There are quite a few features within the CRM system that are currently being overlooked. Here's a quick guide to some of these features that may be useful for your company.

Price Groups
There are 3 price groups set up in Pearl to allow you to sell your products/services at different prices for different customers. These price groups are retail, trade and distributor.

The 'retail price' is always the standard price, applicable to most of your contacts, but the other two groups can be used in any way you wish. For example, you may have a group of customers that you wish to offer a reduced price for all good/services. Perhaps for loyalty reasons, or maybe they always purchase large quantities. You would set a 'trade price' for all good/services at the reduced rate, then tick the trade price field for those specific customers. Whenever a sale was raised, all items would be charged at the reduced rate. Likewise if you wanted to charge a higher price to some customers, perhaps because they only make very small orders, you could set the 'distributor price' at a higher rate and follow the same procedure. Please note - if a contact is set to a particular price group e.g. 'trade price', but no trade price has been stored for a product, you will not be able to add that product to an order for them.

If you are a Pearl Website or PearlCart user, when a customer logs in to your website, all prices will be displayed using the correct price group. You can implement this very easily by exporting your contact and product databases, adding the new prices/selecting the correct price group, and then reimporting to Pearl. If you would like help implementing a change in pricing strategy, please contact us.

Custom fields
If you would like to store contact information that is not already catered for in Pearl, you may add as many additional fields as you wish. To set up these 'custom fields', go to 'Contacts->Custom fields' in the main menu. Enter the name and type of custom field then give that field a code. You can choose whether custom field data appears in the customer's account area online for update by themselves and you can use that information in mail merges by typing in the code you assigned to that field (using the usual _code_ format).

This code can also be used to include custom fields on a spreadsheet for import. The custom field code should then be put in the first free column on the spreadsheet (column x). The corresponding data should be put in the column after it (column y). Continue adding custom field codes and data in pairs for all your custom fields. To view custom field information on your CRM screen or to change what information is currently displayed, go to 'columns' (next to the 'show/hide search box'), and tick the desired fields.

Contact pop-up messages
You can set urgent messages to appear whenever a sale/purchase order is raised for a particular contact. For example, the message may tell the administrator that a special price was agreed for that contact, that a service should be offered free of charge or that you are expecting a product to be returned and cannot ship further products until then. To add a pop-up message, search for the contact using the quick search box, hover over the 'menu' link and click 'popup message'. To delete any message go to 'Contacts-> Popup messages' from the main menu and click the appropriate bin icon.

Call manager
The call manager is a very powerful tool and ideally it should be used every time you speak to a contact. The call manager icon is available in many different areas within Pearl. Click it to open a window showing the contact details, notes and a call timer. You can set follow up calls or tasks for any member of staff as a result of the conversation. This is why it is important you type detailed notes about said conversation to enable that person to pick up where you left off. Each call is tracked and can be used for reporting later (see Contacts->Call reports for a list of recent calls). You can even raise invoices to bill for time spent on the phone to contacts. Simply create a task/job to call that contact and open the call manager from the 'my tasks and jobs' page. The length of time will be added to the job (you can make multiple calls from that job) from which you can raise the invoice.

Statuses
In addition to the other ways of grouping your contacts, you may set a contact status. These should be used differently to contact groups as status reports can be created whilst you cannot report on contact groups. For example, you may use statuses to organise your salesflow so they could be set as:
· Not contacted
· Good lead
· Failed lead
· Active customer
The statuses you have to choose from are editable, go to Setup->Customer statuses from the main menu.

Recent Pearl Developments

• Statement based bank reconciliation
• Full departmental reporting. Now you can see which part of your business is doing the best
• Improved website design features
• EPOS (till point sales) upgrade
• Postcode lookups. We have partnered with a postcode provider to allow your staff and website users to simply enter a postcode and let Pearl fill out the address.
  

Pearl Partnership

As you know, one of the benefits of using an online system is that users can access the system remotely. This means you can even outsource some of your HR needs. Need More Time Ltd can provide virtual office solutions such as a virtual PAs, virtual administrators, virtual receptionists, call handling and message taking. We provide the software whilst they provide the people and supporting virtual office. Just think of them as an additional member of your team, without the overheads! They aim to save you time (as you delegate tasks), improve your company image (as you portray a larger more professional business), improve your performance (as no call is ever missed or task left undone) and will make your life easier (by saving yourself the time, money and hassle of employing staff). Contact them on 0800 142 5600 and mention ‘Pearl’ to qualify for a 50% reduction in the sign-up fee.