take action on the most qualified sales opportunities. ACT! is easy to use and integrates with existing business solutions including Microsoft® Outlook®, Word, Excel® and Lotus Notes®. For more information call 866-903-0006 or visit www.act.com.

Customers, partners and anyone interested in ACT! can connect and discuss on social networking sites including the ACT! Online Community (http://community.act.com), Facebook (www.act.com/facebook), Twitter™ (www.act.com/twitter), LinkedIn® (www.act.com/linkedin), Plaxo (www.act.com/plaxo), and YouTube™ (www.act.com/youtube).

About Sage North America
Sage North America is part of The Sage Group plc, a leading global supplier of business management software and services. Sage North America employs more than 4,100 people and supports 3.1 million small and medium-size business customers. The Sage Group plc, formed in 1981, was floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1989 and now employs 13,400 people and supports 6.1 million customers worldwide. For more information, please visit the website at www.sagenorthamerica.com.

© 2010 Sage Software, Inc. All rights reserved. Sage, the Sage logos, and the Sage product and service names mentioned herein are registered trademarks or trademarks of Sage Software, Inc. or its affiliated entities. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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Do you think ACT!’s award winning? Do you not like the software or find frustrating to use?  Let us know. We want to hear from you.

This article is for those of you who feel they are totally “computer-challenged,” are short on time or just don’t have the desire to monkey under the ACT! hood.

It’s Time to Wave the White Flag

Sometimes, despite your best efforts, you are just not capable of fixing a problem on your own.  This could be because you don’t have the time to both troubleshoot and resolve your computer-related problems and run your business.  Maybe some of the solutions you researched sounded like they were written in Greek rather than in English.  Once you’ve come to the realization that you’re going to have to call in the reinforcements here are the best places to look for help:

ACT! Tech Support:  ACT! comes with 30 days of free technical support starting from the time you make your first support call.  After that, there is a fee for technical support.  Like I say when I hit a tennis ball off of the frame of my racket – I paid for it, I may as well use it!

An ACT! Certified Consultant (ACC):  When you call ACT!’s technical support line, chances are slim that you’ll speak to the same technician twice.  Without Corporate Edge Support Contract, you’ll most likely end up in an off-shore call center.   For that reason, many users seek out the help of an ACC.  ACC’s have received specialized training in ACT! and are required to stay abreast with all the latest developments in the ACT! world.  Because most ACC’s work with a large number of ACT! users, they are very adept in helping you to customize your database – something that ACT!’s technical support personnel won’t be able to do.

The Wrong Places to Find Help

Now that you know where to seek out expert advice, here are a few people you should stay away from at all costs.  These people are generally terrific human beings, but tend to be lousy ACT! consultants:

Your IT person:  Although your IT person is loyal, trusted and very adept in what he does, it is impossible to learn ACT! by “osmosis.”  Most IT people tend to underestimate ACT!’s power – or overestimate their own knowledge.  A little knowledge is a dangerous thing – especially when it applies to ACT!.  Since you are presumably paying the IT person by the hour, on the job training becomes an extremely expensive proposition.    They may charge less per hour than an ACT! Certified Consultant, but they typically take longer to solve ACT! related issues.

Your local computer store:  Very often your neighborhood computer store provides ACT! trining and support.  Unfortunately, chances are pretty good that the technician is only one chapter ahead of you in the Dummies book.  Worst of all, some of these “geeks” actually pass along misinformation which will further complicate your issue.

The person who’s been “using ACT! for 10 years”:  You don’t become an ACT! expert simply by using the program.  Unless you are a full-time ACT! consultant, you’re probably only familiar with the parts of ACT! that you use regularly.  Faithful ACT! users generally make the mistake of thinking that all versions of ACT! are created equally; believe me, they’re not!

Yourself, especially when you’re frustrated!  Enough said!

Time to Cut Bait

Not all technicians are created equally.  If you have a gut feeling that your technician isn’t up to the challenge, chances are good that your instinct is correct.  Don’t be afraid to politely extricate yourself from the phone call and try again with another technician.

There are a few warning signs that just might set off a red light in your head:

You are frequently put on hold:  Most tech support has three “tiers” of support.  You’re being put on hold while your Tier One technician researches the issue.  Ask to have your problem escalated (Tier Two) or ask to speak to a supervisor (Tier Three).

You don’t understand a darn thing they’re saying:  There might be an insurmountable language barrier between you and the technician.  Maybe you both speak different native languages, or maybe his “geek speak” is so strong that you can’t understand him.

You seem to be going in circles:  Very often the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.  If you seem to be repeating the same instructions again and again, it’s time to terminate the call.

Understanding the Meaning of “Support”

Once you’ve contacted either technical support or an ACT! Certified consultant, you should soon be on the road to recovery.  Hopefully, your problem will be fixed in a jiffy.  If you are working with technical support, however, you’ll need to understand the true meaning of the word “support”:

We don’t support this:   This stock phrase implies that the technician is either unwilling or unable to help you with your specific problem.  It does not mean that someone else might not be able to fix your problem, or that the problem is based on a limitation of the ACT! program.  For example, users of ACT! 2006 and Terminal Services were told by tech support that “ACT! doesn’t support this feature.”  What they meant is that although ACT! works with Terminal Services, they didn’t have enough knowledge to actually support it.

Support is not the same thing as training:  Like just about everything else in life, technical support has become highly specialized.  They will be able to help you with issues such as installing the software or getting your e-mail to work.  They won’t be able to help you to determine why you might want to add new fields to your database or various ways to send out an e-mail blast.

The Care and Feeding of an Outside Consultant

So, now that you’ve waved the white flag and called in the troops – or at least an ACT! consultant – you’ll want to get the most bang for your buck.  Here’s a few tips on how to work with the consultant so that your frustration level and consulting fee, remain as low as possible.

What you should not do, quite simply, is to waste anyone’s time discussing anything that won’t get the problem fixed.  The more you say, the more you risk confusing, or insulting the technician.  Remember, the clock is running.  Under no circumstances should you:

• Bash the Program
• Bash the Techie
• Belly ache about the price
• Curse, swear or make references to the Techie’s Mother
• Jump ahead of the technician
• Ignore the technician’s instructions
• Assume that if the technician is a non-native English speaker that he is hard of hearing
• Assume that if the technician is a non-native English speaker that he is dumb
• Refuse to try something that the technician suggests

Finally, here are a few things that you should do to make your experience with the consultant as painless as possible:

• Trust that the consultant knows what he is doing.
• Listen to instructions.  If you’re not sure about an instruction, ask that it be repeated.
• Avoid the urge to jump ahead of the consultant.
• Keep an Open Mind.

Although good help may be hard to find, believe me, it’s out there!  Don’t give up until you’ve found the perfect solution.  I recently had a client who spent more than a week trying to share an ACT! 2010 on their network.  They were told by Technical Support that the ACT! database had to be located in the My Document folder on a Windows server in order for it to be shared.   It took more time to convince the client that Tech Support was wrong than it did to make the database sharable from an ACT! directory on the server.   There are two lessons here:   (1) You get what you pay for; (2) Price and Cost are two different things since lower priced products and services often cost more in the long run.

To find an ACT! Certified Consultant near you, please visit http://www.act.com/partners/acc/find/index.cfm

As a Customer Relationship Management Consultant who provides software solutions using ACT!, Sage CRM and SalesLogix, I compete with Salesforce.com.  While I think their solution can be a good fit for company’s with limited capital, those that lack a network infrastructure or IT support or have disparate workers, what I find disappointing is they disparage the competition rather than focusing on their strengths.  I have heard many of the negative and/or erroneous statements they make from prospects as well as read the competitive emails they send to prospects.  Call me old school, but that’s not the way I sell. 

So how and why does ACT! 2010 software compete with Salesforce.com?

Pricing
First let’s look at the Salesforce.com editions that compete with ACT!

Contact Manager Edition – priced at $9 per person per month. Supports a maximum of 2 users. Provides contact and lead management, and integration with Outlook / Google Mail. 
Group Edition – priced at $35 per person per month. Supports a maximum of 5 users. Provides same capabilities as Contact Manager plus opportunity management, Google Ad Words integration and basic case
management.
Professional Edition – Priced at $65 per person per month. No limit on the number users. Similar capabilities to Group Edition plus extended marketing and customer service capabilities, as well as analytical dashboards.

ACT by Sage 2010 – Priced at $199 per person with optional annual ACT! Platinum Care subscription for free annual upgrades at $59 per person.   Limited to 10 users.  Has same features as the Premium and Corporate editions except for the following licenses or features:  no ACT! for Web license, Dashboard views by team, enhanced remote synchronization services, activity reports by user,  secured contacts, notes, history and opportunities and no field level,  group and company record security.
ACT by Sage 2010 Premium – Priced at $369 per person with optional annual ACT! Platinum Care subscription for free annual upgrades at $114 per person.   Generally limited to 30 users.  Has same features as the  Corporate editions except for the lack of ACT! for Web licenses.
ACT by Sage 2010 Corporate - The SQL Express edition is priced at $399 per person with optional annual ACT! Platinum Care subscription for free annual upgrades at $114 per person and is generally limited to 30 users.   The SQL Server 2008 edition is priced at $479 per person with optional annual ACT! Platinum Care subscription for free annual upgrades at $164 per person and is scalable to 100’s of users.  The Corporate edition is our most scalable solution.

Feature Comparison

1. ACT! provides considerable ease-of-use advantages over Salesforce.com when it comes to accomplishing simple tasks such as:

• Lookups
• Searches
• Working with groups
• Mail merges
• Personalization
• Contextual right-clicks
• Pick lists and data quality
• Duplicate checking
• Offline

1. Salesforce.com costs 2.5 times more than ACT! after 3 years  1
2. Despite what they say, software must be installed on your computer to use Salesforce.com with Microsoft Word or Outlook
3. Sending a letter in Salesforce.com takes 17 clicks – in ACT! 2010 it’s a 2 click process
4. Salesforce.com Professional offers limited email broadcasting – only 500 per day per user. With ACT! E-Marketing, you can send up to 100,000 per day 2
5. ACT! offers complete full online and offline access to data
6. ACT! can be installed on a PC, Network, Web, Terminal and/or Citrix Server for whatever type of access you prefer
7. Recent Keystroke Level Modeling (KLM)* testing carried out under lab conditions has revealed that it takes 37% longer on average to complete a range of common user tasks in Salesforce.com compared to ACT! 2010
   REMEMBER:  Usability drives user adoption and ultimately determines the overall success of a CRM project
8. Contact Manager Edition Weaknesses
   •  Limited to 2 users
   •  No offline option
   •  No dashboards, email marketing, list management or opportunity management
9. Group Edition Weaknesses
   •  Limited to 5 users
   •  No offline option
   •  No email marketing or list management
   •  Significant upgrade cost to add a 6th user or more since you have to upgrade to the Professional Edition.  Essentially, you’ll go from $35 per user per month to the $65.00 per user per month—that’s an 86% increase.  
10. Professional Edition Weaknesses
    •  Significant higher Total Cost of Ownership over the lifetime of the system
    •  Offline access is significant extra cost.
    •  Storage allocation is very low for the price

Salesforce.com Gotcha’s
According to research conducted by Sage Software, storage allocations are very storage is extremely expensive ($3000 per additional GB of storage space) and is not available as an option in the Contact Manager Editions.
Offline access is not available in lower editions and is only available at a significant extra cost in the Professional Edition.
The Master Subscription Agreement with Salesforce.com controls customer data access – that’s your data they’re holding!

Here are some other observations:

1. Without express, prior approval from a senior Salesforce.com executive, all subscriptions must be paid in advance for a minimum of 1 year generally, and the average contract term is now 2 or 3 years.
2. They reserve the right to modify its fees and charges and introduce new charges at any time.
3. Companies are deemed to have accepted Salesforce.com’s terms and conditions when they click on the ‘I agree’ button during sign up to a trial subscription.
4. Your contract is automatically renew for the same period again unless the customer expressly notifies Salesforce.com of its intention to discontinue the service.
5. If a you don’t cancel in time, it will be liable for the full cost of the renewed contract.
6. Salesforce.com subscriptions number cannot be reduced in number until the expiry of the contract period.
7. Salesforce.com reserves the right to block a customer’s access to their data in the event of a commercial dispute. 
8. Outside of any dispute, it is generally difficult to get customer data out of Salesforce.com in any meaningful format unless you have the Professional or Enterprise Editions.
9. Apart from the very largest organizations, Salesforce.com customers do not benefit from any service level agreement in relation to the availability of their application. They have no recourse in the event of service outages.

In conclusion:

ACT! is easy to use and provides a simple pricing structure so there are no nasty surprises down the line. Before signing up with Salesforce.com, know what you’re committing to and get it in writing.  ACT! customers benefit from a low total cost of ownership with most paying the equivalent of between $20 and $30 per user per month over the lifetime of the solution.  I am happy to speak with you about how CRM and specifically ACT! can help your business.  Just click here to contact me.

1  Comparison based on 20 users of ACT! 2010 Corporate with annual ACT! Platinum Care software maintenance with $3,000 of implementation services versus Salesforce.com Professional edition as of 8/26/2009.

2  ACT! E-Marketing powered by Swiftpage is a monthly subscription service.  I am a Swiftpage Gold Drip Marketing consultant and help businesses turn their ACT! database in to a money making machine with this software solution.  Monthly pricing is available for review by clicking here.

As the managing partner of The CRM Connection, I am proud to announce we have earned the Top US Sage Software Business Partner and Sage Software President’s Circle award for the second consecutive year!

Our company is a national Sage Software business partner specializing in the sales, installation, and support of ACT! by Sage, Sage SalesLogix and Sage CRM, has been named one of Sage Software’s Top Business Partners in the Business Management Division for the fiscal year October 1, 2008, to September 30, 2009.

“It gives me great pleasure to, once again, recognize The CRM Connection as a Sage President’s Circle Award Winner. Despite the most challenging economic conditions in recent memory, The CRM Connection’s continues to demonstrate success. We are fortunate to have The CRM Connection as a partner and we congratulate the entire team.” says Jeffrey Gregorec, Vice President, Sales, CRM Division at Sage Software.

This award means a lot to me personally since I am the companies primary sales and marketing professional.    How’d we do it in this economy? 

The short answer is not easily, though I know that we couldn’t have done it without the collective effort of  our entire team.   The key is marketing and networking. All of our sales come from the Search Engine Optimization and Pay Per Click strategy for our website, www.thecrmconnection.com, blogging at blog.thecrmalliance.com, e-mail broadcasting, the ACT! corporate license team ACT!, and the relationships we have with our clients and the computer, sales and marketing consultants who refer their clients to us.

Our sales process has continued to evolve over the past several years, but that’s not it.  Ultimately, I think the key to success is doing what we say we’ll do when we say we’ll do it.

About The CRM Connection The CRM Connection helps businesses in North America do what they do even better using customer relationship management software developed exclusively by Sage Software. By leveraging the capabilities of ACT! by Sage, Sage SalesLogix and Sage CRM software, The CRM Connection provides customized solutions focusing on the needs of sales, marketing, and customer service and management teams. The CRM Connection is a full service consulting firm providing design, installation, customization, training, and support services. Our solutions support small and medium-sized businesses as well as teams within large businesses. The CRM Connection was founded in 2002 in Denver, Colorado, and has offices in Connecticut, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey and New York. For more information, please visit the web site at www.thecrmconnection.com or call 866-456-7808.

We upgraded our ACT! 2009 system to ACT! 2010 in the beginning of September.   Initially the system, specifically the Look Ups, were slower than expected.  Apparently this issue only affected databases with more than 30 custom fields on the layout.  To my delight, ACT! created a Hotfix in a matter of a couple of weeks that solved this problem.  Since then, I’m totally loving this upgrade.  I can work more efficiently in this version and have access to more information about my customer and prospects than ever before.   Below are the best improvements I’ve found:

Quicker ability to Look Up Contacts
The left hand Navigation bar in ACT! 2010 has a Lookup by Contact (default) contain field in the Contacts section where I normally work. There is a drop down menu with all the fields listed so I can easily search by any field in the database. I normally use this to search for contacts or company’s by typing a part of the contact or company name to quickly locate the record I need.

More information about prospects and customers
Before calling a person in my database, I use the Web Info tab which automatically finds them in Linked In or Plaxo. I then use the information to help build a rapport with people.

The ACT! Welcome window is full of resources
From the Video Tutorials, How Do I, What’s New in ACT! 2010 to the Support and Services section, ACT! is much easier to fully user than in the past.

The ACT! E-marketing really worksACT! E-marketing is powered by Swiftpage email and ACT! 2010 comes with a 60-day trial account built directly in to the program. Existing Swiftpage users who upgrade from an earlier version of ACT! will see their account immediately when they upgrade. My existing Swiftpage account automatically appeared in ACT! 2010 when I upgraded and the new interface makes using the program even faster than before.

Sending and Receiving Outlook Calendar Invitation
When scheduling an activity, I just check a box to have the system automatically sends the person or people I am scheduling with an Outlook meeting invitation.  WhenI receive in Outlook, the system creates a new activity in ACT! when I accept it!

I very pleased with ACT! 2010 and think you will be too.  Way to go Sage Software!

Every year since 2005, ACT! has released a new network version each September with the web version about a month later.  If history is any indication of the future, ACT! 2010 should be released within the next 60 days.  So what does this mean to you?  Well, if you’re like me  you’ll ask yourself the same old questions:  What’s all the hype about? Why should I upgrade?  Do I really need to do this and if so why? 

Before continuing, allow me explain my philosophy about software upgrades.  I generally don’t like installing initial releases.  I prefer to wait until the ‘early adopters’ test it out, report the bugs and ACT! released the first patch or update, UNLESS:

(a) I want or need the features in the new version (this is something that happens to me more often than not) 
(b) My existing installation is unstable (ACT! 2009, 11.1 is working well for us)

The following are the key benefits of ACT! 2010 for existing ACT! users.  If any of the below features look valuable to you, then you’re an upgrade candidate.  Otherwise, if it’s not broken don’t’ fix it until you have to.  What I mean by “you have to” is ACT! 2007 and early versions are no longer available and ACT! 2008 will likely be discontinued in October, 2009.  Maybe you’ll need more licenses for an obsolete version. Perhaps you are replacing PC’s, a server or upgrading to Microsoft Office 2007 and there are compatibility issues.  When this happens, it’ll be upgrade time regardless!

• ACT! E-marketing
  What is currently known as Swiftpage E-Marketing will be a part of the ACT! 2010, albeit a limited use account (aka free for some period of time with a daily send limit before having to pay a monthly usage fee).  For those of you who are not familiar with Swiftpage, it’s an e-mail and drip marketing solution. It generates actionable demand with end-to-end e-marketing that intelligently and automatically reaches out to your ACT! contacts and delivers results right to the ACT! Contact Record, saving you money by helping you focus on the right customers and making more money with your existing clients. I know this because we’ve used Swiftpage for years and it has worked VERY WELL for my company. 
• New Opportunities and Detail view
  The opportunities are now separate entities like Contacts, Company and Group records, making them more flexible than in the past.  ACT! 2010 provides the ability to add fields, customize products and services, personalize layouts, and track activities and history.  Tailor opportunities to fit your selling model with redesigned sales tracking functionality that allows you to enhance the way you manage leads. 
• New Dashboards and Reports
  There are 9 new dashboards, 13 new reports, and a streamlined Reports view and for anyone who creates custom reports, there is a new connector for third-party report writers. 
• Calendar Invitations
  Finally ACT! 2010 works seamlessly with non-ACT! users!  Send calendar invitations and contacts from ACT! to leading e-mail solutions, like Gmail™, Apple® iCal®, Windows Live™, and Microsoft® Outlook®. 
• Web 2.0
  And finally, you can take advantage of leading-edge Web 2.0 technology that automatically integrates profiles and data from LinkedIn®, Facebook, Google Maps™, and more with ACT! for instant knowledge about your customers.
• Updated Look and Feel
  There’s the newly designed look of ACT! with proven easier to learn and use navigation, instant access to search, related tasks, big “easy” buttons, and the new Welcome page.    

If you think ACT 2010 may be right for you and would like to see a demo, you can sign up for free sessions in August and September at http://www.thecrmconnection.com/ACTRoadShow2009.htm

Our Objective:
Send 4,000 full-color newsletters and 4,000 Lunch and Learn ACT! Online Training schedules per month.
Send occasional surveys to our clients.
Track Opt-outs, bounces, clicks by link and opens.

The Challenge:
The ACT! Mail-Merge to email takes a long time to send this many emails.
Managing Opt Outs and Bounces is very time consuming.
No ability to track opens and clicks.

The Solution:
We are using a $59.92/month SwiftPage Email Account with a 4,000 email per day send limit – www.swiftpage.com.  First we create our newsletters and other templates using Microsoft FrontPage 2003 because of the advanced flexibility it provides.  Then we create a look up in ACT!, click the E icon on the ACT! icon tool bar, select our template and click send.  SwiftPage then uploads our list in the background and sends all the emails from their white-listed servers.   What used to take hours now takes 5 minutes.  Anyone who opts-out is on a list maintained by SwiftPage so we don’t unintentionally broadcast to them.  And finally, their software works!

My Conclusion:
If you want to do CAN/SPAM Compliant email broadcasting with ACT!, SwiftPage Email is the way to go!

John Kaufman
Sales and Marketing Manager
The CRM Connection
www.thecrmconnection.com

The CRM Alliance, a group of independently owned and operated Sage Software business partners specializing ACT! by Sage, Sage SalesLogix, Sage CRM, MAS and ACCPAC accounting software, announced today changes to its Executive Leadership Committee. The CRM Alliance is a “consulting and buyers cooperative” that ensures business owners and corporate IT and sales managers get the most value for their CRM investment.

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Denver, CO (PRWEB) March 18, 2009 — CRM Alliance, a group of independently owned and operated Sage Software business partners specializing ACT! by Sage, Sage SalesLogix, Sage CRM, MAS and ACCPAC accounting software, announced today changes to its Executive Leadership Committee. Debora Boyle, Platinum CRM Consulting – www.actplatinum.com – from Phoenix and Lori Feldman, Aviva LLC, known as The Database Diva – www.thedatabasediva.com – from St. Louis, have been appointed as CRM Alliance Executive Committee Members. Clay Weatherford, Proactive Information Systems of Austin has been elected an alternate member.

They join existing members John Kaufman and Elaine Wirth, The CRM Connection – www.thecrmconnection – from Denver, Chicago, Ann Arbor and the New York tri-state area, Pat Egen, Patricia Egen Consulting – www.egenconsulting.com – from Chattanooga, Tim Priestley, Accent Gold Solutions – www.accentgoldsolutions.com – from Los Angeles and Peter Kaufman, ADSS Global – www.adssglobal.com – from Miami and Philadelphia.

“The CRM Alliance Executive Committee effectively manages and operates the organization” says John Kaufman, President, adding, “With the appointment of Debora and Lori to the Committee, our members benefit by gaining two proven business owners who add in-depth business and marketing experience to The CRM Alliance’s leadership.”

The CRM Alliance is a “consulting and buyers cooperative” that ensures business owners and corporate IT and sales managers get the most value for their CRM investment. As the economy contracts, business owners and corporate teams seek ways to maintain earnings with fewer resources. A company database tied to accounting transactions is a risk-free tool to leverage a company’s #1 asset–its customer list.

Buyers of ACT! by Sage, SalesLogix, SageCRM, MAS and ACCPAC software have access to a combined resources of 26 resellers and over 100 certified consultants and trainers when they purchase through The CRM Alliance membership. Half of the Alliance membership, which is by invitation only, represent the top 20% of Sage Software’s reseller channel, guaranteeing that software buyers also have access to the world’s best-in-class CRM solution providers all in one place.

About The CRM Alliance
The CRM Alliance was founded in 2004 as an indirect sales channel of The CRM Connection. It is a membership-based organization of ACT!, SalesLogix, Sage CRM, MAS and ACCPAC/Sage ERP software consulting firms serving the United States, Canada and Europe. The mission of The CRM Alliance is to enhance the value of its member firms through collaboration of sales, marketing and operational best practices and shared technical resources. Membership consists of 26 consulting member firms serving 40 locations. Additionally, 7 CRM Alliance vendor members represent ‘best of breed’ ACT! Software add-on developers and programmers, The CRM Alliance is uniquely positioned to provide one-stop, full service CRM software sales, CRM implementation, CRM training and CRM support for business owners and sales organizations regionally, nationally and internationally. Members of the Alliance are listed here: http://www.thecrmalliance.com/Default.aspx?tabid=58

About The CRM Connection
The CRM Connection – www.thecrmconnection.com – is a software consulting firm and software reseller that helps businesses in North America do what they do even better using customer relationship management software developed exclusively by Sage Software. By leveraging the capabilities of ACT! by Sage, Sage SalesLogix and Sage CRM software, The CRM Connection provides customized software solutions focusing on the needs of sales, marketing, and customer service and management teams. The CRM Connection is a full service consulting firm providing design, installation, customization, training, and support services. Our solutions support small and medium-sized businesses as well as teams within large businesses. The CRM Connection was founded in 2002 in Denver, Colorado, and has offices in Connecticut, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey and New York. For more information, please visit the web site at www.thecrmconnection.com or call 866-456-7808.