Overview:

Ament Resources Group is a consulting firm staffed by a team of advisors skilled in the real–world application of ethical, profit–boosting, and team–building business practices. Read why they chose to rely on ACT! by Sage Premium over Salesforce.com.

 

System
ACT! by Sage Premium

Add On Solution
Swiftpage

Ament Resources Group is a consulting firm staffed by a team of innovative advisors skilled in the real-world application of ethical, profit-boosting, and team-building business practices. Each highly-specialized member of the team has field-proven strategic expertise and success in a variety of core areas of business development. The firm focuses on helping small and mid-sized businesses develop successful overall business strategies. Ament Resources Group relies on ACT! by Sage Premium as part of its successful business strategy.

Stay With a Winning Solution
Mike Ament, managing member of the firm, began using ACT! by Sage as an outside salesperson in the late 1980’s. “I adopted it to help me track my appointments and as a place to record what I said, when I said it, and who I said it to. ACT! was an ideal contact management solution then, and it still is today,” Ament says.

It was natural then, Ament says, to select ACT! Premium when he started his own business several years ago. “I looked at other packages like Salesforce.com, but really didn’t strongly consider anything other than ACT! Premium. It does what it’s supposed to do. It’s easy to use, easy to teach people to use, easy to customize, and powerful in its functionality. I decided to stay with ACT! and chose ACT! Premium for its expanded workgroup functionality.”

Explore Beyond Tasks and Appointments
As he did years ago, Ament still uses ACT! Premium to track his tasks, appointments, and communications. Now, he is taking advantage of the power of ACT! to market his company’s services. “I make heavy use of the Groups feature in ACT! Premium,” he says. “I assign customers to one or more groups depending on what they are interested in, what services I’ve provided for them in the past, and even what industry they are in. Then I can easily market to the groups, sending an e-mail message specific to each audience.”

Ament designed a simple report to identify clients with a birthday in the upcoming month, using this information to send them each a birthday greeting. “It’s a simple gesture that clients appreciate,” he says.

E-mail Marketing Without the Hassle
Dozens of add-on solutions are available for ACT! Premium and Ament Resources Group takes advantage of one of them— Swiftpage. “We use Swiftpage to send bulk e-mail messages,” Ament says. “The messages are sent through the Swiftpage server, so my ISP (Internet Service Provider) doesn’t get annoyed with me.”

In addition to the convenience, Swiftpage collects statistics about the messages sent, including open, forward, and clickthrough events. “This way I know if my message is getting through,” he adds.

With the knowledge that a recipient opened the e-mail message multiple times or forwarded it, Ament might decide to call the contact to discuss the specific information included in the e-mail.

Integrate With the Tools You Know
Ament appreciates the strong integration between ACT! Premium and Microsoft Outlook. He can choose to send e-mail messages from either application and can create ACT! contacts and activities from Outlook e-mails. The ACT! Premium calendar and the Outlook calendar can be synchronized automatically, ensuring Ament and his team never miss an important appointment.

Engage a Flexible Solution
Ament Resources Group incorporated several customizations to its ACT! Premium installation, adding tabs and fields to hold the data specific to his business. “I added fields for Referral Source, and Business Type for example,” Ament explains. “I use each field to run queries that tell me where my business is coming from. Then I can target my marketing efforts to businesses with similar attributes.”

“ACT! Premium helps keep my firm top-of-mind with my customers through its marketing capabilities. Plus the strong scheduling and task management features free up my time. Without the administrative busy work, I have more time to invest in my business.”

Spend Time Working On Your Business
ACT! Premium has delivered a significant return on investment for Ament Resources Group. “ACT! Premium helps keep my firm top-of-mind with my customers through its marketing capabilities,” Ament says. “Plus the strong scheduling and task management features free up my time. Without the administrative busy work, I have more time to invest in my business.

“ACT! has grown up since I first used it nearly 20 years ago,” Ament concludes. “I’ve stayed with it all these years because it’s easy to use, easy to customize, and it still keeps me on track.”

If you would like to learn more about ACT! by Sage Premium, please visit www.act.com or call 1-866-903-0066 to speak with a sales representative today.