CRM Software Tool automates administrative tasks.
Press Release Summary:
Rave features Gamer Influenced Design(TM) that enhances aesthetic appeal of business software by integrating gaming design techniques such as star rankings for gaging importance of contacts, prospects, and deals. While smart client architecture enables sales reps to work online and offline, workflow and automation capabilities help guide behavior of sales professionals. Software also includes Live Chat feature as well as pre-built reports and data mining tools.
Original Press Release:
Entellium Rolls Out Rave
Next-generation CRM product breaks ground using Gamer Influenced Design
SEATTLE, April 17 -- Entellium (http://entellium.com/) today announced the full availability of a new version of Rave, its next generation CRM software tool designed to help small sales organizations sell more effectively. Rave (ravecrm.com) offers a host of time-saving, efficiency- enhancing features; an intuitive, visually rich user interface; advanced workflow and automation capabilities to better guide the behavior of sales professionals; and a "smart client" architecture that lets sales reps work both online and offline more easily.
Rave was developed using Gamer Influenced Design (GID)(TM), an Entellium- grown concept that incorporates many of the elements found in today's best- selling video games. GID gives traditional boring business software a makeover by integrating visually compelling gaming design techniques.
"Rave is CRM re-mastered for sales people," said Paul Johnston, President and CEO of Entellium. "Rave achieves the double-whammy of delighting the sales rep and delivering all the business benefits our customers are looking for, but in a fun-to-use package that pure play-on-demand services can't achieve."
In developing Rave, Johnston sought a sales productivity tool that embraced many key features found in today's leading video game designs. "After doing a great deal of research, we found that gamers and sales professionals are remarkably similar," Johnston said. "Both play against the clock, score points and require a play-to-win mentality to succeed. Based on these similarities, there is a great deal that business software can learn from the gaming world related to product design. Our latest release of Rave incorporates this thinking, and GID is our inspiration for delivering the mass of unmet unarticulated desires of business software users, whose experience has been neglected."
To create a new product that goes farther than any other solution to meet the needs of sales professionals, Entellium's development team conducted 67,000 hours of usability research and solicited feedback from hundreds of frustrated salespeople. Common complaints from sales professionals included:
-- CRM solutions took too long to bring up new pages and save edits;
-- Users were required to traverse multiple screens and tabs to input data. This led to "click" fatigue;
-- Not enough routine sales tasks were automated by CRM tools;
-- Access to sales and customer data away from the office was unreliable, due to ineffective "offline" clients.
Rave, which is available for a free trial download at ravecrm.com, overcomes these obstacles with a simple, intuitive navigational experience that's more responsive than most browser-based tools. It includes an advanced automation engine that liberates sales professionals from administrative busywork (for example, creating reports and scheduling common tasks) and breakthrough "smart client" architecture with a built-in offline mode that gives users access to important data anytime, anywhere -- even when an Internet connection is not available, such as on a plane.
Rave also provides built-in "Live Chat" feature for instant 24x7 customer support and pre-built reports and sophisticated data mining tools that give managers complete visibility into the progress of each sales rep and their pipeline. Based on the data, managers can then share best-practices habits as required.
"I got frustrated having to plan everything around where I'd get Internet access," said Kevin Lutgarten, vice president of JobMonkey.com. "With Rave, it's different. The data I need is on my laptop and on the Internet, so I get the best of both worlds. I can be at a coffee shop, on a bus, at the airport -- anywhere -- and I don't have to worry if I forget one little piece of information. When I eventually hook up to the Internet, Rave syncs up seamlessly. It's fast, easy and effective."
Examples of GID in Rave include:
-- Star Rankings. Knowing your most important contacts, prospects and deals is vital to sales success. Star Rankings provide an at-a-glance view. Rave examines a number of details about each record (including the projected close date, win percentages and importance of each contact), then uses an advanced algorithm to calculate a Star Ranking for each. The choice of who to call each day becomes much clearer, resulting in more effective selling and time management. Better decisions can be made with less effort with this visual representation compared to tedious text-based display.
-- Activity Maps(TM). "Seeing" what is happening with a contact is the cornerstone of successful execution. Today, sales reps rely heavily on tabular, grid-based views of their CRM data-views that don't provide an easy way to spot trends, see anomalies or connect different data points. This view of Activities provides instant visibility into the true relationship with a contact.
-- Activity Automator(TM). When it comes to everyday sales activities -- like sending emails, scheduling outbound calls and running reports -- Rave does the work automatically. As a result, users spend significantly less time on tedious administrative tasks. Sales reps are free to focus on completing the most urgent activities and managers can spend more time understanding sales trends and removing obstacles to growth.
-- RSS Automator(TM). Sales professionals get a jump on the competition when they sound relevant to their prospects. Rave does the rep's sales research for them, with built-in newsfeeds that stream headlines related to each prospect directly onscreen. Now reps can spend their time being relevant to their customers, instead of endlessly scouring the web for news.
Availability & Pricing
Rave CRM is available immediately on a subscription basis at a list price of $400 per user, per year. To learn more about Rave, visit http://ravecrm.com/.
About Entellium
Founded in 2000, Entellium is a global software company that develops Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software for small and midsize businesses and for enterprise departments. Entellium software helps sales teams balance the everyday needs of sales professionals with the reporting and forecasting needs of management. The company's products are consistently ranked among the most usable and affordable in the industry. Entellium's numerous awards and honors include: CRM Magazine's 2004, 2005 and 2006 Market Leader Awards for Sales Force Automation (SFA); Network Computing Lab's top award for usability, value and customer service; Network World's "Wireless Network Company to Watch" citation; and the Frost and Sullivan 2005 Customer Service Leadership award for outstanding service to customers. Entellium is headquartered in Seattle, WA, and maintains a global research and development office in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. For more information, visit http://entellium.com/.
CONTACT: Dan Lee for Entellium, +1-425-452-5495, dlee@webershandwick.com
