Good Forecast For Entellium's Online Web Services CRM Suite

While many hosted CRM packages force administrators to work with their own internal professional services to integrate customer applications through a direct API, Entellium's eCustomerCenter and eSalesForce CRM suite is built on an unusual, open and modular Web services architecture. The Web services interface acts like an API with bidirectional capabilities. Entellium's architecture presents a lot of opportunities for solution providers whose customers want a CRM suite with open architecture. What's more, the company does not charge partners for offering development services through its Web services interface. Although Entellium sells eSalesForce and eCustomerCenter separately, the products are completely compatible with and complement one another.

ECustomerCenter provides personalized pages for each customer. The software can prioritize customer relationships and service levels based on customer type and revenue, allowing salespeople to focus on the most lucrative opportunities. Customers can submit incidents online or can report problems over the phone. Most similar software programs provide only basic customer incident-tracking. ECustomerCenter offers more workflow management features, such as the ability to automate service processes. Administrators can set up rules and processes detailing how specific types of service requests are handled so that no requests are left unanswered. Responses vary depending on these rules. The software can instantly provide a tracking number and route incidents to appropriate personnel, and also offers an automated voice callback system that updates customers on the status of their request. These features can help to evenly distribute a call center's workload while ensuring the best practices in customer service are followed.

Entellium's eSalesForce can increase a sales force's productivity and allow it to more accurately make forecasts. ESalesForce also provides a customer-centric view of a company's records, offering graphical representations of available opportunities as well as different forecasting scenarios. Administrators can set numerous forecasting parameters and then turn the system over to the end users to do their own forecasting. ESalesForce also has a powerful drill-down feature that displays forecasting values as well as estimated revenue. Unlike similar CRM packages, Entellium's suite supports recurring appointments, contract creation, workload history, opportunity-sharing, recurring revenue and integration with Intuit QuickBooks.

Entellium also provides a one-way sync with Microsoft Outlook calendars, contacts and company information. For an additional $10 per month, Entellium offers the MyEntellium module, which allows users to add notes and comments to existing leads and opportunity records. Through the Outlook sync, users can send e-mail from the software's contact page using a built-in template. Users can also customize their leads and opportunities fields to prioritize potential sales calls. However, the approval process design needs improvement"currently, there's no way for a manager to oversee a salesperson's process and approve or deny leads or opportunities.

Entellium provides free 24x7 live Web chat technical support for partners, accessible directly from the product interface. Partners are only responsible for providing limited first-line support and should refer any customer technical issues directly to Entellium. Users access the hosted service from a dedicated URL separate from the main corporate site. The company also offers competitive positioning, custom branding, sales leads and extensive online resources including white papers, marketing collateral and Web-based training.

Entellium offers partners a three-tier channel program. The company does not have a direct-sales force, but partners must provide a set amount of recurring revenue. The products are priced on a monthly subscription per user. Monthly fees are $45 for eSalesForce, which ships with My Entellium and eCollaborate features and $55 for eCustomerCenter. When purchased together, the total fee is $59. The company would not disclose average margin information.

Entellium's eCollaborate offers simple file-sharing features for basic collaboration between users. Files can be shared inside and outside a company's Entellium interface, which means that external customers do not have to purchase seats to collaborate with internal users. The tool can recognize many file formats so users do not have to install proprietary programs to read specific files. If a user wants to access a Visio file, for instance, the file is displayed through a browser rather than a separate application. Entellium also includes a realtime instant messaging module. CHANNEL PROGRAM SNAPSHOTS
>eSalesForce / eCustomerCenter

COMPANY: Entellium
Seattle, Wash.
( 206) 245-2300
www.entellium.com
DISTRIBUTORS: Direct from vendor
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Note: Recommended status is earned with ascore of eight stars out of 10