Maybe you currently use PearlOffice but haven't migrated your website to PearlCart, or perhaps you already have a Pearl website but are not getting the best out of it. To find out, ask yourselves these questions…

Does your website automatically create new leads in your contact database ready for your sales team to follow up? Does your website run off the same database as the rest of your business? Can your website show your customers their account balance, recent invoices and payments? Does your website store up to date contact information for each of your customers for when they log in? Does your website management system allow you to create new pages and products easily enough for your staff to keep it 100% up to date?

A well designed e-commerce website will let your potential customers know exactly what is going on at all stages of the purchase. They will be shown accurate shipping quotes, perhaps depending on the contents of their shopping cart, and depending on their location. Have a browse around some of the top online retailers such as Amazon. These sites show accurate stock levels to the customer. It's not just about getting the first sale, if a customer has been told an item is in stock by your website and then it turns out that you don't actually have it, they won't be coming back, and may even cancel the order. If you sell to customers on account, in this day an age it's expected that the customer can log in to your website to see their balance, a list of recent transactions and re-print invoices. Apart from being convenient for them, it will both save your staff time and also allow you to promote new products/services on the pages that they are viewing (up-selling). This doesn't only apply to tangible products. Pearl will allow you take bookings for events or services on your website. In this case the customer/client should be able to log in and see information on what services/events they have booked.

Your website should have a number of pages into which visitors can enter queries, customer support, new contacts and so on. The data you need to capture will quite likely be specific to your company, so you should be able to configure what fields the visitor needs to fill out. And what happens when the form is submitted? You should be able to choose whether your website sends an automatic email reply, creates a contact in your list of "people to call" perhaps, or even automatically creates a task in a staff member's calendar.

Once you've got a website that's creating hundreds of new orders for you, you need to manage the sales, customers and stock properly otherwise things will rapidly spiral out of control! If stock is limited, you need to be able to allocate it to specific orders, and your website needs to know what's going on as well. If stock runs out, your website should take customers' details so that when you receive the stock later, they are contacted automatically either by email or SMS.

Pearl has the necessary functions for all of the above, so please read our website training pack for information on how you can make improvements to your Pearl website. If you would like help redeveloping your Pearl site, or to upgrade to PearlCart, please contact us.

Recent Updates...

• Configurable order statuses for both sales and purchases
• Search sales by account manager
• Upload and attach files to events
• Improved event management

Coming Soon...

• Pearl Help Desk
• PearlMail read more
• Pearl Project Management

For more information on any of the issues covered in this mailing, please contact us.