http://www.thisispearl.com 0845 003 8935 All content copyright T27 Systems Ltd
1
Pearl : CRM
Integrated Business Software
Managing customers, suppliers and contacts in Pearl
V. 1.12.1
http://www.thisispearl.com 0845 003 8935 All content copyright T27 Systems Ltd
2
Table of Contents
1. Contact management........................................................................................................................3
1.1.
Creating contacts......................................................................................................................3
1.2.
Creating suppliers.....................................................................................................................3
1.3.
Creating and editing administrators................................................................................................3
1.4.
Finding contacts.......................................................................................................................3
1.5.
Groups...................................................................................................................................3
1.6.
Statuses.................................................................................................................................3
1.7.
Price groups............................................................................................................................4
1.8.
Custom fields...........................................................................................................................4
1.9.
Contact notes..........................................................................................................................4
1.10. Contact messages...................................................................................................................... 4
2. Call manager..................................................................................................................................5
3. Mail merges & Newsletters..................................................................................................................6
3.1.
Creating a mail merge template....................................................................................................6
3.2.
Creating a mail merge from the CRM screen......................................................................................6
3.3.
Creating a mail merge from the mailmerge screen...............................................................................6
3.4.
Analysing email mail merge results.................................................................................................6
3.5.
Creating an email newsletter........................................................................................................7
http://www.thisispearl.com 0845 003 8935 All content copyright T27 Systems Ltd
3
1. Contact management
Pearl stores all your business contacts, whether they are customers, suppliers, staff members or business services, in one
single contacts database. Suppliers (companies from whom you buy products or services) are marked as such, but otherwise
every contact in the database is a "non supplier"; sales can be created for them. This allows you to do things such as assign
a product to a marketing contact for promotional purposes to keep the accounting and stock correct.
1.1.
Creating contacts
1. Click Contacts->Create new from the main menu
2. In the "Contact info" tab, enter some details for an imaginary contact.
3. Enter an email address that you can check to see the emails that Pearl is sending.
4. The "Custom fields" tab is used for any extra information you might want to store for this contact. You can set up
custom fields using Contacts->Custom fields .
5. In the "Group" tab, choose a group
6. The "Financial" tab allows you to store information that will be used when entering accounts transactions for this
contact, for credit control and so on. If you want to bill another contact for sales made on this contact's account
(perhaps a customer has two retail outlets and one accounting office) then you can use the Accounts override ID.
7. Any notes added to a customer are displayed in the notes tab, along with any messages. You can use the "memo"
field to enter any text information that you would like to be able to view/edit in the future.
8. You can attach a file to the contact if you like, such as a spreadsheet or PDF file.
9. The "Password" tab allows you control over user passwords.
10. Save your contact
1.2.
Creating suppliers
Follow the steps as for creating a regular contact but ensure you tick the "supplier" box.
1.3.
Creating and editing administrators
Follow the steps as for creating a regular contact but ensure you tick the "admin" box. When you have saved the contact
details, the contact will be able to log in to your administration area. To limit the information visible to this contact, edit
their permissions: Setup->Staff from the main menu. Note that each new administrator by default has access to every part
of the system.
1.4.
Finding contacts
To find a contact, type part of the contact name, company name or email address in the contacts quick search box at the
top of the screen. This will take you to the CRM screen and display all contacts that match your search results. To go
directly to the CRM screen just click Contacts from the main menu. Once in the CRM screen you can also use the grey box at
the top of the page to show a specific selection of contacts, or click the group name directly on the left of the screen.
1.5.
Groups
Pearl allows you to create groups to make it easier to keep control of large number of contacts. To view or edit the list of
groups, click Contacts->Groups from the main menu. Groups can be assigned sub-groups, and contacts can be placed into
more than one group. You may, for example, have four main groups: Customers, Suppliers, Business Services, and Staff. You
can subdivide your groups as much as you like, but bear in mind that a lot of information is already held in the contact
database elsewhere. Whether a customer is retail price or trade price, for example, is stored as a setting so groups should
not be used to differentiate between the two. You can also set custom fields, which will allow you to display a list of
contacts where the custom field is a certain value, regardless of the group. Generally if you select a main group anywhere
in Pearl, the sub-groups will also be displayed/mail merged.
1.6.
Statuses
In addition to the other ways of grouping your contacts, you may set a "status". The statuses you have to choose from are
editable; click Setup->Customer statuses from the main menu. These would be used, for example, to categories customers
in a single group into different stages within a sales flow; the statuses could be set as;
Not yet contacted
Good potential
Unlikely
Closed: won
Closed: lost
You can set a number of days when creating a status; this is the number of days that Pearl will wait before reminding you
that the contact has not had any communication for that period of time. This feature will be available if you are using the
PearlMail module.
http://www.thisispearl.com 0845 003 8935 All content copyright T27 Systems Ltd
4
1.7.
Price groups
There are 3 "price groups" set up in Pearl to allow you to sell your products to different types of customers. These price
groups are
00Retail
00/span>
Trade
00Distributor
However, these groups can be used in any way you wish. For example you are a large retailer of electronic equipment
selling to the end user online, as well as selling bulk orders to stores for separate, onward sale to the end user. The end
user would be charged at "retail" price, whilst the stores would be charged at "trade" price. Note that this has nothing to
do with the price at which you buy products.
If a contact is set to "trade price" then when a sale order/quote is created for them, the trade prices will be used. If no
trade price exists for a product, when creating an order this product will be hidden.
When a user logs in to your website, an prices will be displayed using the correct price group.
1.8.
Custom fields
You may add an unlimited number of additional fields to be used for contacts, to allow you to sort and manage your
customers and suppliers better. Custom fields can be used for customers and/or suppliers. You can choose whether custom
field data appears in the customer's account area online for update by themselves.
Click Contacts->Custom fields from the main menu and follow the instructions on screen.
1.9.
Contact notes
Notes can be added to a contact to create a timeline of events. Pearl will add some notes automatically; for example when
an invoice is sent by email to a contact, a note will be added to the contact's notes trail. These notes are not editable,
they are for providing a record of events that are not otherwise stored by Pearl. "Waiting for payment" is an example of a
bad note; the information is stored elsewhere in the system, and another note will need to be manually added when
payment is made to prevent misunderstandings. "Customer visited office to talk about progress. See minutes file XXX"
would be an example of a good note. Notes are automatically tagged with the current date and the administrator name.
1.10.
Contact messages
You can set urgent messages for contacts; these will appear at the top of the order screen. Typical messages might remind
the administrator that a credit note is due, returning product is expected back from the customer etc.
To add a message, search for the contact using the quick search box, hover over the "menu" link and click "add message".
To remove the message, click Contacts->Messages from the main menu and delete the relevant message.
http://www.thisispearl.com 0845 003 8935 All content copyright T27 Systems Ltd
5
2. Call manager
(OfficePro only) Pearl has a tool to enable you
to track the time you spend on the phone to
clients. Wherever you see the call manager
icon, click it to open a window showing the
contact details, latest notes and a call timer.
Each call is tracked and can be used for
reporting later.
To use the call manager:
1. Search for a contact using the contacts
quick search box
2. Click the call manager icon
3. Choose incoming/outgoing
4. Make the call
5. Enter some notes
6. Tick the "schedule follow-up" box
7. Choose a follow-up date, time and title
8. Save and close
Click Contacts->Call logs from the main menu to
see a list of recent calls.
The follow up will have created a task in your
task list.
The notes will be added to the notes trail so
that you or other staff members can see the
details of the call.
http://www.thisispearl.com 0845 003 8935 All content copyright T27 Systems Ltd
6
3. Mail merges & Newsletters
You can create an email/SMS/letter template and merge it with a list of contacts to send bulk, but personalised, messages
by post, email or by text message if you have purchased text message credits. The template can contain images, logos and
formatting just like every other template that Pearl uses.
Note that if you are sending an email mail merge, then the contact must have "receive emails" ticked in their details.
3.1.
Creating a mail merge template
You will need to create a template first:
1. Click Documents->Create new , and create a new document. See any of the system templates for a guide.
2. Make sure you've set a return email address.
3. If you want to add images to your template, click the "upload images" button, choose or create an image directory
and upload an image file. Make sure the image file is of a sensible size for the template, for example when sending
email templates a maximum width of 600 pixels is a good idea. Click the image thumbnail to show its location in
the URL box, copy this URL and paste into the HTML editor ( button). For more information on templates and
images - request the "website" training pack from Pearl.
4. Save the template
5. To make this template available in the CRM or mail merge pages, make sure you activate it by clicking the green
dot icon. You cannot activate or de-activate system templates.
If you want to create your documents in another html editor such as Dreamweaver or FrontPage, you can do so, and copy
the raw html in using the "html" button on the editor in Pearl.
3.2.
Creating a mail merge from the CRM screen
If you have a mail merge template (a newsletter, for example) already complete then you can quickly send it to a number
of contacts using the CRM screen. If you want to send a mail merge to a specific set of contacts that are not in a group,
then use the CRM screen.
1. Pull up a list of contacts using the options at the top of the CRM screen
2. Select the contacts from this list using the checkbox on the left of the screen
3. Choose "letter" or "email" on the left hand side
4. Choose the mail merge template (don't forget it needs to be active to show here)
5. Click submit
If you choose email, each user will receive a copy of the mail merge with all the fields replaced by the relevant information
(e.g. "_contactFirstName_" would be replaced by the contact's name). If you choose to print a letter, then a new window
will be opened for each contact on the list with the mail merge ready for printing.
3.3.
Creating a mail merge from the mailmerge screen
This will allow you to edit an existing mail merge template before sending, and send it to a whole group of contacts
(including sub groups), limited by status if required. If you want to assign the mail merge to a particular marketing
campaign, then you will need to use this mailmerge screen.
1. Click Contacts->Mail merge from the main menu
2. Choose the mailmerge template you require
3. Edit the template on-screen
4. Select the group of recipients
5. Perform the mail merge
3.4.
Analysing email mail merge results
You can click Contacts->Mail merge stats to see a list of recent email mail merges and some statistics. Pearl searches your
mail merge for any URLs, and tags these so that you can track what parts of the email the reader has clicked on. If you have
put links your email to your website, then Pearl will show you the products visited and the categories viewed as a direct
result of the mail merge. If a reader goes on to make a purchase, then that sale will be linked to the mail merge. If the mail
merge has been assigned to a campaign, then the sale will also be linked to that campaign.
Your email mail merges will be given an "open rate" - this is the total number of times that the email has been opened. If a
reader is online when viewing the email, Pearl is notified. If they are not online when the email is read, then Pearl does not
know that they have read the email - so this figure may show a lower than actual open rate. You can click on the number to
show the list of contacts that have opened the mail.
If sales have been made as a result of the mail merge, then click on the number to show the list of sales.
http://www.thisispearl.com 0845 003 8935 All content copyright T27 Systems Ltd
7
3.5.
Creating an email newsletter
Creating an email newsletter is a great way to improve your brand awareness, customer retention, sales and so on. If you
are using any of the ePearl modules you will be able to collect readers for an email newsletter automatically.
Once you have a list of recipients in a certain group, you can use the mail merge screen to send them a newsletter with
images and links to your products. There are good ways and bad ways to write email newsletters - search Google for some
advice before you start for the best response.
You can create multiple mailing lists within your contact database; create a custom field, a checkbox, titled with the name
of the mailing list. You can then pull up a list of contacts using the CRM screen where the checkbox has been ticked. For
example, your mailing list is called "Team News" - the custom field is called "Team News". In the CRM screen, using the
grey box at the top of the page, select all contacts where custom field "Team News" equals 1 (1 represents a ticked box).
search
