Consumers are already accustomed to the speed of new technologies – access to the Internet (checking information), the development of e-commerce (shopping without leaving home), or social media (staying in touch with loved ones). So the most important thing in providing quality customer service is to make sure they can get help when they need it, no matter what time of day or night they contact you.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that you should hire people to work night shifts, but you do need to make sure that your customer service agents are available as long as possible. It’s also a good idea to hire people on the weekends – consumers often contact you when they have free time and don’t want to wait until Monday for a response.

How to provide top-quality customer service on social media?

The speed of the response provided via social media is undoubtedly the key to consumer satisfaction, but it is not the only factor that matters in this area. Below, we’ve compiled some useful tips for providing top-quality customer service.

1. Use automation

To make it easier to respond to consumer messages posted on social media platforms, it is worth taking advantage of the opportunities offered by automation. Chatbots, or automated responses that a particular platform provides for the most common questions, can be particularly helpful in customer service. For example, if several people ask about opening hours or product availability, you can create an automated response that provides all the necessary information. In this situation, a human being will be involved only if the consumer’s questions go beyond its scope.

2. Respond to all messages

Even if you can’t solve a particular problem right away, don’t leave the question unanswered. Users may see that you read their message but didn’t respond to it, which usually leads to another one in a less friendly tone. A short response, even if it is just to say that you are looking into the issue and will get back to them, lets the consumer know that their problem has been noticed and that you are working on a solution. It’s also a good idea to indicate when they can expect to hear from you again, so they know how long they should wait.

3. Personalize communication

To provide high-quality customer service, prepare response templates that will let you respond to standard questions and issues quickly, leaving you time to focus on other challenges. However, when using templates, try to personalize their content, for example, addressing the customer by name or referring to a specific order number or a situation. Remember to keep calm even if the customer responds more emotionally. In this way, you will show that you treat each recipient individually and respectfully, which will be well-received.

4. Provide training

Do you have a dedicated team responsible for interacting with your audience on social media? If so, don’t forget to train them regularly, both in terms of soft skills (effective, cultural and professional communication) and hard knowledge about the company, its processes, values or the products or services it offers. You can’t forget about this, especially when you hire new people, appoint replacements or make changes (to your offers, user panel, processes, etc.). Consumers may become dissatisfied with the slightest change, and you need to have a team that can properly explain why the change has been introduced.

Summary

High-quality customer service on social media is an ongoing process that takes a lot of time and commitment. However, it’s definitely worth prioritizing, as recipients, especially Millenials and GenZs, prefer to contact companies via Facebook or Instagram rather than email or phone. Therefore, providing top-quality customer service on social media can help build a strong brand reputation, foster a good relationship with the audience, and translate into greater customer satisfaction.

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E-commerce customer service – table of contents:

1. E-commerce customer service
2. Customer service – what is included?
3. Best customer service approach
4. Importance of customer service
5. Better customer service tips
6. Summary

E-commerce customer service

Customer service is each interaction between the client and the seller. It concerns both the moment of sales and anything that comes before and after this process. The role of the owner/employee is to meet the expectations of the buyers by showing the right approach and expressing the skill to help the client when it is needed. In the case of e-commerce customer service, all the interaction and support can be shown only by the use of e-commerce platforms, and cannot be conveyed directly during live contact.

To predict customers’ needs the seller has to track the digital travel of the client, analyzing all the points, where the internet user gets in contact with the brand. Thanks to careful analysis we will be able to improve the consumer’s experience during the shopping process.

Customer service – what is included?

Customer service does not deal only with direct interaction with the client during sales. There are other types of encounters with the client such as a hotline, that should provide the buyers with all necessary information about the product.

Customer service includes technical help and after-sales service t complaints, returns, and issues with guarantees. The companies that offer their products in a subscription model using additionally many different types of notifications that remind them about payment deadlines (text messages, e-mail messages, telephone contact).

Best customer service approach

First and foremost one should remember that every person has their preferences. It is best to allow him to choose. If the client needs to contact the company, should decide, if he wants to do it by phone, by email, by chat, or personally in the stationary shop. It is worth paying attention to the speed of response. The client may be discouraged to use the services of the company if his questions and problems are not solved immediately. It is important to understand the perspective of the buyer.

His point of view is unique, therefore the seller should listen to him and show initiative and commitment. When a client feels that he is treated individually he stays with a better impression of the brand. Demonstration of personal culture, empathy, and patience is required during customer service as well.

Importance of customer service

High-quality customer service may contribute to the faster development of the company. A happy client is more likely to come back to the given shop and probably can recommend its services to his friends. Good customer service improves the brand image of the company and can be one of many ways to surpass the competition and reach leadership in the market. Positive opinions and recommendations can increase sales as well.

Accordingly to the research made by Zendesk more than 81% of consumers have declared that a positive customer service experience increases the chance that they will shop again from the given company. Additionally, 95% of the consumers state that they become more loyal to the brand.

Better customer service tips

When you know that customer service is important, still you can ask yourself a question, how can you approach this issue? Practical tips should improve your interaction with clients.

Organization and automatization – great customer service has to be consistent. If you have many employees you have to provide them with the information about all the answers they have to give. Your message has to be coherent, and the knowledge of your consultants up-to-date. Create a list of the most frequently asked question and make an FAQ, that you can include on your website. Additionally, you may use a chatbot, that will support your customer service team. Such a solution is very beneficial for your company, but it is equally useful for your clients that can count on help 24/7.

Introduce self-service – many clients are eager to solve their problems independently. They search for the answer in the tab with the most frequently asked question or use chatbots. Sometimes, even blog posts with information can be helpful.

Personalization – is the trend that is present in the e-commerce industry for a while. Clients like to be treated exceptionally and love to have an opportunity to choose. This is why some of them decide to solve the problem by telephone, some may use a chatbot, and others will contact the customer service team with the help of Messenger.

Short response time – client search for usability, comfort, and speed. Having learned by the usage of the browsers that the responses can come quickly, the clients expect similar quickness from online customer service systems. Long waiting for the answer from the customer service team can discourage the client from further shopping.

Summary

Sellers, who wish to gain success in the online store running should pay attention to the relationship with clients. E-commerce customer service is not only a temporary trend but a very important factor, that influences the behavior of the client. A satisfied customer can become a loyal client.

Read also: Global leadership trends in business for 2022 and 2023

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Best free CRM software – table of contents:

1. What is a free CRM software?
2. For whom are free CRMs intended?
3. The best free CRM software
4. CRM freeware – Summary
5. Why use free CRM software?
6. For which solutions can we customize a free CRM?
7. Can CRM be integrated with other systems?
8. Who uses CRM most often?

What is a free CRM software?

The popularity and convenience of CRMs render them key software for customer relationship management. These applications have both freemium and upgraded paid versions. Free CRMs are equipped with several features necessary for proper business management, but also for conducting customer-owner, customer-employee, customer-salesman, etc. interactions. They provide for efficient management of tasks or threads related to a given business conversation, as well as for maintaining relationships with customers.

Naturally, free CRM also allows you to directly serve people who order a product, for example, in an online store, or request a specific item. Such storage of information through free CRMs guarantees for the future the possibility to return to the matter quickly, since customers who have ordered something for the first time from a particular store, wholesaler, or other company may want more offers for the products in the future. Free CRM in the cloud also guarantees a direct stay in the customer-seller reaction through online services, thus providing quick access to the information in the CRM through the web.

CRM is not only a tool for recording various notes related to business conversations with given customers, it is also a business strategy and modern way of implementing and managing services and processes in a given company. CRMs have several features that enable you to, for example, attach digital documents to a case, sales or trading documents. They operate in a network structure in real-time since information is entered and processed in a single database. Therefore, every person using this software from any device has updated information.

For whom are free CRMs intended?

Due to their wide range of capabilities, CRMs come in handy for professionals who have many business conversations that would be troublesome to remember and keep an eye on. This type of software yields great help for customer relationship management as it handles direct inquiries concerning sales and sales routes by integrating with online services. It also automatically manages requests for quotes, complaints and suchlike.

The best free CRM software

Which free CRM to pick? There are a lot of free CRM systems on the market but let’s start with probably the most popular and respected one called SugarCRM. Its free version has numerous features such as a personalized user panel, the ability to add new objects with the so-called subpanels or utile paths to link many elements of the CRM to access a specific case module. In addition, SugarCRM guarantees the registration, as well as the planning of many events. What is more, it has options to import and export documents or digital data.

Another free CRM is SuiteCRM. It has plenty of capabilities beyond the standard of its kind. First of all, the program was built with rich features that empower each user to handle customer requests, lead and manage projects or record business meetings and phone calls. SuiteCRM is integrated with Google Maps and has a built-in wizard for automating many tasks. It also guarantees event management from the user panel.

VTiger application as CRM free is a program that grants numerous features. With VTiger we can use free services such as MS Office or popular email applications such as Mozilla Thunderbird, MS Outlook. It has an administrator and user panel, where we can configure and manage many functionalities. It also integrates with marketing systems, communication systems or online services.

CRM freeware – Summary

Every business owner who wants his enterprise, business to expand its capabilities and gain many customers should use modern free CRM systems. A free CRM as a tool for any type of business gives some possibilities to manage customer relationships. These systems can also perform many other tasks such as project management, accounting, company management, etc. Naturally, CRM modules work locally as well as online. The free CRM download is a solution that merges the software for personal computers with the data of the company network.

Why use free CRM software?

Because they enhance conducting business-to-business and sales relationships with given customers. It is a solution that combines multiple modules into one cohesive whole. It entitles you to manage as well as collect data in CRM.

For which solutions can we customize a free CRM?

CRM systems certainly find their usage in commercial, sales, marketing services or running a business that relies on customer relationships. Customizing a CRM application is easy, as programs of this type are versatile tools for collecting data on business contacts.

Can CRM be integrated with other systems?

Free CRMs can be integrated with other services, for example, online systems that support e-commerce outlets, as well as email or office programs. Therefore, we can exploit the option of combining multiple systems into one common structure.

Who uses CRM most often?

Most often free CRM programs serve salespeople, salesmen, owners of sole proprietorships and companies employing a large number of people. Recently, the program is also increasingly popular with people working on multiple projects in various fields.

Check out our previous article on CRM for freelancers and join our to stay in touch!

Facebook contests – table of contents:

1. Why a contest?
2. Facebook competitions in compliance with the law
3. What to remember when organizing a competition on Facebook?

Why the contest?

The first question you should ask yourself is about the legitimacy of organizing a contest. The vast majority of contests are created without any preconception and end up with the feeling that both the time and resources have been pointlessly wasted by the brand carrying out the endeavor. Surely, it doesn’t have to be like that. Let’s dissect the whys.

What goals can a contest achieve? Contrary to popular opinion, we don’t recommend organizing contests to generate more followers and extend your reach. It is very difficult to design a good mechanism that will limit the inflow of prize hunters and uninterested people and will only sift potential customers. After all, we don’t care about the reach as such, but the reach in our target group.

It is a good idea to prepare a contest in such a way as to increase sales. By this I mean an increase in total sales, individual products, as well as the shopping basket. A strong trend of lowering the entry threshold, i.e. making it easy for everyone to take part, is not such a good direction at all. Sometimes it is worth demanding (e.g. when buying a product or service) a higher entry threshold to gain measurable benefits.

The third purpose of contests is to gain valuable data concerning your customers. What they like, what they like, what should be improved, how they use the product, etc. As you can guess, the goals can be combined.

Regardless of what you care about, define the concrete outcomes you expect so that you can hold yourself accountable. We caution against focusing on inappropriate metrics, such as the number of submissions, which has no direct impact on the company’s financial performance. Instead, I recommend measurable and tangible figures such as increased sales, response, or customer base growth.

Facebook competitions in line with the law

Facebook’s terms of service have one brief point in this regard: the contest must have terms of service stating who is organizing the contest and must not use the users’ timelines. In other words, we can’t require people to post on their private profiles, share, tag themselves in photos, or anything else that might appear on a contestant’s profile, excluding messages from the app.

We can require liking the fanpage, but not sharing the contest post. Facebook can delete a contest post or even suspend or shut down an entire fanpage for such actions, and it’s not as uncommon as you might think.

Without going into legal intricacies, the contest should have regulations (with dates, responsible entity, etc.) – here we recommend legal backup in a form of a lawyer. Besides, competitions with drawing of winners require notification to the Customs Chamber. Lack of notification means can lead to legal punishment in a form of a fine, but this is subjected to the country’s regulations. So make sure to double-check the matter way before setting up your contest.

We encourage writing regulations, because this is the only way to include a clause that the submitted works can be used by us as brand communication. The secondary goal of the contest should be to generate user content, which we can then publish at will.

What is to keep in mind when organizing a contest on Facebook?

Apart from planning the goal and measuring the effects, envisage various mechanisms of securing oneself from contestants. There are professional contestants who often earn their living this way. They are not interested in your company, they make it impossible for your actual clients to win and they are demanding and annoying.

An example of a senseless mechanism exposing us to the harm of the contestants is a competition in which the application with the most likes wins. Currently, obtaining likes on Facebook is as cheap as bread. For a regular person, getting 100 likes for a post or a photo may appear as an achievement but for the regular contestant, it is several minutes and few dollars.

Not to mention the competition groups, where such “professional” players support each other. None of these likes are meaningful for our business – they are from artificial accounts or people who professionally participate in contests, and cause frustration to our customers.

Consider using an app. Despite additional costs, increasing the entry threshold and the complexity of the contest, we can ask the participants to agree to receive marketing materials. In this way, we can obtain a database of e-mails for the newsletter or an interesting group for which we can target ads on Facebook.

I also always encourage to donate prizes associated with our company. Random people are always more likely to opt for a camera or a tablet. Only our clients will go for a product complementary to the one they have to buy in the contest.

If you want to combine social elements, i.e. the opinion of Internet users, but protect yourself from their pranks, maybe you should combine these elements to form something fresh. Remember that on the web many people like to tease others and vote for a joke.

The solution is, for example, to create a two-stage system of voting by Internet users and selection of a committee, although in the light of the possibility of buying votes I recommend a slightly different solution. To take part, an entry must receive a certain minimum number of votes, e.g. 10 likes, and from those that meet this condition, the committee selects the best one.

In a competition, the transparency of our actions is extremely important. It is very easy to damage your image with accusations of nepotism, dishonesty or unprofessionalism. And this is not the effect we want to achieve.

To sum up, contests can be a great business tool for promoting a brand and gaining new customers. Yet, take some to determine its course, regulations and scope to avoid unpleasant mishaps or as they say, monkey business.

After collecting the data, learn how to use it and increase the effectiveness of actions with Facebook Audience Insights and also how to make a good Facebook advertisement.

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How to create a newsletter – table of contents :

• Think before you write
• A few words about… words
• Call to action – the magic of one spell
• Creating a newsletter – step by step

Want to send emails to customers but don’t know where to start? Read how to create a newsletter that is both interesting and effective.

Think before you write

On the wave of enthusiasm and eagerness to act we would like to sit down and write an e-mail to our database of contacts in a few minutes and immediately expect a great response. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple – before writing the first word, you need to think carefully about what you want to include in such an email and why send it. To improve message planning, it’s worth asking yourself a few guiding questions:

What goal do I want to achieve by sending a specific message?

This is the starting point for any newsletter. Think about what you really care about. Do you want to notify customers of a new offer? Encourage them to visit a specific page? Inform about a new product? Offer free content on a particular topic? Determining the purpose at the beginning will make it much easier to choose the text and visual elements later on.

What content might my customers be interested in?

Now that a goal has been created, it’s time to find the right means to achieve it. What attracts the attention of your customers? What is important to them? If your newsletter contains or refers to content that is relevant to the recipient (e.g. shows how to solve a specific problem related to your product or service), you increase the chance that the recipient will open the email, read it entirety and perform the expected action.

What do you need to create a visually appealing and informative message?

There is no universal recipe for a good newsletter, but you can use a handful of proven ingredients that, in the right proportions, will produce the right effect. Consider what you want to present, will it be more readable for the recipient as text or graphics, or maybe more visual like a video.

If you want to target an external website, think about a button in your newsletter and a relevant message on it, i.e. a call to action. It may turn out that a matching landing page, an external website focused on a single goal, will be useful for your newsletter – I will write more about them in one of the following articles. Meanwhile, let’s focus on the substance, the text itself.

A few words about… words

However important the visual aspect of the message is, the text remains the primary information carrier in the newsletter. It is worth devoting enough time and concentration to it. What should you pay attention to while writing?

First of all, clarity and transparency. Writing any advertising text we tell a story that should interest the reader so much that at the right moment he wanted to take part in it by performing the action envisaged by the author, such as clicking a link. Therefore, make sure that all the elements of your story flow from each other and the recipient will not get lost while reading.

Pay particular attention to your choice of vocabulary. Avoid using industry jargon or professional terms where it’s not necessary – especially if you’re targeting a customer who doesn’t need to know how your products or services work behind the scenes. When writing, imagine that you are talking to your customer. Use fairly short, precise sentences and phrases that are easily understood.

Call to action – the magic of one spell

I’m only bringing this up now, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less important than the rest of the newsletter elements. I would even say that planning the content of the message should start with the call to action. It’s a short slogan that is supposed to trigger a specific behavior in the recipient, e.g. viewing a given content or taking part in a contest.

The slogan should be short and precise, so forget about the mysterious “More” or “Next”. Be specific. What happens when the recipient clicks on the button? Will he see new products? Compare offers? Download free content? Watch a video? Nothing stands in the way of making it a call to action: “Watch the video”, “Download tutorial”, “See offer”. This way the recipient knows what to expect and can go to the next page with interest.

Creating a newsletter – step by step

If you already have a goal and the means to express it – it is time to start writing. It’s a piece of cake – say those who feel writing is their cup of tea. And if you aren’t one of them, don’t worry, you can make it by following these steps.

Sketch out a plan for the text itself with three elements: introduction, main body, conclusion. The first part introduces the recipient to the topic of the newsletter, the second contains more detailed information, and the third urges for a predetermined action. This is a proven recipe for a clear and effective text.

Add other elements to the content plan, e.g. graphics, links, videos, buttons. Make sure that together with the text they form a coherent whole and complement each other. Write the first draft of your text, adapting the language of your newsletter to the one your audience associates you with. If you run a law firm and maintain formal communication, stick to that style. If, on the other hand, you run a less formal business and communicate with your clients more casually, there is no need to change this style.

Make sure that the elements of your message are arranged. The text should be placed on a background that does not make it difficult to read. Graphics and videos should be shown in the right size and quality to make viewing them a pleasure. Pay attention to the appropriate size of the button leading to the external page and the appropriate call to action message.

Don’t send the newsletter right away – wait at least a few hours, and preferably a day if you can. After that time, go through and read everything again. You will certainly notice places that need corrections and changes, opportunities to shorten the text or add important information. This is completely normal – good texts take time to write and the first draft is rarely the best one.

Before you send a newsletter to your contact base, send a test email to your account. Check that all elements are displayed correctly and that the links work and lead to the right pages. Make corrections if necessary, test again and only then send to your recipients.

Before you send it out, make sure your message doesn’t include such minor errors as displaced graphics. Also, double-check for: clarity, attractive graphics and precise messages.

I hope this short guide will give you confidence as you write future newsletters. It should get easier with each subsequent message – not only because practice makes perfect, but also because you’re getting to know your audience’s preferences better. Their reactions to specific content will make it easier for you to create more effective emails.

Read also our article about 5 newsletter details that really make a difference and join out to stay in touch!

Author: Kasia Kramnik – is a specialist in social media and content marketing. In her work she combines her passion for writing, communication and new media. She loves diversity, which can be seen in the portfolio of the brands she has worked for – from marketing and social media to pharmaceutical and cosmetics industry. Privately, a fan of good cinema and fiction, an enthusiast of dance and visual arts.

What is social listening and which are the best social listening tools

Social listening is the act of sifting through all social media channels in search of mentions related to your business, brand, products, keywords, and competitors. The most important aspect of social listening is learning – analyzing the data you’ve accumulated and determining what actions can be taken. That might be responding to messages or completely revamping your strategy, or anything in between.

It’s important to note that social listening and social media monitoring are two different things. While social media monitoring tracks metrics, social listening focuses on what is being said. Think quantitative versus qualitative data. Social media monitoring gives you data, or the “what,” whereas listening gives you the “why.”

Why does it matter?

The phrase “social listening” can sound daunting, but in reality, it’s listening to what your customers have to say and adjusting to their needs.

Think of it this way: if you owned a bed and breakfast and a guest told you that the bed wasn’t comfortable, you’d listen, right? If you heard multiple customers express the same sentiment, you might consider making a change. Once you bought new beds, you’d listen for feedback to see if your customers are sleeping better.

Social listening is a way to do this on a grander scale. You can receive feedback from all kinds of people, check out your competitors, and track keywords. When it’s all put together, it creates a larger picture that you can learn from and act on.

What successful social listening looks like

With social listening, you can engage with customers when they leave positive or negative comments. By responding to positive comments, you further build that positive relationship. For example, if someone posted about how great their stay at your bed and breakfast was and tagged your business’s page, you’d respond saying that it was a pleasure hosting them.

On the flipside, by responding to negative comments, you can save the day before a situation escalates. If someone tweeted that your website wasn’t allowing them to book a stay at your bed and breakfast, you could hop in and correct the issue immediately.

This works on larger scales, too. When there’s a crisis or scandal related to your business, people will be watching and listening for a response from you. They want to see you address it and right any wrongs. Ignoring it will only negatively impact your reputation.

When you’re done reviewing your own socials, you should be checking out the competition and the industry. Track your top competitors to see what new products they’re releasing and what the public has to say. Then, zoom out and look at your overall industry. What are people saying they need? What isn’t working for them? Finally, take a look at your own offering and see if you can fill in any of that white space.

Four social listening tools to consider

Now that you know what social listening is and you’re ready to get started, you might consider using a tool to assist you. Social listening tools can collect data for you, so you don’t have to do the leg work searching for mentions and studying keywords. Here are our top 4 tools that you should consider:

Sprout Social

Improve interactions and simplify your experience using Sprout Social. Their social media management software brings everything together for you.

• Smart inbox – Aggregates messages from all platforms to one inbox, so you never miss a message. It’s built for team collaboration, so you’ll never reply to the same message twice.
• Brand keywords – Never miss out on a message that references your brand or products. Brand keywords run constantly and display in your smart inbox.
• Trends report – Check out the most popular hashtags, topics, people, and brands that are mentioned with your business. This helps to create better content and reach more audiences.
• Keyword report – Learn about the traffic for keywords related to your business, so you can track the market, check marketing effectiveness, and track your products.

Hubspot

Prioritize interactions and never miss an opportunity to connect using this social media product.

• Marketing campaigns – Build a campaign and share content from your blog or elsewhere to social media channels, all with guidance on when the best time is to post.
• Monitor social media interactions – Check for interactions from contacts from your database.
• Keywords – Create keyword monitoring streams that are specific to your business.
• Compare channels – Check performance from various social media channels with stats on visits and leads, so you know where to focus your energy and where you need to grow.

Hootsuite

Combine social media monitoring and listening all in one place. Simplify social media by bringing all platforms to a singular dashboard.

• Inbox – See all social media interactions, public and private, in one place.
• Streams – Hootsuite’s streams help you monitor and engage with people on all platforms from one dashboard. Choose to look at your posts and mentions, your industry, or browse all.
• Search streams – Choose hashtags, keywords, and more that you want to track. Hootsuite will continually update this info for you.
• Content – plan, create, schedule, and store content in one place so your team can collaborate and post with ease.

Synthesio

This free Hootsuite app helps businesses listen, engage, and analyze conversations across all social media platforms, as well as mainstream media.

• Filters – This feature allows you to segment data so you can find your audience. This includes countries, languages, sentiments, authors, topics, affinities, and more.
• Monitoring – Multitask by monitoring all of your streams at one time, in one place.
• Communicate – Assign mentions amongst your team and reply, DM, and retweet to Twitter, all from the app.

Final Thoughts

As more and more business is done on line, social media has cemented itself as an important part of any business’s marketing strategy. Staying dialed into what people are saying about your business, products, competitors, and industry is more important than ever. With social listening, you’re able to get more feedback and react faster than ever before. Whether you choose to use a tool to help you with that or not, you must incorporate social listening into your strategy to stay competitive.

Read also: Social proof in marketing – best practices and examples

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The tab shows you events by day and time.

Calendar view

Events displayed in the calendar view include details such as title, status, and time (if optional).

Filters

Step 1.

Step 2.

You can add a new calendar by using the New calendar button. You can edit: calendar’s name, distinctive color or delete it (except the default one). The calendar’s settings, filters and status are displayed in the drop-down sidebar.

You can also filter issues by the types of users.

The user can change the settings of the calendar view and filter the users by their type. The view of the list is determined by the privileges of the role of the user:

2. Issues

Creating an issue

• event (selected by default),
• meeting,
• task.

• subject or descriptions (mandatory area)
• status:
  • new
  • currently in progress
  • done
  • canceled
• calendar
• dates – specify the start and end dates for events and meetings. You can also set a deadline for each task. Depending on where the creation of the issue is activated, a specific day is selected from the grid or the current day. It applies if you use the main button.

Step 1.

Step 2.

The user can add more details by selecting the More options button.

As a result, a window will be displayed with additional options to fill:

• Subject,
• Description,
• subtasks – only for the task mode,
• Place,
• Online meeting option (Type issue: meeting),
• Assigned user,
• Assigned contact,
• Attachments,
• Subtask (Type issue: task),
• Comments,
• Project,
• Type of calendar,
• Dates,
• Estimated hours,
• Milestone,
• Repetition,
• Timetracker- this option is available only for the task type which is associated with the project. From here, you can set the time log spent on an activity. After adding the time log in a task, you can see the information about who, when and how much time spent on it. Time logs are also displayed in the Timesheet project tab. Generating To do – enabled setting will remind you of the event on your desktop in the To-do section. Author – information about the author of the request. You can fill in or change this area.

Subtasks

Attachments

Next to the section’s name, there is a button for uploading attachments. Below you will see a list of files with details including: author, date of upload and file’s type. You can do the following actions for the files: file, view, download and delete.

Cyclicality settings

• everyday,
• weekly,
• monthly
• annual,
• custom.

A task set as recurring will be displayed in the calendar as agreed, e.g. – if Tuesday is a due date and the user has to set a recurrence for weekly, the task will be displayed every Tuesday. Cyclical tasks are also displayed in task lists and kanban but only the closest occurrences of tasks are shown there (according to the period applicable to the list).

You can customize the frequency of occurrences in the custom settings. You can choose the Repeat without weekends option, set a repeat for every week, etc.

The user can specify when the repetition should end. You can choose between:

• • endless,
  • to the specific number of repetitions,
  • to the specific date.

• • only this request,
  • this and following requests,
  • all requests (also for the previous ones),
  • commenting on events.

User assignments

Assigning to contracts

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Best CRM software for freelancers – table of contents:

1. CRM for freelancers. Why is it important?
2. What is CRM?
3. I’m a new freelancer. Why do I need CRM?
4. I’m a pro. Where are the profits from CRM for freelancers?

CRM for freelancers. Why is it important?

Of course, there is also the COVID-19 pandemic, which became the true catalyst of work environment changes. So-called new normality got its own challenges, which require new solutions. One of those is a question about properly managing the relations between atomic units working for a common purpose. Thankfully digital world provides solutions and tools to juggle that type of challenge – the CRM software.

What is CRM?

Ok, first things first. What exactly is CRM? That’s pretty simple – Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is an approach to build, develop, and keep good relations with clients. Sounds simple but quite general, right? So let’s focus on CRM’s practical and technological dimensions. CRM is a category of tools and software products to manage relations with clients. I know, it looks like Customer Relationship Management systems are dedicated to big companies with complicated structures. Why should you, as a freelancer or small business owner, care about just another tool? Well, because that „just another tool” might become your best friend and undisputedly help to reach your goals.

Phase 1: I’m a new freelancer. Why do I need CRM?

Beginnings usually are quite challenging and require maximum patience and consistency. As a newbie, your main goal is to build the public – regular customers, clients, and leads. To interest and keep them you need wonderful communication. Everything requires time and focus.

Let’s underline it. No matter how hard you work you won’t overcome the 24-hour in a day. But there are things which can help to manage a given time wisely. CRM software is the thing. Using it in the communication you get profits, as the possibility of tracking the whole relationship with the client, label the progress, and keeping notes. To boost and automatize communications you can create and use email templates.

CRM for freelancers makes handling the whole communication effective and easy. Even (or especially) if your client’s database develops fast. And I wish it will!

Phase 2: I’m a pro. Where are the profits from CRM for freelancers?

If you’re a freelancer with a large base of clients – wonderful, you’re doing a great job! I suppose one of your main concerns is how to manage the communication with customers and clients. As nowadays interdependency with various people may be really complicated using roper CRM tool is more than helpful. By using it you can label the relationships, take notes, organize calendars with relevant reminders.

Some CRM systems provides also the possibility to control finances, i.e. to manage expenses or to invoice.

CRM for freelancers helps organize email (and other) communication. Even if you’re working with just a few clients you’ll appreciate how much time CRM software can save you.  Additionally, most Customer Relationship Management systems show open tickets (i.e. new email) – if you’re busy at the moment the ticket will remind you not to forget to respond. It’s so unprofessional!

No matter if you have 5, 20, or 500 clients, CRM has important functions for every freelancer – it tracks your success. How? By conversion rates, successful lead contacts, CTR (click-through rates) for emails, and so on.

You really don’t need to be a large company with thousands of clients to appreciate the values of a good CRM system. At least it’s worth to give it a try – judge by yourself if CRM answers your needs. Oh, by the way – you don’t need to pay for good CRM software.

ż­·˘k8Ć콢Ěü allows you not only to manage your relations with clients but also manage whole:

• projects and tasks,
• control finances,
• invoice,
• find a perfect employee match.

If you want to join let us know. And don’t forget to join our to stay in touch!]]> /crm-for-freelancers-how-to-choose-the-best-crm-software/feed 0