CRM – Worthwhile or Worthless?

There is always the ongoing debate within business as to whether CRM is worthwhile investing in or just an expensive tool that companies can simply do without. Small businesses can often feel daunted by taking on software, not only because of the initial or ongoing costs, but the change in business processes and mindset. From speaking to many clients we are only too aware that as a business grows it becomes increasingly more important to streamline your business activity to maintain long lasting customer relationships and lighten the admin load. Afterall we are all in business to make money not spend our time filing, re-writing quotations and scratching our heads trying to work out if what we are doing is profitable.

 

Back in December 2008 we interviewed a Clarity Professional user for our newsletter. Award winning Sign Company, Sign Box had tried various business software to provide management and accounting solutions but found that staff were constantly duplicating information and needed a more efficient approach. When referring to Clarity Mark Bartlett, Managing Director stated “The ability to track an enquiry to order, through production to delivery and onto invoice, an all in one system has proved an invaluable tool.”

 

The benefits of CRM can be numerous if you choose the right system from the right company. From contact management to business management, your chosen application can put you one step ahead of the competition. Mark commented “In order to grow our business we knew that we had to have more strategic marketing. Clarity has provided us with a clean database of customers that we can regularly email a monthly newsletter, instantly launch new products to and update with the latest innovations on our eshop.”

 

When asking Mark how implementing a CRM system has improved his business he responded “Fully utilising the Pricing Wizard, enables us to maintain GP and this has been evidenced from our quarterly management accounts showing a constant quarter on quarter figure; Something difficult to achieve when signs are constructed in so many different materials. We have finished ’08 some 10% up on last year which was in turn 47% up on the previous year.”

 

The debate may still be raging, but one cannot deny that a system like Clarity can clearly help bring success to a company wiling to change their usual way of working, making them professional and profitable.

 

If you would like to read the full interview with Mark please click here

The day BT Tradespace came to Touch Systems

BT Tradespace Interview at Touch Systems

After winning BT Tradespace Member of the Month for January we were asked if we would like to be video interviewed. It was a new experience for me and a great opportunity for us as a company to be a featured business on the BT Tradespace site. There are over 130,000 users of Tradespace so to be chosen for BT Tradespace Member of the Month was a fantastic achievement and the interview was our treat for winning. 

Well, the video is finally here! I have been really nervous this week waiting to see my interview and am happy to say it turned out better than I thought it would. Phew!

One week ago we welcomed Derek Hemphill for BT to the Clarity offices.  After a large glass of water and a few deep breaths I felt prepared (almost!). 

To view the video interview please click here  (see if you can spot one of our developers make his apperance in the background. Blink and you might miss him!)

BREAKING NEWS- NEW CLARITY WEBSITE LAUNCHED! 9/12/08

The long-awaited New Clarity Website has now arrived! After many hours of meetings, planning, cutting and pasting we have finally launched the brand new site! With a fresh new look, and some great new features it is definately worth a look…please do, cause we worked really hard!

It is now easier than ever to navigate around the site and find exactly what you are looking for. Make sure you keep your eyes peeled on our Home Page as we will be posting all our latest offers and event information here.

We now have a fantastic new Product Information section which will give you an overview of Clarity and all the extra modules you can bolt-on, including Calc Wizards! Take a look at the brand new Module Maps for Professional and Lite packages and see how Clarity can be used within your business.

Sign Industry Awards 2008

The Touch Systems team attended the 2008 Sign Industry Awards on 3rd September 2008 and are proud to announce that 4 winners and a further 9 nominees use Clarity Professional software as their business administration system. This includes the winner of the Sign Business of the Year and both Nominees in the category, living proof that Clarity is a great benefit to running a successful company!

After the awards ceremony, elated Sign Business of the Year Winner Mark Aston of AST Signs claimed that: “There is no way I could run my business without Clarity Professional”.

The gala evening was hosted by ex-BBC war correspondent John Seargent and our very own Dhiren Varand presented the coveted Best Wayfinding Scheme award to Clarity user Neil Devery of Sign Box; who commented: “The software is fantastic and I would recommend it to anyone.”

Dhiren also commented “It was a privilege to be able to attend such a prestigious event for the Sign Industry and to see so many of our users nominated for awards. This is the first year we have attended the ceremony and it was fantastic. We would like to congratulate all our users who were nominated and won awards and we look forward to next year’s event.”

 

 

Our first Blog!

Well this is our first blog, how exciting! I guess to begin with it would be a good idea to introduce ourselves to you and let you know what we do. :).

We are a West Midlands based IT company that specialise in developing Clarity Professional Software. Clarity has been designed to help small to medium sized companies streamline their administration processes and keep their costs down. We now have over 2000 users all over the UK and Ireland, predominently in the Sign and Digital Print Industries, although Clarity can be used in almost any manufacturing industry. Clarity can create professional quotations, invoices, purchase orders, and more. Once you have imported your price lists and typed in your first contact you are ready to go… ok well it is not that simple, you might want to add your logo in there too 🙂

My name is Sarah and I work in the Sales and Marketing department, typing blogs like this one, emailing, designing ad’s, writing editorials oh and making the tea!

I hope you enjoy our blogs!