User Sort Order

You can now sort the order of your users under Settings (top right corner).

This give you the ability to determine the sort order of users for various functions such as Order Rotation for assigning leads under Work Flows. This was previously sorted alphabetically.

Posted in News, Updates | Comments Off on User Sort Order Read more

New Open Leads Dashboard

Added new graphs will new selectable date ranges as well as NEW Bottom Table that shows User Activity

Posted in News, Updates | Comments Off on New Open Leads Dashboard Read more

Primary User -Autogrouping

Open Leads has added the capability to retain the original “assigned” user on subsequent contacts if Autogrouping is selected AND Assign Auto Group Primary User is Enabled. While in the Forms detail section, in the right column you will see where to check. See below.


Posted in News, Updates | Comments Off on Primary User -Autogrouping Read more

Call Logging

We have now added Call Logging to your Lead Detail Screen.

Call logging allows user to quickly record that they have called a prospect, and record the notes regarding that call in the History section of the Lead Detail Screen:

To log a call, simply click the link next to the phone number section in the lead detail screen. A dialog box will open up to allow notes to be entered.

 

Once committed the call record is logged with a time and date stamp and user in the history, and can be later reviewed.

 

Posted in News, Updates | Comments Off on Call Logging Read more

Updated email editor

We’ve made some improvements to the email editor, making it faster and easier to create colorful and effective email messages.

The new editor has cleaner and easier-to-use navigation, and simpler formatting options, so that users can change font styles, colors, and placement with more flexibility. It is also easier to insert lists, tables, and images.

email editor

Posted in News, Updates | Comments Off on Updated email editor Read more

New Lead Detail Screen and Date-Picker Calendar

New Lead Detail Screen

The latest update to Open Leads is the redesign of the Lead Detail Screen and a new date-picker calendar for scheduling Tasks.

Since the launch of the current version of Open Leads (v 3.2), the Lead Detail screen has been divided – the left hand side containing the Lead Data, and the right hand side containing the Lead Detail information. The Lead Detail section, by default displayed all of the information in the various segments of the column at all times.

The revised design allows for users to expand and collapse segments of the lead detail column in order to only view the data that is relevant to their use of Open Leads, and to conserve screen space on smaller displays.

With all of the lead detail boxes collapsed, the display is very compact and makes it easy for the user to focus on the lead contact information:

With certain boxes expanded, more information can be displayed, depending on your specific needs.

 Date Picker

The new Date-Picker Calendar updates the design, and makes scheduling times a bit easier. Of course our “Smart-Date” function works like always, so you can type in your date, or a phrase like “next Tuesday” in the date field as well, in order to schedule your upcoming tasks.

add_task_modal_calendar

Posted in News, Updates | Comments Off on New Lead Detail Screen and Date-Picker Calendar Read more

Are you using an “@yahoo.com” email address?

If you log into your Open Leads account with Yahoo.com email address, you may have noticed you are having trouble getting mail sent from Open Leads delivered to your contacts. Why? Last month Yahoo changed their authentication process which has effected every single Email Service Provider like Open Leads. When email is sent from your Open Leads account, we configure it so that it appears to the end user as though it came from the email address you log in with (by default) or from the “From” address you enter when composing the email message, although the message is actually sent from our email system.

With the changes Yahoo has implemented, this email process no longer validates when received by certain other ISPs, such as AOL, Hotmail, Gmail and Comcast, among others). Messages sent to addresses at these domains will most likely bounce immediately, even thought the email addresses are valid.

This new policy not only affected Open Leads, but other companies that provide email marketing services, such as Constant Contact, MailChimp, etc.

The solution for at this point is to not use your Yahoo address as the from address in any messages you send from your Open Leads account. The best solution is if you have an email address at your domain (i.e. “you@yourcompany.com”) – or, if you do not have access to that, you can use one that is not an actual address (such as “no_reply@yourdomain.com”) – however using this method means that any response from the recipient will not be received. If you do not have access to a company email account, then your best bet is to use another free email service, such as Gmail and avoid Yahoo altogether.

Posted in General, Hints, Tips and How-To's, News | Comments Off on Are you using an “@yahoo.com” email address? Read more

Effectively manage your lead lists to be most productive

We get questions relatively often that begin with the following phrase: “I have 10,000 leads in my account, and…..” Or maybe it is 15,000, or 20,000. Almost without exception, the first thought that pops into a support agent’s mind is, “Really? You have that many ‘leads?'”

Even though some versions of Open Leads does not limit the number of leads that can be entered, any account should logically have self-imposed limits. The reality is, are only a certain number of legitimate sales “leads” you should have in your account – having tens of thousands of “leads” is not only not practical, it is untenable in real-world sales environs.

For example, if your initial followup process involves a phone call, and that phone call will take 5 minutes, start to finish, then working each of your 10,000 leads would take a person working a standard 8-hour day approximately 104 days to call each one – and that assumes that you can make a successful call every 5 minutes, all day, every day. This does not account for new leads, breaks, busy signals, voice mails, recalls, inbound calls, or other internal or external interruptions. Of course, you can see that this is unrealistic.

So what is the solution? Manage your leads with lists. Segment them into smaller groups, and use functions such as the Opportunities and Pipeline feature in Open Leads to label them, as Cold, Warm, or Hot, for example. Evaluate their real needs and how you can meet that need, and do not be afraid of archiving or deleting leads that are not productive for you. Or at the very minimum, Type or Label them in a way that you can create a view that excludes them, and use this list as a long term email followup list, to try to warm them back up at a later date.

How do you do this? Easy, Open Leads provides tools to allow you to segment your leads (using filters for Pipeline Status or Types, or even using filters to create a view to show all of the leads in a certain city or state, for exmple), which is a very useful tool when managing larger lists.

Essentially what this amounts to is removing clutter from your active lists. Clutter (inactive, or otherwise unneeded lead data) gets in the way of your important data – and can lead to very poor sales habits. For example – users with excessive leads tend to scan over the list of leads to seek out the “good” ones, unconsciously training themselves to rush through their list and miss opportunities. Even worse, is the huge lists that result in a sales process that just involves “blasting” out emails – which is a really good way of alienating your prospects.

Maintaining a clean and manageable lead list is easily the best thing you can do to increase your productivity, and ultimately your sales success. Look over your leads, qualify them, categorize them, and don’t be afraid to either archive or delete those that are not going to be used.

Posted in Hints, Tips and How-To's | Comments Off on Effectively manage your lead lists to be most productive Read more

Analyzing your data: Views and PDF Reports

How many new leads did you receive last month?

How many sales were closed?

Does one of your sales staff have way too many “No Sales?”

The answer to these types of questions are easily found using Views. Views are a combination of filters, and displayed data that users are able to save and load upon demand. In order to effectively create these Views to use as “Reports” for your account, a basic understanding of the filters that are available in your account is essential

Because Open Leads is based on an extremely powerful database, your account can contain a substantial amount of data that you can be extracted using filters. From your Lead List, filters are available to sort by the data contained in any of your fields, along with Type, User, Lead Source, Lead Grouping, Read/Unread, Date Added, Date Modified, Opted out (of email), Bounced (email), Active and Completed tasks. Take some time to add and remove some filters to get an idea of how you can best sort data. By combining filters, you can retrieve specific lists of leads. For example, adding the simple filter for “Date Added” then choosing “is in this month” you will display all new Leads entered into your account for the current month. Adding an additional filter for a Type, such as “Widget Prospect” will show just those new leads that were interested in Widgets.

Customizing the columns displayed on your lead list adds to the functionality of your Views. Name will always be the first column, as it is used by Open Leads a key search and sort field. The next two columns can be customized by clicking on the blue asterisk icon in the header row. Once clicked, you can choose the data you wish to display, e.g. email address. Any column can be sorted alphabetically, or chronologically by clicking on the column header label. Clicking once for an ascending sort, and twice for descending. You can toggle between the date added and date modified fields, and you can elect to display or not display the assigned user, and can choose to display only the first Type assigned to your leads or all of the Types assigned to the leads on your list.

Once you have the data displayed, you can save this view, give it a label, and it will appear in your Current View dropdown. You can change back and forth between views at any time by selecting from this menu.

Saved views can be printed using the PDF Reports option in the Apply to menu. This dropdown menu appears just above the Types column on the right side of your Leads List – this is the same menu where your mass email and other mass apply options appear. Choose “PDF Report” then choose your display options, and you will be able to print a nicely formatted “report” from your view. From this menu you may also choose to export this data to a CSV file for use in an external application, such as a spreadsheet.

Posted in General, Hints, Tips and How-To's | Comments Off on Analyzing your data: Views and PDF Reports Read more

Open Leads Mobile – Sales Force Automation and Lead Management “on the go!”

As we look to use our Lead Management, SFA and CRM apps more and more in our daily operations, Smartphones and Tablets become more prevalent than our laptop and desktop computers.

With our release of our new Open Leads Mobile you can now access your  account “on the go” with a mobile-optimized user experience. The best part? No apps to download or configure – simply navigate to your Open Leads account in your browser on your mobile device, and you are automatically in Open Leads Mobile.

The mobile version of Open Leads is designed to get work done, and to make this as easy as possible, we have streamlined the user experience. The Dashboard is gone, along with the settings tab, so you can quickly see your Leads and your Tasks – the two most important elements when “working your leads.”

The Lead List and Lead Detail:

mobile_homemobile_task_list

 

Editing your leads is easy and simple on the Mobile Version as well:

mobile_lead_edit

The Task List and Calendar:

mobile_task_calendar mobile_complete_task

Completing a task is as easy as in the desktop version, just touch the green checkmark icon, enter your comment and touch the “Complete” button.

If you need to access more complex and advanced features in Open Leads, just scroll down and touch the “View Full Site icon, and you will be able to access the full version of Open Leads. This way, if you need to add a user, update your data fields, or create a sales message, you can still do it without being tied to your desktop. Once you have made your admin changes, click the “View Mobile Site” link at the bottom of the screen to return to Open Leads Mobile.

Posted in News, Updates | Comments Off on Open Leads Mobile – Sales Force Automation and Lead Management “on the go!” Read more

 
 
 

Whatever you need, we're always here to help. You can contact us by calling

1-800-587-2030

or by clicking on any option below.