How are you using CommitCRM for Sales People?

I recently downloaded a trial of CommitCRM and am still evaluating it. However, I noticed that everything in CommitCRM is geared toward already established accounts of customers that are already doing business. Is anyone using CommitCRM for Sales People? Is there are way to have account and leads separated?

You would think that anyone that does not already do business is a lead. Once they place an order for products and services, then they should be converted to an account. Service Techs and Finance have no need to see clients that are not customers.

How do sales people follow up with a client, such as a cold call? When looking for business and making calls, I normally have about 7 attempted contacts before I give up and move on and tag it to cold call 6 months to a year later. The only way I can see to do this is by a task but when I set a task with a reminder, then you get a pop up that allows you to do a Quick Preview but I do not see a way to easily view the history of past interactions. Being able to preview history is important as it allows the sales person to quickly view what they talked about.

Also, since it is not imperative to call a prospect back at a specific time, as you don't even know if there is a need, any interest, or if they are a potential prospect -- is there a way of separating them from actual important To Do's such as building a quote or proposal? Is there a way to sort on leads that have not been contacted without printing them up. Preferably a report that you can run so that when you click a record, then it would display their information?

Thank you for asking. Each Account has a Type (field). You control the types of Accounts that you manage and the common values are 'Customer', 'Lead', 'Vendor' and 'Partner'.

Once Accounts are categorized by their Type you can very easily filter the Accounts list to only show Accounts from specific type/s using the Type selection drop down right on the Accounts Window toolbar.

Viewing histories - sure, you can view all History for each Account under the Account's Preview and History tabs. In case you look at the preview scroll down as at the top you'll find the Account contact details and open tasks.

The history will show all previous calls summary (logged using History Notes), in case of a customer you'll find past service history, and more.

When clicking an Account the best thing to know its status would be to see recent history (like previous call summary, as explained above) as well as to see all open Tasks (the Pending and Preview tabs) and To-dos.

There's also a report you can print that will help you detect Accounts with no recent activity. Under the Accounts reports category you'll find a report called "Accounts with No Recent History". Have a look.

Hope this helps.