Haven Internet Services Boosts Sales with Entellium

The Allentown-based had outgrown its reliance on a mix of desktop contact management software and spreadsheets and knew it needed a dedicated Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution to manage and further enable growth and positive customer experience. Given its strong experience in technology development, Haven Internet conducted a lengthy review of hosted CRM providers, including Salesforce.com, as well as an internal analysis on whether to build a CRM system itself.

"We understand technology," said Ed Kundahl, President and CEO of Haven Internet. "Our evaluation went beyond simple features and into the architecture behind the CRM systems we reviewed. Entellium was light-years ahead of the others, especially with its workflow engine and its ability to connect to our lead generation systems and auto-populate the CRM application with our leads."

Entellium develops CRM applications that are focused on making the daily lives of sales, service and marketing employees easier, with advanced automation features not found in any other hosted CRM solution. The company's PRO-Activity Release was based on more than 43,000 hours of usability research, with the result being the most user-centric CRM solution on the market today. In addition, Entellium's CRM suite has a lower total cost of ownership than Salesforce.com's Professional and Enterprise Editions.

With Entellium eSalesForce connected to Haven Internet's lead capture systems, leads are automatically saved into the CRM application, and routed to the correct Haven sales or service representative. Each day, Haven Internet employees are presented with a task list according to sales processes they follow for new leads. In the coming months, Haven Internet will expand the use of Entellium as the company will begin selling online ads on behalf of two of its customers that operate portal sites.

"We've only really scratched the surface of what Entellium can do," says Kundahl. "While Entellium has been invaluable in streamlining our lead capture and close rates, it has enabled us to offer a new value-added service to our customers."

Entellium offers many industry-first automation capabilities for a number of tasks that are still manual in other solutions. For example, Entellium's Report Automator(TM) lets users configure any report so that it is automatically generated and distributed at certain dates and times -- or in specified intervals -- in HTML or Excel format with up-to-the-minute customer data, enabling managers to focus on analyzing the reports, not running them.

"Like many small and medium sized businesses, Haven Internet needed big company CRM at an affordable price," said Natalee Roan, Entellium's Chief Marketing Officer. "Our charter is that our customers need not compromise on features and functions for a lower price. Entellium continues to be recognized for the best overall value in hosted CRM."

Last year was a banner year for Entellium. In August, Entellium received top scores for usability, customer service and price in a head-to-head review by the venerable Network Computing Magazine, which reviewed six top hosted CRM providers. In this review, Entellium's $60 PRO-Activity Release landed in a virtual tie with Salesforce.com's $125 Enterprise Edition. Earlier in the year Entellium received top scores from Forrester Research, a leading analyst firm, in usability and cost in the 2005 Forrester Wave report: Hosted Sales Force Automation(1).

Entellium also received a perfect 5.0 score for its free global support which includes live training and 24/7 live chat over the web. In September, the company announced a 5,000 seat deal with Allied Home Mortgage (one of the largest hosted deals ever) and days later received a Market Leader Award from CRM Magazine for its achievements in 2005 as well as its promise for the coming year. In October, the company was honored by analyst group Frost & Sullivan with its annual Customer Service Leadership Award for the CRM provider who best delivers outstanding service.

(1) The Forrester Wave: Hosted Sales Force Automation, Q1 2005, L. Herbert (with Erin Kinikin and Jessica Harrington), March 31, 2005.