Is your company quickly and efficiently responding to customer questions?

With the number of companies increasingly turning to the internet to generate leads or produce sales it is not surprising that online advertising spending has jumped to $22.7 billion in 2009 from $12.5 billion in 2005. While the leads may be pouring in, a recent study by The Harvard Business Review found that many companies are slow to respond to customer inquiries and as a result put their ability to close a sale in jeopardy.

The HBR study looked at 2,241 U.S. companies and measured how long each took to respond to a web-generated lead. It was found that while 37% of the companies responded within an hour, 24% took longer than 24-hours and a shocking 23% never responded at all.

This data is particularly interesting when examining the rate at which leads go cold. Companies who make contact within the first hour are seven times more likely to qualify the lead (defined as having a meaningful conversation with a key decision maker). The qualification of leads decreased by 50% if companies waited an extra hour.

NetSuite puts the tools necessary to stay on top of leads right at your finger tips. NetSuite allows you to receive email alerts when a record is created or updated and/or schedule bulk record alerts.

NetSuite provides out of the box options for web forms. The most common can be found by going to Setup - Marketing - Online Customer Form. You can easily have an email alert sent to the assigned Sales Rep as well as specifying email addresses to cc on the alert.

When creating your online form you can set record creation preferences, found under the Setup Work Flow tab. By checking the Create Customers as Companies box you instruct NetSuite to create a customer record as a company if a company name is entered in the form. If no company name is provided, the customer record will be an individual. Uncheck this box if you always want customers to be individuals.

NetSuite's Saved Search functionality allows you to apply even more alert preferences. Check the Send Email Alert When Records Are Created/Updated to be emailed as soon as a Customer Record changes. Check Public and Allow User to Subscribe if you want this Saved Search available in the general alerts option (Home - Set Preferences - Alerts).

Email is sent the specified recipients.

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Oldroyd, James. The Short Life of Online Sales Leads. (2011, March).Harvard Business Review, 28.

ERP Guru Recognized as ÉTS Top 50 Employer

Hello everyone!

We at ERP Guru are pleased to announce that we have been nominated as one of the Top 50 Employers by the École de Technologie Supérieure.

The award officially recognizes ERP Guru's contribution to the changing landscape of Quebec and the increased emphasis on producing a highly skilled and knowledgeable workforce.

Click here to read the official press release.

Days without Incidents KPI

From Hollywood...

(© 2008 - The Incredible Hulk)

...to your NetSuite Dashboard!

This article will guide you through the steps required to keep track of the number of days without incidents right on your NetSuite dashboard. The metrics can be configured based on the type of business you operate and the goals you want to share with your team.

Step 1 - Create "Incident" Custom Field

To keep track of incidents, you can use the built-in record Event, as it already contains important information such as date and time, and could be attached to any type of entity in NetSuite. The only setting required is a custom field to differenciate the incidents from other types of events. For this, you can create a custom checkbox field on the Event record as illustrated below.

Step 2 - Create an Incident

Once the custom field is created, test it by creating a new event and categorize it as an incident.

Step 3 - Create a Saved Search

To count the number of days since the most recent incident, you need to create a saved search with the criteria you desire.

Step 4 - Configure Dashboard

The final step is to output the saved search results in the Key Performance Indicators portlet.

Siemens Goes with NetSuite to Meet It's Business Needs

Beat Neuhaus, VP global services operations, Siemens discusses the company's use of NetSuite.

March: Tips and Tricks

Hello everyone, it is very nearly spring, and it's time for the March edition of NetSuite Tips and Tricks! Today we'll be looking at basic NetSuite vocabulary, how to customize NetSuite's appearance, and a quick way of opening searches in a new tab.

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1- Speaking NetSuite Lingo

Here are a few definitions that newcomers to NetSuite will find helpful:

Record: Entry of information related to a single business concept.

Form: Page through which you enter records and transactions.

Field: Place on a record or transaction where you enter information.

Subtab: Section of the record or transaction that groups fields by subcategory.

List: Menu of values that you can select in a field.

(once this lead is saved, a new record will be created)

Script: SuiteScript JavaScript file that runs agains a specific form or record type, or that creates a custom portlet.

Role: A set of permissions that lets customers, vendors, employees and partners access specific areas of your data.

Center: Configuration of NetSuite creasted for a specific group of roles with similar tasks.

Center Tab: grouping of similar links and information. These may include Home, Reports, Documents, Activities and Setup. You can also create custom center tabs.

Breadcrumbs: Links that appear in the upper left hand corner of every page in NetSuite. Simply click a breadcrumb to return to one of the pages you previously visited.

2- Making NetSuite Your Own

Did you know that there are a number of ways in which you can change the appearance of your NetSuite account?

To increase the font size, under the Home tab, select "Set Preferences", then click on the "Appearance" subtab. Under "Styles", select your desired zoom level. There are a number of other customizations available in this window.

To change your color theme in NetSuite, you can select a "Classic Colour Theme" from the appearance subtab. For further customization, click on the Setup tab, then select Other Set Up > Color Themes. From here, you can modify existing themes or create your very own!

3- Open a Global Search in a New Browser Window/Tab

You can make global search results open in a new browser window or tab by adding an extra colon between the prefix and the search string ex. cu::customername, ite::itemname, etc. This simple trick can save a bit of time when you need to search for something without leaving your current page.