Clicktools blog

Product Tips - Inserting Images for Multiple Language Options

2012-01-30T03:03:00.000-08:00

With Clicktools, it is very easy to use an imported image to replace a standard web button. If you are deploying your survey in multiple languages using the same URL, you may want to create a different button style for each language, such as this:

Here's how it is done:

Create your images and make sure they all have the same file extension (jpeg, gif, etc.).

Save the images with a generic file name (i.e., “Submit”). For the images that are to be displayed against the different languages, you'll need to add an underscore “_” and the 2 letter ISO code after the generic file title. This allows Clicktools to identify the language variant (for example, “Submit” for English; “Submit_es” for Spanish or “Submit_fr” for French).

Import all the new images into Clicktools.

Within your form, when assigning the replacement button style, only apply the images that contain the generic title (i.e. “Submit”).

Now when you deploy your survey in English and Spanish for example, the images that contain “_es” as part of their title will be displayed when taking the survey in the Spanish varient.

Rose Cruse

Product Manager

Product Tip - Are you using the correct URL?

2012-01-23T12:01:00.000-08:00

If you are including a link to your survey on a website, blog or social media, make sure to use the correct URL. In Clicktools, the URL is located on the the Deployment Setup tab.

To copy the link, hover over it with your mouse and right click (PC) or CTRL + click (MAC) and copy the shortcut. DO NOT click on the "Survey URL" link and copy the resulting browser link as this will generate an error message to your customers that looks like this: http://goo.gl/OTgGb.

In Clicktools, you can also generate a unique URL for your survey to target individual contacts. This enables you to personalise the questions and content. In addition you can track responses and send email reminders.

Stay tuned for more useful product tips.

Rose Cruse
Product Manager

Product Tips - Did you know you can use '%' in Conditions?

2012-01-16T00:43:00.000-08:00

This useful tip went almost viral (around our office at least).

Perhaps you are building a complex survey where Question Condition Definitions are used to present further content. Did you know that you can use the wild card character '%' to represent anything?

For example, let's say a question requires a respondent to enter a text response to identify their favorite store. If they don't want to answer, they can leave the text area blank. Later on, you may want to present a question to all respondents that entered something (anything) in the text field for their favorite store. In this case the '%' means anything.

Alternatively, you may want to present a question to those who entered nothing (blank) as a response to a previous question. In this case, you would simply leave the text area blank.

Do you use any other wild card characters in Clicktools?

Rose Cruse
Product Manager

Product Tips - Out With the Old...In With the New!

2012-01-09T03:04:00.000-08:00

The beginning of a new year always seems like the appropriate time to do a little clean-up. You know, out with the old, in with the new. Now might be a good time to consider doing a little "early spring" cleaning in Clicktools as well.

For example, do you really need to keep responses from a survey from that took place in 2005? Regular (or even once a year!) housekeeping can help you free up much needed storage space.

Here's a way to remove unwanted individual survey responses:

1. By accessing the "Individual" tab in the results area for a survey instance, you can select a response and delete it from Clicktools using the [Remove] button. You can use any of the filtering options if you only want to delete a certain group of responses (those before a certain date for example).

2. By accessing the "Participants" tab in the deployment area of a survey instance, you can select responses and [Remove].

Deleted responses are held in the recycle bin for a period of 7 days in case you need to restore them. The recycle bin is available in the "Administration" area of Clicktools.

Don't forget! Deleting a complete survey instance from the set up area, or the survey itself from the Builder tab will also delete any associated responses. However, responses will remain against your account storage for a period of 7 days. Therefore, it's always advisable to remove results using one of the two options mentioned above.

Rose Cruse

Product Manager

Product Tips - Forgotten your password?

2012-01-02T23:47:00.000-08:00

You know you've had a great holiday when you get back to work and can't remember any of your passwords.

In Clicktools, if you have a Principal role, you can determine what happens after 3 consecutive unsuccessful login attempts. You can:

take no action
lockout the account for a given period of time
lock the account permanently until a user with a Principal role unlocks the account

The Lockout Policy may be set at any time by a Principal using the Organisation: Preferences menu. To unlock a locked user account a Principal user must:

Click Administration on the main menu
Click Users
Click the User Name
Click View
Click the Unlock button.

Don't forget! Once logged in, if there is no activity for a 30 minute period, you will be automatically be logged out.

Happy New Year!

Rose Cruse, Product Manager

Product Tips - Preventing Spam Attacks

2011-12-19T00:30:00.000-08:00

Who doesn't hate spam?

Did you know that Clicktools can help you prevent spam attacks and multiple submissions on your forms? Typically, attackers who access your survey or form will attempt to respond multiple times. This type of attack could be either automated or from a single malicious user.

Here are some tips to help reduce the impact of these attacks:

1- Create a unique link.

Using a unique link (called a personal URL in Clicktools) means that re-accessing the link will just overwrite the previous response. A single response can only be synched once into your CRM environment. You can also have the link expire after the first submission to prevent subsequent completions.

Unique links are available when deploying from Clicktools. If you are deploying directly from your CRM environment, it is possible to create a personal URL with a bit of customization.

Remember that personal links relate only to specific contacts from your CRM or Clicktools environment. If you have a survey or form accessible externally on a website, a Personal URL would not be used.

2- Set multiple responses to 'No' when using a shared URL.

This places a cookie on the respondents browser preventing multiple responses being submitted from the same computer within a 30 day period. Clicking the link again would bring up a previous response.

3- Utilize an introduction page in your survey or form.

Add an introduction page so that the submit button is not available on the first page of the survey. This can help prevent automated attacks.

4- Ask a validation question.

Add a question at the beginning of the survey to validate the response. Something like a text question asking, "What color is a banana?" You can then add a condition to your survey mapping that will only synch data to your CRM environment where the correct value (i.e. 'Yellow or 'yellow') has been entered.

Rose Cruse

Product Manager

Product Tips - Working With QR Codes

2011-12-12T03:27:00.000-08:00

Do you use QR codes?

You've all seen them. They're everywhere. In magazines, catalogues, at trade shows. "Scan this code with your smart phone to receive a special offer!"

This type of technology is called "QR" or "quick response" codes. A QR code is a type of two-dimensional matrix barcode often used to represent a web link (URL). Anyone with a smart phone and one of the widely available free scanner apps can scan and read a QR code. Upon scanning on the smart phone, the user is immediately taken to the URL link. This is much quicker than having to type in a (sometimes long) URL.

QR codes are easily generated using one of the QR generators available of the web. Just Google "QR code creator" to find one. Several of them are free.

When creating your QR code, you'll have to know what URL you want to direct people to. This could be a specific survey URL, your web site, or a targeted landing page for a special offer. If you are using the Team and above editions of Clicktools, you could make use of the 'Actions' functionality to redirect respondents from a generic Clicktools landing page to a specific landing page or survey.

Once you have generated your QR code with the desired URL, simply load this into Clicktools as an image. This can be included in your Clicktools generated emails, newsletters, etc.

Scan this QR code to access the Clicktools page on the salesforceappexchange: http://appexchange.salesforce.com/listingDetail?listingId=a0N300000016aHQEAY

As the use of QR codes is not yet widespread, do not forget to give your respondents some guidance as to what to do and always provide an alternative means to access to the URL link.

You could implement the same approach for Blippar™ as well.

So, tell us! How are you using QR codes?

Rose Cruse

Product Manager

Product Tips - Sampling

2011-12-06T00:05:00.000-08:00

When you see a chart in your dashboard analysing the responses received from one of your Clicktools surveys (i.e., Net Promoter), how do you know if the views are really reflective of those in your target audience?

The term 'sampling' is used to represent the number of people who must complete your survey in order for you to get a representative view of your target audience.

The term 'confidence level' represents how often the true percentage of the population would pick an answer that lies within the confidence interval. A confidence level of 95% means you can be 95% certain; the 99% confidence level means you can be 99% certain etc.

Combining the confidence level and interval in our example, we can be 95% sure that between 85% and 95% of the population would choose answer "A". The confidence interval is the plus-or-minus figure reported alongside survey results. For example, if 90% percent of your sample pick answer "A" and you are using a confidence interval of 5, it is fair to say that if the entire target audience had answered the question, between 85% (90-5) and 95% (90+5) would have picked answer "A" also.

The tables below outline how many completed responses you need to treat the results as reflective of the whole of your population for different combinations of confidence interval, confidence level and target population.

Most research is carried out using 95% confidence level with a 3% or 5% confidence interval (highlighted in green and orange).

		Confidence Interval
Population size	Confidence Level	+/- 1%	+/-2%	+/- 3%	+/- 4%	+/- 5%
100	95%	99	96	92	86	80
100	99%	99	98	95	91	87
1000	95%	906	706	516	375	278
1000	99%	943	806	649	510	400
10000	95%	4,899	1,936	964	566	370
10000	99%	6,246	2,938	1,561	942	624
100,000 or more	95%	8,763	2,345	1,056	597	383
100,000 or more	99%	14,267	3,994	1,815	1,029	661

So, for example, if you have 1,000 customers, you need results from 278 customers to be 95% confident in your results to a level of + or - 5%.

Now that you have confidence that your responses are truly reflective, be sure to give all the responses you receive equal billing. If using NPS, use your detractor's views to make improvements and identify your promoters to spread the word.

Clicktools Analytics allows you to analyse your data by combining responses to questions and then publishing the results in the form of a chart. These charts can be grouped and presented in a dashboard, providing you with real time feedback. This functionality is available within the Professional, Enterprise and Global editions.

Rose Cruse

Product Manager

Product Tip - Customizing Browser Tab Descriptions

2011-11-28T00:21:00.000-08:00

Did you know that you can customize the text of your browser tab in Clicktools? Well, you can, and it's quite easy to do! Simply enter the following HTML code in the head section of your Advanced Presentation Template:

Don't forget to change 'your text in here' to the text you want to display. Here's an example of the HTML used to present the tab description 'Clicktools' seen in this screen snipit:

<title>Clicktools</title>

Advance Presentation Templates are available to those Clicktools users with Personal+ editions and above.

Stay tuned for more useful product tips and tricks!

Rose Cruse

Product Manager

Product Tips - Exit pages

2011-11-21T00:05:00.000-08:00

As the Product Manager for Clicktools, I believe that one of our most underrated features is the ability to add an exit page at the end of your survey. It's nice to be able to add a "thank you" page, not only because it's considerate, but it also lets respondents know that they have properly completed the survey.

Within the deployment page, which is accessible when creating an instance, you can enter a URL to be used as an 'Exit Page' which will be displayed at the end of your survey/questionnaire. This URL could be one of the following types:

An exit page of your own design
An existing page on your website
Any page that is accessible as a public URL

You can create a single landing page with Clicktools to be used as your exit page. This page can also include your specific branding if you wish, depending on the template you choose and could be re-used again and again with different surveys. Once you've created this page in Clicktools, all you have to do is enter the specific URL as your exit page.

Don't forget that when you define your exit page it is a good idea to test the link to make sure it works so that your respondents don't receive an error message when completing your survey.

Can't remember how to find a URL for a Clicktools page? It can be found within the deployment details. (See below)

So, there you have it. That's how to add an exit page to your survey or form. I'd love to hear from you as to what you believe is the most underrated feature for Clicktools. Feel free to comment!

Rose Cruse

Product Manager

Teaching Matters! Help Us Give Back!

2011-11-15T12:00:00.000-08:00

Last month we launched the "Paying it Forward" campaign where Clicktools donates $5.00 to charity for each review we receive on the AppExchange. This month's chosen charity is Teaching Matters, a non-profit organization that partners with educators to ensure that all students can succeed in the digital age. If you are a Salesforce user and would like to participate in our "Paying it Forward" campaign, click here to give us a quick review and we'll donate $5.00* to Teaching Matters.

Teaching Matters targets common challenges to student success with educational innovations made possible through the use of technology. Research has shown that technology in the classroom can positively affect student achievement and attitudes toward learning. Teaching Matters offers comprehensive services to enhance school performance, instruction and student learning. In collaboration with front line educators, content experts and technologists, Teaching Matters develops innovative and engaging educational content that pursues a new standard for student success. This standard strikes a balance between core academic and 21st century learning environments to prepare students for their future.

As a technology company ourselves, Clicktools is proud to support the mission of Teaching Matters. We value learning. We value technology. And of course we value feedback. We hope our Salesforce customers will give us feedback and join our Paying it Forward campaign this month to help Teaching Matters. Click here to participate.

For more information on Teaching Matters, visit their website here at www.teachingmatters.org.

*up to $5,000.00

Product Tips: Spacing Out Response Options

2011-11-14T12:00:00.000-08:00

Sometimes when creating your survey or form, you might want to set up your questions in a table format, as seen in the example below.

To vary the distance between the response option columns, insert this example CSS code into the <HEAD> section of your advanced presentation template:

<style type+"text/css">
.ct_td_choice { width: 150px; }
</style>

The width in pixels can be modified to suit your requirements. If you would like to restrict this type of spacing to a specific question or set of questions, assign a CSS identifier to the question layout and then add it to the above CSS like this:

<style type="text/cs">
.my_image_question .ct_td_choice { width: 380px }
</style>

The ".my_image_question" is your CSS identifier. You can add CSS identifiers within the question edit screen on the 'layout' tab by double-clicking on the question in the builder.

I find this feature most useful when using images for labels.

The use of advance presentation template is available to those using editions Personal+ and above. If any of this sounds too technical for you or you are not familiar with HTML and CSS, I'd suggest you find a qualified web developer to help with these custom modifications.

Keep following the blog for more useful tips and tricks and be sure to leave me comments as to what type of information you'd like to see in future posts.

Rose Cruse
Product Manager

Product Tips - personalizing your questions

2011-11-07T01:29:00.000-08:00

When creating a survey or web form, the more you can personalize the content specifically to your target, the better response you are going to get. Clicktools offers all levels of users the ability to personalize their survey questions.

By including a previous answer to a subsequent question, you can re-enforce the feeling that you know your respondents and are tailoring your services to them. We call this process piping answers into text. The formula is ${question_n} - where 'n' is the question number.

Here's an example:

Here's a simple survey that asks a person to enter their name and then select their favorite color. We can pipe the person's answer from question 1 into questions 2 and 3.

Q1 What is your name?
Q2 Hi ${question_1}, what is your favorite color? [Red, Blue, Green]
Q3 Why is ${question_2} your favourite colour?

If the person enters Sarah as their answer to Q1; Q2 will look like this
'Hi Sarah, what is your favorite color?’

If Sarah then selects Green as her favorite color; Q3 will look like this
'Why is Green your favorite color?'

It is possible to get much more detailed with this process, for example:

Q3 Tell me ${question_1}, why is ${question_2} your favorite color?

It will look like this....'Tell me Sarah, why is Green your favorite color?'

One thing you'll need to remember is that for the answers to appear in a future question, the page must have first refreshed. The easiest way to be certain that this takes place is to display questions in a new section.

Keep following the blog for more tips and tricks.

Rose Cruse
Product Manager

Product Tips: Save time using the scheduler function

2011-10-31T01:16:00.000-07:00

If you're managing your organization's feedback program, you probably spend a lot of time exporting survey results and publishing the analyses of those results. If you are using the Clicktools Team or above edition, did you know that you can set up a schedule to publish your results automatically by email? This feature is available within the "Publish" and "Export" functions.

All you have to do is enable 'Schedule Settings' by selecting the check box. Then choose how often you'd like this process to take place and give it a start time. Now you can select the email addresses of those people within your organization you'd like to receive the results. (These email addresses would have been set up already in your "Organization Emails.")

The screen capture to the left demonstrates how I set up a schedule to publish results and have them sent directly to my CEO on the last Friday of every quarter at 5:00 p.m.

Keep following the blog for more tips and tricks each week!

Rose Cruse

Product Manager

Product Tips: Don't lose your non-standard ASCII characters!

2011-10-24T01:29:00.000-07:00

When importing contact information into Clicktools, if you happen to have a lot of foreign names with non-standard characters (i.e., Øvermo Björn), make sure you're not saving your .csv document as an Excel file because it will strip out these characters in transition. Excel's .csv format does not support UTF-8 encoding.

To ensure you don't lose your non-standard (non ASCII-128) characters such as e.g. Ø and ö, save your spreadsheet as 'Unicode Text.'

If you are importing from Google, then it is okay to save the Google doc as a .csv because Google adopts the UTF-8 encoding and protects all the letters.

Clicktools will always maintain the character encoding as it exists in the import file. You can import Contact details into Clicktools the following file types:

UTF-8,

UTF-16,

Comma Separated (CSV)

Pipe | delimited

Stay in touch for more useful hints and tips. If you have any ideas for what types of helpful information you'd like to see here, please leave a comment and let me know!

Rose Cruse
Product Manager

Product Tips: Recycling your work

2011-10-17T10:17:00.000-07:00

Clicktools offers several features that can save you time by allowing you to re-use and recycle your content. Here are three examples:

1. Re-use a question (or questions) from an existing survey

Did you know that you can copy a question or questions from an existing survey? When creating your new survey, simply select "Copy Content." You can then select the existing survey that you wish to copy the question from. Clicktools will present you with all of the questions within that survey. Make your selection by checking the box next to that particular question, or if you want to copy all of the questions from that survey, simply check "Select All."

After making your selections, click on "Copy" and the questions are imported into your new survey!

2. Copy an entire survey

Perhaps you have created a fantastic survey with comprehensive questions and conditioning and you'd like to re-use this content for another survey. Just go to the original survey and use the "Copy" function within the builder. You can find this on the set-up tab.

This will present you with a named copy of your survey. You can rename your new survey and it will maintain all the question groups and conditioning of the original. You can then edit the [copy] and make it unique.

3. Copying your CRM mapping

It is within an instance that you are able to map your survey questions to the correct CRM fields for integration. If you wish to re-use a particular mapping, then all you need to do is copy an instance.

Select the survey deployment with the mapping you want to copy. You will be presented with the deployment details page.

Using the copy function at the bottom of the page will create an identical copy of the instance. You can rename this [copy] and edit it as required. For example, you may wish to add a different presentation template.

Don’t forget that a Clicktools survey can also be created as a call script, a landing page, an exit page and many other types of forms. For more use cases, check outour website at www.clicktools.com.

Look for more hints & tips in future postings.

Rose Cruse, Product Manager

Product Tips: HTTPS Secure URLs With Clicktools

2011-10-10T02:10:00.000-07:00

Depending on the content in your survey, call script or web form, you may need to make sure the data is protected from hackers. Using the protocol https (hypertext transfer protocol with a secure socket layer) ensures that data is encrypted when transferred via the web.

To do this in Clicktools, add the following code to your email template:

add ${survey_url_secure} instead of ${survey_url}

for a pre-populated url, use ${survey_url_secure_pp} instead of ${survey_url_pp}

In the instance template, you must select to use the Clicktools.com url.

Stay in touch for more hints and tips. If you have an idea or a request, please leave a comment and here and I will be happy to respond.

Rose Cruse
Product Manager

Give us Feedback & We'll Give Back!

2011-09-27T20:35:00.000-07:00

For the last three years in a row, Clicktools has won the AppExchange Customer Choice Award for "Best Survey App." We're in the running again this year, but we need our customers to give us feedback in order to win! If you're a current or trial customer, and if you'll take just a minute to give us a review, we'll say "thank you" by giving back!

Starting today, for every customer review we receive on the AppExchange, we'll donate $5.00* to one of our non-profit organizations. This month's randomly chosen charity is Fight Colorectal Cancer. Colorectal cancer is the second leading cancer killer in the United States, and Fight Colorectal Cancer demands a cure.

Fight Colorectal Cancer is the leading colorectal cancer advocacy organization in Washington, DC, empowering survivors to raise their voices, training advocates around the country, and educating lawmakers and pushing them for better policies. Fight Colorectal Cancer offers support for patients, family members, and caregivers, and serves as a resource for colorectal cancer advocates, policymakers, medical professionals, and healthcare providers.

Find out how you can get involved at FightColorectalCancer.org. And help them get a quick $5 donation right now by reviewing us on the AppExchange. Fight Colorectal Cancer will receive the $5 donation for each review until the end of October, at which time another one of our non-profit organizations will be randomly chosen.

We sincerely value your feedback. Thanks for helping us out, and for helping us give back!

*up to $5,000

Meet the Phoenix Team

2011-09-25T11:59:00.000-07:00

Last month in our newsletter, we told you about our new office location at 2575 East Camelback Road in Phoenix. Now we'd like to introduce you to the staff at our new location.

KC Dekorte, Marketing Campaign Manager

In my world, marketing is not just building a brand and advertising it. It's about driving results, getting to know your customers and providing them with a solution to their problem. This is why I was so attracted to Clicktools.

You can’t be a good marketer if you don’t first get information from your target market and then actually do something with that information. That is why the integration between Clicktools and CRM is so important. After nearly 20 years in marketing, I am excited to find a company that shares my passion for data driven marketing.

When I am not mapping out new marketing programs for Clicktools, I spend my time changing diapers, chasing toddlers, helping with homework and running kids to and from soccer practice. With five kids, there is not much time for anything else. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Kevin Hoyle, New Business Sales Executive

My background has almost been entirely in sales and I am now going on 10+ years in the industry. I enjoy and have focused mainly on software and technology.

Prior to Clicktools, I worked with Citrix and Fetchback, a marketing retargeting company. I’m very excited about the opportunity at Clicktools, but more importantly the chance to work with with the people and clients of Clicktools.

I was just married last year in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico which is an indication of how much my wife and I like to travel. I am passionate about golf and snowboarding as well as cheering for my beloved Univeristy of Arizona Wildcats in basketball and football (American).

Paul Lathrop, Business Development Representative

I have been a Business Development Professional since 2003. Prior to my career in business development, I was a technical specialist on UNIX and Linux systems.

For me, the best part of the job is overcoming objections and being able to offer valid solutions. Throughout my career, I've learned that some of the most difficult prospects in the beginning have turned out to be my best customers.

Drew Seifried, New Business Sales Executive

I joined Clicktools with over 15 years of sales experience of selling IT Hardware & Services, Media and SaaS based solutions. Before that, I worked at Bulbstorm, an emerging Social Media SaaS application that focused on creating engagement between brands and their customers.

The real draw for me when it came to Clicktools was the opportunity to sell a respected application focused on customer feedback and to provide an organization the ability to make immediate decisions on that feedback.

I lived in Phoenix for over 10 years enjoy travel, golf, outdoor fitness activities, and spending time with good friends.

Product Tips: Publishing to PowerPoint

2011-09-23T07:45:00.000-07:00

When reviewing customer satisfaction scores, or anything else for that matter, wouldn’t it be easier if the results you obtain using Clicktools could be easily and automatically produced in a PowerPoint presentation?

Well, we are happy to announce that our new feature "Publish to PowerPoint" is now available to Team edition and above. Here’s how you do it:

1. Go to the "Publish" tab.

2. Select the radio button for "Powerpoint (Graphics and tables).

3. Select preferences for your Headings and enter a title for your PowerPoint presentation. You can also add an image to display on the first page if you like.

4. Choose the style and color format for your Charts. There are 4 color palettes to choose from. Your chart can be presented in either 3d or flat.

5. Select how you would like to number your slides (none, sequential or using the original survey question numbers.)

6. If your questions had any type of help information included, this too can be published into your slides.

7. Identify which question results you wish to publish.

8. Do you review published results routinely? Would
you like to receive this information regularly by email? You can schedule your slide deck to be emailed using the Schedule Settings options.

9. Once you have entered your parameters, then click "Apply."

Clicktools then* creates a PowerPoint file with the extension .pptx including the charts as pictures. This slide deck can be accessed and edited within Microsoft PowerPoint.

*or at the scheduled time

If you have any ideas for more useful hints or tips please leave a comment.

New Release Notes

2011-09-23T07:24:00.000-07:00

You can read the latest Clicktools Release notes here.

The Release available from 25th September and contains the great time saving feature 'Publish to Microsoft PowerPoint'. This is available for editions Team and above.

Transferring your results to MS PowerPoint automatically
Saving you time: producing your slide decks reducing your time in meeting preparation.
PowerPoint slide decks of your results can be emailed directly without intervention in
readiness for your presentations.

Release Notification

2011-09-20T07:03:00.000-07:00

The next Clicktools maintenance release is scheduled to go live at 6.30 am BST Sunday 25 September 2011. There will be no scheduled down time for this upgrade.

This release includes the new feature "Publish Results to Microsoft PowerPoint", which is available in the Team edition and above.

Rose Cruse

Product Manager

Obtaining Feedback Through Social Enterprise

2011-09-20T05:55:00.000-07:00

One of the hot topics at last week's Cloudforce 2011 in London was the rise of social enterprise and how important it is to be able to obtain feedback through a variety of channels.

Providing an opportunity for followers to like you or share your message can easily be achieved with Clicktools by placing a Twitter, Facebook or other social media share button on your exit or landing page, as we've done in the Chatter webinar example below. At the bottom of our webinar, we've added buttons to allow users to share this link via Facebook, Twitter or email.

All you need to do in order to add these types of buttons is to create a text element within your content

Here's the actual code we used for the facebook button:

<a href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php" type="button" name="fb_share" share_url="http://mktg.clicktools.com/go?iv=3912b67ce1f44b9">Share</a>

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://static.ak.fbcdn.net/connect.php/js/FB.Share"></script>

Here's the code we used for the Twitter share:

<a class="twitter-share-button" href="http://twitter.com/share" url="http://mktg.clicktools.com/go?iv=3912b67ce1f44b9" text="Look at this cool Clicktools chatter video" count="none">Tweet</a><script type="text/javascript" src="http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>

Here's the code we used for email:

If you want to use the above code to insert your own social media buttons, just be sure to use your own content for the content highlighted in blue above. And if you'd like to actually watch the Chatter webinar reference above, just click here.

Look for more helpful "hints" and "how-to's" on our blog in the upcoming months. If you have any ideas for what types of helpful information you'd like to see here, please comment!

Win an iPad at our Dreamforce Breakout Session!

2011-08-16T08:00:00.000-07:00

It's the cloud computing event of the year, with the same type of maniacal fan following as Lollapalooza. (Did we mention that Metallica is playing the Global Gala at Dreamforce this year?)

Clicktools will also be "performing" at Dreamforce. On Tuesday, August 30th from 3:30 - 4:30 pm, we will be hosting a breakout session entitled, "From Feedback to Profit: Integrating Your VoC Program With Salesforce." Join us to hear Clicktools CEO and Voice of the Customer expert David Jackson along with guest speakers from Carlson Hotels and Plantronics share how they've used Clicktools to integrate web forms, satisfaction surveys and call scripts with Salesforce. They'll also reveal how this approach reduced costs, improved customer loyalty, and increased profitability.

Also, if you attend the session, you will have a chance to win a new iPad as well as a Plantronics VoyagerPro Plus Headset!

If you are attending Dreamforce and would like to register for our session, simply logon to the Dreamforce app and navigate to the "Build Your Agenda" tab. Once there, you can search sessions by title or by date. Seating is limited for all breakout sessions, so make your reservation early!

If you haven't registered for Dreamforce yet, you can save $100 by using our sponsorship discount code ECMCLKTOOL. Also, be sure to stop by the Clicktools booth (#1335) and say "Hello." We hope to see you there!

Exciting Improvements in Our Latest Release

2011-08-04T06:36:00.000-07:00

As mentioned in our July newsletter, there have been several exciting improvements in the latest release of Clicktools. Here are just a few of the enhancements that we hope will make your job a little easier.

With the latest version, you can:

Quickly and easily transfer your results to spreadsheets and SPSS.

Automatically export or publish results without the need for user intervention.

Easily build a historic library of exported results.

Reduce testing time by using automatic synch with your Salesforce Sandbox account.

If you'd like to learn more detail about the overall enhancements, you can read the entire release notes here.

Dave's Top Ten for June: The Top 10 Benefits of Using Clicktools

2011-06-16T09:05:00.000-07:00

#10

Improved response rates

With our new easy to use builder and question groups, Clicktools makes it easy to create dynamic and relevant surveys and forms.

Branding

Clicktools allows you the ability to brand your surveys and forms exactly the way you want, right down to the URL.

Dashboards

Dashboards enable you to provide role-relevant reporting to teams across your organization. Save time analyzing results and focus on acting on the feedback.

"Copy" feature

Our "copy content" feature saves you a ton of time when creating new forms and surveys.

Action based exit pages

Want to direct someone to a specific page based on how they answer a survey question? Actions make it easy to set up unique exit pages for this purpose.

Logic Flow™ mapping

Logic Flow™ gives you flexibility and control over what data is passed into CRM so you don’t have to change your processes to suit your feedback product.

Real-time analysis with point & click filtering

Point & click filtering analysis makes it easy to dig into data and answer all of those detailed questions senior management love to ask.

Scheduled deployment

If you are a Salesforce user, you can automate your survey program and save an enormous amount of time and money.

CRM Control Panel

Exclusive to Clicktools, this alerts you to any problem when synching to your CRM & prevents you from losing important customer data.

And the #1 benefit of using Clicktools is:

Point & click mapping and automatic synchronization to CRM

The first and by far still the best on the market (according to customers). It brings the voice of the customer right into your CRM system and gives you 360 degree insight at all times.

Dave's Top 10 for May: Utilizing Clicktools Integration Across the Customer Journey

2011-05-25T05:43:00.000-07:00

#10

Create a web form to capture leads directly into CRM

that goes way beyond those provided with CRM packages.

Improve targeting by sending out a customer insight survey one

week after signing up a new customer to capture their interests.

Get orders in even faster with a Clicktools quote form that is pre-populated

from CRM & contains a ‘Buy Now’ button to confirm acceptance.

Improve sales effectiveness with Win/Loss surveys when an opportunity closes.

Save time by creating a single Clicktools form that automatically creates

an Account with associated contacts and opportunities for new customers.

Send event registration forms using Clicktools and CRM campaigns

and update the campaign and contact record automatically on response.

Reduce costs by automating personalized event driven surveys with CRM workflow or our new ‘Scheduled deployment against report’ functionality.

Drive call center productivity and customer satisfaction with Clicktools

inbound call scripting to guide agents through complex help desk calls.

Improve call center productivity by embedding a ‘Need help’

form on your web site that automatically creates a case.

And the #1 tip for using Clicktools

integration across the customer journey is:

Map the interactions with your customers to identify all the ways

you can improve engagement using Clicktools CRM integration.

P.S.

Everything listed here and much more, is currently being

done by Clicktools customers. Contact us to learn how.

Project Developer Required in Poole, Dorset, UK...

2011-05-03T06:47:00.000-07:00

Clicktools has a vacancy for a Project Developer in the UK.

Clicktools is a rapidly growing on-demand software company. Founded in 2000, it has established itself as the leader in Customer Experience Management (CEM) solutions. Our groundbreaking software has enabled organisations all over the world to improve customer experiences by using feedback to improve products, services & processes.

We are looking for a Project Developer to join our team to implement and support our software solutions. Solutions projects are pieces of development work that we undertake alongside selling the core product, and involve building the customer solution through customizing the application. The Project Developer should be a dynamic, self motivated and energetic person who has a passion for development, works well in a team based environment and wants to learn new technical skills.

Job opportunity description:

Development and configuration of Clicktools software as required for customer solutions projects

Configuring Clicktools application
Creating HTML templates
Writing Javascript to perform specific tasks within a web page
Developing more complex integration solutions with CRM systems including Salesforce CRM
Development of Java server plugins

Technical support of Clicktools solutions
Opportunity to contribute to main application development

Job requirements:

Minimum of 3 years experience in a technical role
Strong Java development including web application (JSP/Servlet)
Excellent knowledge of HTML, Javascript and CSS
Good oral communication and customer relations skills

Nice to Have:

Salesforce configuration/development
JQuery
SQL
Perl
Linux

To apply please email patty.hopper@clicktools.com including a resume/CV.

Dave's Top 10 for April: Creating an Effective VoC Program

2011-04-25T08:10:00.000-07:00

#10

Map out the customer journey. For each key interaction, ask "What matters most to my customers?" Use the answer as a basis for transactional surveys.

Identify recurring themes (staff attitudes, responsiveness, overall satisfaction). Use common questions to track performance across customer journey.

Build role-relevant reporting. Create automated alerts notifying managers of low scores to ensure a quick response & maximize opportunity for recovery.

Integrate feedback and CRM to automate event-driven surveys.
Personalize the content and manage follow-up actions carefully.

Create business rules to ensure that customers are not "over-surveyed."
Make sure you provide opt-out mechanisms and respect opt-out requests.

Pass key feedback results back into your CRM in order
to maintain a single 360 degree view of your customer.

Use league tables to highlight best practices and create a culture of learning.

Share highlights of feedback results and actions taken with your customers. This shows customer respect and will help increase your response rates.

Integrate attitudinal feedback data with transactional and financial
(behavioral) data to identify actions that really make a difference.

And the #1 way to create an effective VoC program is:

Make sure to act upon the feedback you receive! Remember, it is the
action you take that improves the customer experience, not the feedback.

New release notes...

2011-04-20T02:00:00.000-07:00

You can read the latest Clicktools release notes here. It includes:

Schedule deployment of emails and surveys using Salesforce reports
(all editions, Salesforce connectors only and email tokens required).
Complex actions and alerts (Pro edition and above).
Filter on submitted or synchronized responses (all editions).
Append information when synching to CRM (all editions).

Product Manager wanted...

2011-04-19T07:15:00.000-07:00

The Product Manager brings the customer’s voice into everything they do and is an evangelist for Clicktools products to our customers and throughout the company. He or she has an intimate understanding of our products and our users and potential users, how to best reach them, what their problems are and how our products meet their needs. The Product Manager works closely with the Marketing and Development teams to create product positioning, define product roadmap, specify requirements, launch new products, conduct market studies and help create effective marketing programs.

The Product Manager interfaces with Executive Management, Sales & Development as well as external customers and partners. To be successful he or she will have a strong aptitude for determining the optimal way to position (OnDemand – SaaS) Software in the B2B market and a passion for analyzing products, customers and market dynamics. They will have a strong understanding of product marketing concepts and possess strong product, technology and industry knowledge. They must be willing to work in a fast-paced entrepreneurial environment and possess a “do whatever it takes” attitude.

This is a great opportunity to join a dynamic and forward thinking team of talented professionals in this emerging industry as we shape and grow our business.

Primary Responsibilities:

Drive the success of Clicktools products. Leverage market analysis, competitive understanding, and customer research to define product strategy and roadmap.
Responsible for the measurement, analysis and positioning of our product line.
Translate product strategy into detailed requirements and work with the development team to implement these features.
Serve as a product evangelist with the Sales & Marketing team to help them understand Clicktools vision.
Interact with customers to get product feedback and identify additional market opportunities.
Work closely with the marketing team to ensure key functionality and benefits are integrated in product marketing messages.
Build strong working knowledge of key customers and products, including users, influencer to aid messaging, sales and marketing efforts.
Co-own marketing plan and work with marketing communications and lead generation teams to execute.
Gather market intelligence to support product development with new features or solutions.
Monitor industry analysts, competitors, customers, sales engagements, etc. to identify marketing gaps and opportunities.
Develop market opportunity assessments for products as an input to business planning.

Qualifications and Requirements:

5-7 years of Product Marketing/Product Management experience in the enterprise software industry; On-Demand/Software as a Service industry experience preferred.
Strong MS Office Skills - highly skilled in creation of power point presentations
Degree in Computer Science, Product Design, Business Administration, Engineering or related field. MBA a plus
Strong user experience/design sense, with a record of building great products.
Excellent organizational skills, analytic capabilities, and attention to detail to facilitate a close relationship with developers.
Demonstrated success defining and launching software products.
Strong communication and coordination skills with a proven track record of executing on cross-team projects.
Demonstrated, ability to define market requirements for current and future buyers and obtain knowledge about user attitudes and behavior.
Ability to complete multiple tasks and high volume of work on short deadlines and follow through on assigned tasks with limited supervision
Highly motivated and self-directed with the ability to work well both independently and as proactive team member – must be able to work and report remotely to supervisor
Sense of humor a must :)

Applicants can work at Poole office or from home. If working from home, regular visits to the Poole office will be required.

If you would like to be considered please submit a cover letter demonstrating your understanding of our business and how you can contribute along with your CV and salary history/expectations to communications@clicktools.com.

Dave's Top 10 for March: The Top 10 Ways to Use Feedback to Drive Improvements

2011-03-18T05:27:00.000-07:00

#10

Reduce acquisition costs by identifying & leveraging advocates on social media.

Use the voice of the customer to identify how you can be easy to do business with.

Seek feedback in key attributes relative to competitors.

Use this data to fine-tune your marketing.

Collect ideas from your customers for product service improvements.

Identify organizations that provide the best sales and

service experience and use them as role models.

Use specific transaction feedback to identify process weaknesses & failings.

Create automated alerts to identify at-risk accounts, initiate

service recovery and reduce churn one customer at a time.

Utilize win/loss surveys on proposals to identify cause of lost business.

Measure satisfaction and advocacy as the basis for bonuses.

This allows you to focus your organization in improving loyalty.

And the #1 tip for using feedback to drive improvements is:

Prioritize investments by using feedback to identify which areas

of weakness cause you to lose your most valuable customers.

Announcing Facebook to CRM

2011-03-09T08:02:00.000-08:00

Clicktools is pleased to announce that you can now put a Clicktools form/survey on to a Facebook fan page. It's easy to set up and means that you can capture and pass information from Facebook straight in to Salesforce, Sugar, Oracle, or (very soon!) Microsoft Dynamics.

We will be sharing more detail on how to do this with lots of examples over coming weeks - you can see just one example on the Clicktools fan page - just click on the 'Contact Clicktools' link on the left hand side of the page. This form is a 'madlib' style, collects simple details and enables people to request a phone call or email to answer a question.

Immediate examples we can think of are lead forms, raising issues/cases, recruitment, event registration, polls/surveys of the week.

You can access a document that describes how you do this here:
http://mktg.clicktools.com/go?iv=3a12e9f8e80a4ae

Let us know what you come up with...

Dave's Top 10 - Top 10 Ways to Build a Customer Focused Organization

2011-02-24T07:23:00.000-08:00

#10
Make improvements every day. If it ain't broke, fix it!

#9
Understand that things will change in the future.
If you don't accept and adapt to change, you will fail.

#8
Ask yourself, "What will my customer think about this"
each and every time you make a decision.

#7
Design feedback that tests what matters most to customers,
not just what matters most to you. There is often a big difference!

#6
Make the link to the bottom line.
If customer focus is not profitable, you're not doing it right.

#5
Answer the three basic questions: "Who are our customers?
What are their needs? How well are we meeting those needs?"

#4
Recognize that customer experiences are multi-faceted.
It's about much more than just products and services.

#3
You cannot change culture by changing culture.
Change measures, leaders and processes instead.

#2
Work for people who get it. If leaders don't get the importance of
customer experience, customers won't get the level of service they deserve.

And the #1 tip for building a customer focused organization is:

Recognize that customer focus is an organization design issue. If you are not customer focused, it is because your organization is not designed to be.

New Release details

2011-02-07T02:19:00.000-08:00

Clicktools new release is now LIVE. Highlights include:

Drag and drop "WYSIWYG" builder interface
New layout engine including Question "groups" for flexible content display
Additional question functionality including advanced validation
Improved CRM synchronization.

Read the release notes here.

Measuring customer experience yet to be mastered

2011-02-01T04:04:00.000-08:00

As a CEO passionate about customer experience I noted with interest the recent report from Bruce Temkin Customer Experience Accelerates in 2011. It's worth a read. Based on a survey of executives, it suggests that customer experience is going to become more important in 2011. I have heard that reported almost every year for longer than I care to remember.
That's not cynicism on my part but a reflection of how difficult it is get an organisation to truly focus on its customers. One of my favourite maxims is "Every organisation is perfectly designed to achieve the results it does."

The chart below from the Temkin report suggests that few companies have mastered this.

So where to start? Well the headings in the chart above are as good as anywhere but top of the list must be leadership. If you are a CEO or manager, look around your team and ask yourself which of my colleagues are really customer focused.

And you should start by looking in the mirror. Leadership sets the tone of the organisation. One of my old bosses used to say 'An organisation is either customer focused from top to bottom, or its not customer focused at all.' I would add that I have never seen a company that is customer focused at the bottom but not at the top.

Passion and belief are good starting points but are useless without knowing what the customer thinks. A good voice of the customer programme is essential to direct that passion to tackle the things that matter most to the customer: those elements of the experience that make a difference to buying intent and advocacy. As the chart shows, many companies have much to do in this field. It's why we started Clicktools and why we are confident about our future.

You can purchase a copy of the full report from Temkin Group.

Creating a Clicktools import file from Oracle CRMOD

2011-01-31T06:59:00.000-08:00

Clicktools enables a user to deploy a survey or form to a large number of contacts using its inbuilt email engine. At the moment, there is no automatic way to capture a list of participants into Clicktools from CRMOD. This can however be done by exporting a list of records from CRMOD and importing them into Clicktools.

To do this, you need to create a .csv file of the contacts which can then be imported into Clicktools. The easiest way to do this from CRMOD is to create a Report containing the list of contacts and any associated demographic variables. The following steps in CRMOD will create the file your need:

Click on the 'Reports' tab and then 'Design Analyses'
Select 'Contacts' from the Reporting list [You can build a report from other objects in CRMOD; I am using Contacts as an example.]
Click on '+' against Contacts in the left hand column
Click on the name of the filed you want to add e.g. 'Email' repeat this step until you have added all the fields you require.
Reorder the fields by dragging them into the correct position. You should set the order to match the structure required by Clicktools to save having to edit the file later. [The structure of the Clicktools header file can be downloaded as follows> Contacts>Import>Download headers file
If you want a subset of the records, add one or more Filters in CRMOD by clicking on the Filter (Looks like a funnel) button in the appropriate field. Again, repeat the process to add multiple filters. Filters will be added into the section 'Filters'. If you have added more than one filter, you will be offered the option of AND or OR.
Add a Prompt if required. This allows you to set the filter values at the time the report is created.
Click 'Finish' to save your report.

You can then run your report at any time by clicking on 'My Analyses' if you stored it as a Private Analysis or the title of the report if you saved it in a different folder. Once the list has been generated, click on ' the 'Download' link at the bottom of the page and select 'Download Data (.csv) to save the file on your PC.

You can now import the data into Clicktools through the Contacts menu and use the list to send your survey.

NOTE: The file you import into Clicktools must contain the headers as the first row in the file. It is also vital that the columns are in exactly the same order as the headers file downloaded, including blank columns for data that you are not importing. Remember that any data you upload will be matched using email as the primary key. If a record with the same email address exists in Clicktools, it will be overwritten by any new data in the import file. You can find more information on the Clicktools import process in online help.

Sales Executive Required

2011-01-27T13:24:00.000-08:00

Sales Executive, Software: SaaS/OnDemand
Phoenix/Scottsdale

Background:

Clicktools provides industry leading on-demand tools to create, collect, combine and act on feedback within CRM. Clicktools integrates feedback with the leading SaaS CRM providers including Salesforce.com, Oracle CRM OnDemand (Siebel), SugarCRM and Microsoft Dynamics CRM. We operate in a business to business environment and our customers range for SMB to Blue Chip companies. We are seeking a highly motivated & driven self-starter to join our team of sales professionals.

The Sales Executive will become an expert and an advocate of Clicktools products to drive revenue for the company. The ideal candidate will be well versed in technology, sales and have a proven track record of meeting and exceeding quotas. To be successful, the Sales Executive will have the ability to think outside the box and provide the appropriate value proposition based on the prospect or customer needs. He or she will have a strong understanding of CRM tools and ideally Customer Feedback programs and must be able to articulate technology and product positioning to both business and technical users. He or she must be highly motivated and self-directed with the ability to work well both independently and as a proactive team member. They must be willing to wear many hats and be comfortable in several roles from pre to post sales stages.

This will initially be a home-based position reporting remotely to our VP of Sales until an office is set up in the Phoenix or Scottsdale area. This is a great opportunity to join a dynamic and forward thinking team of talented professionals in this emerging industry as we shape and grow our business.

Primary Responsibilities:

Build and maintain a consistent pipeline to meet and/or exceed quarterly revenue goals and objectives.
Qualify and identify prospect immediate needs, introduce new ideas and explore value proposition and additional product offerings with prequalified leads.
Speak to all tiers within an organization to work through sales cycle from opportunity creation to close.
Create and manage a strategic account penetration plan.
Plan and execute daily, weekly and monthly sales activities, providing accurate forecasts to achieve quotas.
Demonstrate the Clicktools product within the different integrated CRM environments and as a standalone solution based on requirements and the competitive sales situation.
Understand product functionality/capability gaps and define ways to address gaps.
Prepare in-depth proposals and present innovative solutions to meet prospect objectives.
Accurately maintain prospect information for processing sales, and keeping comprehensive and accurate client information in CRM tool.

Qualification and Requirements:

BA/BS and/or 5-7 years experience in B2B technology sales, specifically Saas/OnDemand, knowledge of CRM and experience with customer feedback a plus
Proven track record of meeting and exceeding quotas and goals
Proficient selling to all levels of the organization including C level and navigation of sale with multiple decision makers
Strong listening skills, consultative selling practices and exploratory info gathering skills
Excellent PC and Internet skills, including proficiency in all MS Office applications, web meeting tools and salesforce.com - disciplined in capturing all communication and notes
Experience with online demos, ability to develop and present effective sales presentations
Desire and ability to embrace new technologies and become proficient quickly
Availability for travel, some international
Sense of humor a must

Clicktools offers a competitive salary and a comprehensive benefits package. If you would like to be considered, please submit a cover letter demonstrating your understanding of our business and how you can contribute along with your resume and salary history/expectations to patty.hopper@clicktools.com.

No phone calls please.

Senior Support Engineer Required

2011-01-27T06:33:00.000-08:00

To facilitate our rapid growth, Clicktools is looking for outstanding support engineers to become a part of a world-class customer support organization. To be considered you must be a motivated self-starter with the ability to work under pressure, handle multiple tasks simultaneously and be comfortable working in a dynamic, rapidly changing environment with remote supervision.

Reporting to the Service and Support Manager based in the UK, the Senior Support Engineer is a key member of the global support team and will spearhead our newly formed (Phoenix/Scottsdale) US-based support operation, providing superlative support services for customers, prospects and partners that generate the highest levels of satisfaction and advocacy.

This position is a home-based position to start but will transition to an office-based position when the Phoenix/Scottsdale office is established.

Job Title Senior Support Engineer

Job Code SSEUS1

Reports to Service and Support Manager

Salary $Negotiable + Annual Performance related Bonus (10%), Equity Scheme

Hours 37.5 hours per week Mon-Fri between 10:00 – 18:30 (MST, non-DST)

11:00 – 19:30 (MST, during DST)

Location Phoenix/Scottsdale, AZ

About us

Clicktools is the industry leader in on-demand software to create and collect feedback and combine it with CRM. We operate globally in a business-to-business environment serving customers ranging from small-to-medium size businesses to leading Fortune 100 global brands. Our online product range has been developed using leading-edge technologies such as J2ee, MySQL and Linux. We work with the foremost CRM systems: Salesforce, Oracle On-Demand, Sugar CRM and Microsoft Dynamics. We have challenging opportunities and a dynamic culture to suit talented and ambitious individuals.

The Job

The Senior Support Engineer will provide 2^nd line support (as well as 1^st line support as required) for our web-based, CRM integrated Enterprise Feedback Management (EFM) platform by resolving or facilitating the resolution of customer queries and/or system faults that have been reported in to the support organization or escalated from 1^st line support. He or she will perform incident detection, management and relevant escalation functions. He or she will resolve these queries and incidents by liaising with fellow support engineers, 3^rd line support teams (Tech), and development staff, and pass to them only when the Support Engineer has reached the limits of his/her technical knowledge and ability. The Senior Support Engineer will be responsible for providing all relevant documentation and troubleshooting information to enable the most efficient incident resolution, and will create support documentation and help materials as required.

Key Responsibilities and Work Activities

· Provides 2^nd Line Query resolution, Incident Management/Problem Management support for customers that have called the support service (1^st line) to report issues, an incident or multiple incidents that need to be resolved immediately i.e. should not be re-allocated in the Case Management System (CMS/Salesforce) to be resolved later.

· Identify, assess and manage major incidents, often assisting the Service and Support Manager or equivalents.

· Identify root cause and facilitate resolution of problems or recurrent queries as appropriate for swift resolution of current and potential queries and/or incidents.

· Works with colleagues to ensure that the maximum number of cases and incidents are resolved using the knowledge available within the Support team i.e. without the need to escalate through the CMS unless absolutely necessary to maintain agreed service levels.

· Provides professional, courteous service whenever dealing with customers, regardless of the situation or disposition of the customer.

· Updates all relevant incident records in the CMS to agreed standards, including major incidents (documented in major incident forms).

· Provides support to colleagues, at any level, for any technologies, applications or processes that he/she is familiar with, and actively engages in such internal Knowledge Transfer activities as required when learning new skills.

· Assists 3rd line support and development teams by providing relevant information to be used for incident resolution and defect fixes. This may also involve additional troubleshooting or testing as instructed or required.

· Engages with project staff to provide effective project support in relation to customer implementations, major releases, migration events and/or other major activities, demonstrating a desire to take on new responsibilities and accelerates own personal development.

· Documents to a high standard all new operational procedures and ensures that existing documentation and/or help materials under their charge are adequately reviewed and kept up-to-date on a periodic basis.

· Provides feedback in the appropriate manner to 1^st line support staff on how they can improve service and first time fix rates.

· Suggests, owns and delivers ways of improving internal processes and service delivery.

· Actively collaborates with colleagues and ensures all new knowledge is shared across the team.

· Develops relevant process suggestions to facilitate enhanced identification, classification and resolution of customer queries, incidents and problems that have been escalated into the support teams.

Values

· Demonstrates strong levels of Ownership, displays excellence and speed in all endeavors, and welcomes feedback and constructive criticism.

· Strong team player, works equally effectively with or and without direct supervision.

· Comfortable taking direction and being managed remotely.

· Drives own development and always willing to take on new responsibilities.

· Comfortable in an evolving, rapidly changing environment.

· Able to multi-task and perform effectively under pressure.

Knowledge and Skills

· Customer service and technical support best practice.

· Strong knowledge of support processes and systems.

· Excellent verbal and written communication skills.

· Natural analysis, troubleshooting and problem solving ability.

· Significant Salesforce.com experience (Custom Objects/Fields, Reporting, and Workflow).

Background

· BS/BA in Computing or Management Information Systems preferred.

· 3+ years experience in professional business environment.

· 1+ years experience in a senior or 2nd line support role within a technical environment.

· 1+ years experience on a technical service/help desk with call volume higher than 400 calls per month per engineer on a team of 5 or more members.

· Comes from a customer facing background - has excellent interpersonal skills and is fully experienced at dealing with customers/users.

· Previous role within CRM support/operations in an on-demand, SaaS environment highly desirable.

· Experience of working within an ITIL or equivalent IT Service/quality management framework (MOF, COBIT, CMMI, TickIT, EFQM, 6 Sigma) highly desirable.

· Specific experience and skills with Salesforce.com support or implementation is essential. Additionally, exposure to Oracle, Sugar and Microsoft CRM products would be highly advantageous.

This is an ideal and exciting role for someone who can drive their own development and grow in a dynamic global support environment. To be considered submit a detailed resume to patty.hopper@clicktools.com.

Please no phone calls or third parties.

Astadia chooses Clicktools to provide surveys for clients

2011-01-26T05:22:00.000-08:00

Astadia, a pure-play Cloud computing integrator and a top Salesforce.com partner, today announced its partnership with Clicktools, a Salesforce.com partner and provider of software to integrate surveys and scripts with CRM.

In today’s competitive environment, companies are finding it vital to receive feedback from their customers. Surveys are a critical way to measure customer satisfaction and loyalty, which in turn drive retention and repeat business.

“As we expand contact center business, we find more and more clients needing a robust survey solution integrated with Salesforce.com,” said Ron Goldman, VP of Service and Collaboration Cloud for Astadia. “We found Clicktools to be the most feature-rich, flexible and cost effective solution available.”

As a result of the partnership, Astadia will discontinue and stop supporting the Astadia Pollzter survey solution and recommend that Pollzter customers migrate to Clicktools.

“The global Astadia team has some of the top Cloud management consultants available,” said David Jackson, CEO, Clicktools. “The partnership re-enforces Clicktools' position as the leading provider of surveys for Salesforce.com customers and will allow Pollzter customers to begin using Clicktools to improve their customer experience.”

Click here for more information.

Clicktools Wins Customer Choice Award for the 3rd Consecutive Year

2011-01-20T05:14:00.000-08:00

For the third year in a row, Salesforce customers have voted Clicktools as the "Best Survey App" on the AppExchange.

Read the details here.

SurveyMonkey Acquires Interest In Clicktools

2011-01-11T06:18:00.000-08:00

Palo Alto, Calif. and Poole, UK, January 11, 2011 -- Today SurveyMonkey, the leader in web-based survey solutions, announced an acquisition of a 49.9 percent interest in Clicktools, a leading survey provider on salesforce.com’s AppExchange. Clicktools and SurveyMonkey will also form a strategic partnership designed to benefit customers by providing powerful cloud-based survey tools integrated with Salesforce CRM. Clicktools is immediately available for test drive and deployment on the AppExchange at http://www.salesforce.com/appexchange/.

Clicktools, founded in the UK in 2000, provides a highly flexible enterprise solution for creating surveys, scripts and forms with tight Salesforce integration which can automate the whole feedback process. For example, survey responses can be linked to any information in Salesforce CRM and certain survey responses will trigger specific follow-up actions with customers. Salesforce.com customers awarded Clicktools the 2008 and 2009 Customer Choice Award for Surveys on the AppExchange.

“Integration with Salesforce CRM for surveys is a frequent customer request, and Clicktools is the best company in the market already doing it,” said Dave Goldberg, SurveyMonkey CEO. “A partnership with Clicktools enables us to leverage our leadership providing online surveys with their best-in-class product to offer customers of both companies a streamlined solution for Salesforce CRM survey integration.”

SurveyMonkey is committed to providing end-to-end survey solutions for customers and plans to continue expanding services. In November, the company successfully completed a debt financing and it is actively evaluating additional opportunities to partner and invest in complementary businesses and geographies. SurveyMonkey acquired telephone-based survey company Precision Polling in 2010.

“We recognized early on the tremendous power of integrating surveys with CRM applications such as Salesforce,” said David Jackson, Clicktools CEO. “Clicktools’ partnership with SurveyMonkey will allow us to bring those benefits to SurveyMonkey customers, increase the total addressable market and expand Clicktools’ footprint.”

“Customers will benefit from the combined efforts of Clicktools and SurveyMonkey as they expand survey capabilities for Salesforce CRM,” said Kendall Collins, chief marketing officer, salesforce.com.

As part of the investment, SurveyMonkey and Clicktools have entered an agreement to cross promote their products. SurveyMonkey’s Vice President of Business Strategy, Brent Chudoba, and Vice President of Business Operations and Finance, Tim Maly, will join Clicktools’ Board of Directors. Other terms of the investment were not disclosed.

Learn more or start a free trial here

Contacts
Sard Verbinnen & Co
Scott Beaver, 415-618-8750

Go Boscombe Athletic!

2010-11-10T07:46:00.000-08:00

Some of our customers are current sponsors of illustrious sports teams. Not to be outdone, Clicktools has followed suite and is now the proud sponsor of Boscombe Athletic Under 10's.

I can't reveal the exact terms of the deal but what I can say is that it's a two year deal and Clicktools did NOT (as was reported by some press outlets) provide Toy Story 3 Buzz Lightyear toys to every squad member as part of the deal.

The manager of the team is Clicktools own Jamie Bosworth. We will keep you posted on the team's progress and I am sure Jamie would love to talk about his team whilst answering your support calls and emails!

Boscombe Athletic Under 10's - sponsored by Clicktools

Clicktools & Salesforce Chatter...

2010-11-10T07:10:00.000-08:00

I am sure all you Salesforce users are very familiar with Chatter - the great news is that Clicktools can be used to directly drive Chatter feeds.

We have recorded a short webinar that shows some of the ways this great feature can be used.

See how use Clicktools can be used to highlight good/bad feedback from surveys, show when a customer is interested in a new product or immediately raise awareness when someone looks at a webinar, (just like this one infact...)

Click this link to see the webinar (some details will be required to view the webinar)

Product Marketing Manager wanted

2010-11-01T09:07:00.000-07:00

Product Marketing Manager

Clicktools is seeking an experienced Product Marketing Manager to join our newly formed Marketing Team.

The Product Marketing Manager (PMM) brings the customer's voice into everything they do and is an evangelist for Clicktools products to our customers and throughout the company. He or she has an intimate understanding of our products and our users and potential users, how to best reach them, what their problems are and how our products meet their needs. The PMM works closely with the Marketing and Development teams to create product positioning, define product roadmap, specify requirements, launch new products, conduct market studies and help create effective marketing programs.

The PMM interfaces with Executive Management, Sales & Development as well as external customers and partners. To be successful he or she will have a strong aptitude for determining the optimal way to position (OnDemand - SaaS) Software in the B2B market and a passion for analyzing products, customers and market dynamics. They will have a strong understanding of product marketing concepts and possess strong product, technology and industry knowledge. They must be willing to work in a fast-paced entrepreneurial environment and possess a "do whatever it takes" attitude. This is a great opportunity to join a dynamic and forward thinking team of talented professionals in this emerging industry as we shape and grow our business.

Primary Responsibilities:

Drive the success of Clicktools products. Leverage market analysis, competitive understanding, and customer research to define product strategy and roadmap.
Responsible for the measurement, analysis and positioning of our product line.
Translate product strategy into detailed requirements and work with the development team to implement these features.
Serve as a product evangelist with the Sales & Marketing team to help them understand Clicktools vision.
Interact with customers to get product feedback and identify additional market opportunities.
Work closely with the marketing team to ensure key functionality and benefits are integrated in product marketing messages.
Build strong working knowledge of key customers and products, including users, influencer to aid messaging, sales and marketing efforts.
Co-own marketing plan and work with marketing communications and lead generation teams to execute.
Gather market intelligence to support product development with new features or solutions.
Monitor industry analysts, competitors, customers, sales engagements, etc. to identify marketing gaps and opportunities.
Develop market opportunity assessments for products as an input to business planning.

Qualifications and Requirements:

5-7 years of Product Marketing/Product Management experience in the enterprise software industry; On-Demand/Software as a Service industry experience preferred.
Strong MS Office Skills - highly skilled in creation of power point presentations
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Product Design, Business Administration, Engineering or related field. MBA a plus
Strong user experience/design sense, with a record of building great products.
Excellent organizational skills, analytic capabilities, and attention to detail to facilitate a close relationship with developers.
Demonstrated success defining and launching software products.
Strong communication and coordination skills with a proven track record of executing on cross-team projects.
Demonstrated, ability to define market requirements for current and future buyers and obtain knowledge about user attitudes and behavior.
Ability to complete multiple tasks and high volume of work on short deadlines and follow through on assigned tasks with limited supervision
Availability for travel, some international
Highly motivated and self-directed with the ability to work well both independently and as proactive team member - must be able to work and report remotely to supervisor
Sense of humor a must

Clicktools offers a competitive salary and a comprehensive benefits package. If you would like to be considered please submit a cover letter demonstrating your understanding of our business and how you can contribute along with your resume/CV and salary history/expectations to patty.hopper@clicktools.com.

Come and say hello at Oracle Openworld

2010-09-20T05:45:00.001-07:00

Clicktools stand is in the CRM On Demand Pavilion. David Jackson, Clicktools CEO and Heather Figurski, SE, will be more than take you through Clicktools integration with Oracle.

Advanced CRM Synchronization for Oracle CRM On Demand and Sugar CRM

2010-09-10T05:06:00.000-07:00

From mid-September users of Clicktools Connect for SugarCRM and Oracle CRM On Demand will have greater control over synchronization. This note explains how the new CRM Synchronization capability works and answers some of your expected questions.

So what's new?

1. Clear identification of Synchronization status.

Previously, Clicktools simply told you how many responses were available for synchronization. It was not possible to find out whether these responses had been completed or failed synchronization. The only way to see error messages was to manually synchronize but this could result in synchronization of empty responses, and matching errors to responses was difficult.

Clicktools now separates responses in to multiple columns, enabling you to clearly identify the exact status of your synchronization and easily correct any errors before synchronizing again manually. The columns displayed are:

Not Complete – the number of ‘incomplete’ survey responses, i.e. the Submit/Close button has not been pressed or are in the process of being completed.
Ready For Sync – the number of ‘completed’ responses, i.e. The Submit/Close button has been pressed but the response has not yet been synchronized. This will be zero if synchronization is set to ‘Automatic’.
Failures – the number of responses that have failed to synchronize because of an error that needs correcting.
Retries – the number of responses with temporary errors (see bullet 2. below for further detail). Will always be zero if synchronization is set to ‘Manual’.
Successful – the total number of responses for the survey instance that are currently stored in Clicktools and have been successfully synchronized.
Sync Type – no change; shows ‘Automatic’ or ‘Manual’ synchronization.
Last Sync – no change; shows the date and time of the last successful synchronization.

2. Re-try of Automatic synchronization.

Previously, if Automatic synchronization failed due to a failure to connect to your CRM (e.g. during standard maintenance periods, temporary connection problems) Clicktools would simply place the failed response in the “Responses to Synch” column. Now, these responses will be visible in the new “Retries” column and Clicktools will re-attempt the synchronization once an hour for another 4 hours. If a response has failed after this period it will be placed in to the new “Failures” column.

3. Clearer separation of Surveys.

Rather than placing all surveys in one list, the CRM control panel now places surveys in to their respective tabs easing identification and management.

4. Visible error management and tracking.

Each column in bullet 1 will contain a number representing the relevant total of responses for each survey instance (rows) that meet that criterion. Each number greater than zero in the ‘Not Complete’, ‘Ready for Sync’ and ‘Failures’ column links to a page that will display the relevant individual responses.

From there, you can View, Edit or Delete responses and select one or more responses to manually synchronize. In addition, when the ‘Failures’ screen is displayed you will see two additional columns; ‘Fail Message’ and ‘Fail Date’. Fail message will show the error message returned by your CRM whilst an icon to the right of the message may be visible which will show more information when you hover over the icon. Fail Date will show the date and time of the last failed synchronization for that response.

FAQ’s

Q. Why do I have a large number of 'Not Complete' responses, where previously they were marked as available for syncing?

A. Only newly created responses (post the application update) can be identified as being complete. All previously completed or part completed responses cannot be identified as complete and will therefore appear in the 'not complete' column.

Q. Why don't I see all my failed responses yet?

A. Only responses which have failed to synchronize after the application update will be listed against the 'failures' column. You will need to manually synchronize responses first.

Q. Can I just synchronize all the 'not complete' surveys?

A. Yes, but this requires qualification. The count of 'not complete' responses includes responses which have been abandoned (truly not complete), pre application update completed responses that have not yet been synchronized with your CRM, as well as responses which are in the process of being completed at the time the page was accessed. This last set of responses should not be synchronized as this may cause incomplete information to be populated into your CRM. To exclude these responses from synchronization, a date filter can be applied which excludes for example those created in the previous 24 hours, the remaining can then be selected for synchronization.

Q. When I manually synchronize responses for a survey marked as 'automatic', it doesn't use my current Oracle CRM On Demand and SugarCRM credentials.

A. This is part of the new functionality in the latest release. If a survey is marked as 'automatic' for CRM synchronization, then the credentials specified for that survey instance will be used whenever responses are synchronized, either automatically due to a survey response being completed or a response being manually synchronized.

Come and say hello at Cloudforce London

2010-08-24T01:32:00.000-07:00

Clicktools is sponsoring Cloudforce 2010 being held in London on September 8 at the Royal Festival Hall.

Be sure to come along and say hi! :)

More information can be found here.

Inside sales person required...

2010-05-25T00:49:00.000-07:00

New Business Development Representative – Inside Sales - work from home opportunity

We are seeking a highly motivated team player that is excited by the opportunity to be one of the first members of a newly formed Inside Sales team. The New Business Development Representative will work with the sales team prospecting to decision makers within SMBs and Blue Chip companies. The ideal candidate thrives on challenges, is a self-starter, has an extremely positive attitude and a winning mentality.

The primary focus of this role is to discover quality business opportunities and pass them to the sales team. He/she will gain a good knowledge of the Clicktools product offering and develop a high level of sales skills and pipeline building. The successful New Business Development Representative will progress to participate in product demos and after a period of continuous learning, development and target achievement will be given the opportunity to participate in the full sales cycle from qualify to close on identified prospects.

This is a home-based position with a base salary and bonus opportunity reporting remotely to our VP of Sales.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Develop and qualify leads generated through marketing programs for the direct sales team with a focus on high outbound call volume.

• Perform extensive research on both the company and contacts assigned

• Process leads and facilitate next step introductions and set appointments for sales executives.

• Accurately maintain comprehensive and accurate prospect information within Salesforce CRM.

• Develop proficiency in our application and become an expert in our space.

• Help document new business processes and identify ways to create efficiencies.

• Meet and exceed quotas and individual goals and objectives set with VP of Sales.

• Assist with and eventually conduct online product demos.

• After a positive track record, opportunity to participate in full sales cycle from qualify to close for identified prospects.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent with 1-3 years inside sales experience preferably in On Demand, SaaS, Cloud computing, or Feedback software solutions environment.

• Ability to work in a team-goal oriented environment with a proven track record of exceeding quota.

• Strong telephone presentation and listening skills– ability to easily communicate with prospects of all levels within companies of all sizes.

• Strong organizational, communication (written and verbal) and interpersonal skills.

• Computer savvy with proficiency in MS Office with the desire and ability to grasp new technologies.

• CRM Systems experience required – Salesforce knowledge a plus.

• Previous experience with software demos a plus.

• Knowledge of/experience with CRM & on demand software, survey & customer experience/customer feedback and/or a salesforce.com integrated product a plus.

• Ability to create and improve upon processes and procedures, must be creative and think outside the box.

• Ability to work from home and report remotely to direct supervisor and cover customers across various time zones – hours will generally be based on Eastern time zone.

• Must thrive in a fast-paced and entrepreneurial environment.

• Sense of humor and pleasant personality a must!

Clicktools provides industry leading on demand tools to easily create, collect and combine, feedback within CRM. Clicktools integrates feedback with the leading SaaS CRM providers including Salesforce.com, SugarCRM and Oracle CRM OnDemand (Siebel). We operate in a business to business environment and our customers range from SMB to Blue Chip companies.

Clicktools offers a competitive salary and a comprehensive benefits package. If you would like to be considered please submit a cover letter demonstrating your understanding of our business and how you can contribute along with your resume and salary history/expectations to patty.hopper@clicktools.com

Same page condition examples...

2010-04-21T03:51:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple of examples illustrating the new same page condition functionality.

The first example shows a simple "recommend" survey. When first clicked, the survey shows one standard "Would you recommend us..." question.

Then, depending upon their answer additional text is displayed with an essay question asking for more details.

The second example shows a call script that would typically be initiated from your CRM or CATI system.

Information personalizing the call would be passed in to the script and based on the answers to the questions, additional questions are displayed on the page and the agent is taken through only the questions that they should be answering.

For example, the questions change according to the customer's/prospect's interest and the agent is only prompted to capture a new email address if the email address is incorrect.

Same page conditions are now live....

2010-04-21T01:00:00.000-07:00

Clicktools now provides the ability to execute powerful and complex conditions on the same page, showing content as required.

Watch out for more examples on the blog soon.

Putting smiley faces in to questions....

2010-04-20T04:24:00.000-07:00

As you probably know, Clicktools allows you to enter custom html in to content. One particularly useful result of this is the ability to include images in to question options, as shown in the example below.

To do this, you simply insert some simple html in to the questions options using an IMG tag. An example is shown below:

<img src="http://www.clicktools.com/dashboard/org/sfdemo/images/exc.png"><span style="color:white">A</span>

This displays a broad smiley face (as for the leftmost option) and will pass a value of 'A' in to your CRM. The 'A', whilst a part of the question is actually displayed in the same color as the background so the respondent does not see this letter. This code can be used in other options with different images and values to pass in to your CRM.

For more information on the IMG tag and other html look at http://www.w3schools.com

Clicktools needs UK Java Developers...

2010-04-09T03:27:00.000-07:00

Clicktools is looking for a Senior Application Developer to join our Poole (UK) based development team.

We are looking for a dynamic, self motivated and energetic person who craves to be constantly challenged, has a passion for development and works well in a team based environment.

You will be a developer with 5+ years of commercial experience in Java based web application development. You will be comfortable with all tiers of the application from SQL through application, to browser UI.

To apply for this position, please email javadeveloper@clicktools.com with covering letter and CV/resume. No agencies please.

Job opportunity description:

Development of new application functionality.
Maintenance and enhancement of existing functionality.

Job requirements:

Legally entitled to work in UK
Minimum of 5 years experience in a senior web based development role.
OOP and software design ability; should be able to create designs and write code that meets specified architectural objectives.
Hard core Java development experience with broad skills in technologies such as J2SDK/J2EE, Servlets, and JDBC with skills to quickly learn and apply new technologies.
Excellent knowledge of browser technologies; HTML, Javascript & CSS.
Working knowledge of Javascript UI libraries such as JQuery.
Unix/Linux experience.
Good communication skills.

Package:

Salary £40-£45 dependent upon experience
Contributory stake holder pension
25 days holiday per year + birthday
Participation in employee share scheme.
Cycle to work scheme.
Child-care voucher scheme.

To apply for this position, please email javadeveloper@clicktools.com with covering letter and CV/resume. No agencies please.

Document upload with Salesforce

2010-04-08T06:17:00.000-07:00

Clicktools now contains a document upload capability. When passing this in to Salesforce CRM there are several options for you to consider. Depending upon the type of field, Clicktools will automatically pass across a link to the document or physically transfer the document in to Clicktools.

1. Store a link to the document in a field

Links to documents can be stored in Text, Essay or URL fields. If your organization has set Document Access to 'Public' then anyone will be able to click on the link and see the document. If Document Access is set to 'Private' then the document will only be visible to Clicktools users.

Any clicks on this link will count againt your Clicktools document download allowance and the document must remain in Clicktools for the link to be valid.

2. Store the document as an Attachment

To physically transfer the document, map the Document question to the Body [Base64] field in an Attachment. You must also populate the Filename and the Parent ID.

As a suggestion, ask the recipient to describe what they are sending you and use this as the Filename or use a Fixed Value depending on the type of information you are collecting on your form/script. E.g. Use 'screengrab' to describe collection in a web2case form or 'Resume' to link to a job application.

The ParentID should be the object that wil own the Document. This may be a Case, Account, Contact or any object (standard or custom) that you have linked Notes and Attachments to in your Salesforce Setup.

3. Store the document as a 'Document'

Documents in Salesforce are intended to provide a document store for internal users so this option is most likely to be used in a form that will allow non-Salesforce users to pass documents in to Salesforce. A form could offer a list of folders and pass the document in to Salesforce.

In this example, you must also provide a Document Name (probably provided by the recipient) and the folder name. You should also capture a description - again best provided by the recipient.

If options 2 or 3 are chosen the physical document is transferred so the Public/Private settings in Clicktools are not applied. The document will count against your document allocation in Salesforce.

Spring 2010 update...

2010-04-08T01:43:00.000-07:00

The last additions to the Spring release will be included in Clicktools over the next couple of weeks:

Available now:

Document upload

A new question type is included enabling you to collect documents as part of a script/survey. Common examples include collecting screengrabs as part of a web2case form or resume/CV collection for job application forms. Document uploaded is free of charge but is subject to a fair user policy.

Note: Each user is limited to a maximum of 5GB storage (~10,000 documents of 500KB) and 10GB download (~20,000 downloads) per year. Please contact Clicktools to discuss pricing if you require additional capability. If any user/organization exceeds this fair use policy they will be contacted and asked to reduce/limit usage. Continuing to exceed this policy will result in either charges or withdrawal of the feature. Clicktools reserves the right to charge for this feature in future.

Improved support for right to left languages/scripts

Customers wishing to deploy surveys in Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew and Urdu will be pleased to hear that Clicktools now automatically right aligns content and controls (buttons) to more effectively support right to left scripts.

Available in week beginning 19 April:

Same page conditions

Clicktools contains a very powerful condition capability with conditions implemented on a page-by-page basis. Now, you can also define conditions against questions to reveal content on the same page.

Example applications include call scripts where questions and instructions are shown/hidden as the agent answers questions or simplification of one page forms/surveys with lots of variable content. As a guide, page breaks should still be used to separate different 'sections' of questions.

More examples will be posted on the blog in due course. Further details can also be found in the release notes at www.clicktools.com/documents/spring_2010_update.pdf

Viva Las Vegas!

2010-02-19T05:10:00.000-08:00

From 1 March, to support of the growth of Clicktools Inc, we will be moving offices from San Francisco to Las Vegas.

Clicktools new address is:

7251 West Lake Mead Boulevard, Suite 300
Las Vegas,
NV 89128.

If you do need to mail anything, please use this address from this point on...

Non-profit demonstration on Wednesday 3 Feb...

2010-01-29T05:18:00.000-08:00

Clicktools and Salesforce Implementation partner, Westbrook, and non-profit 'Diana Awards' will be presenting at the NY non-profut user group meeting on Wednesday 3rd February at 9am-11am EST

See more details on the Salesforce community posting

It's always great...

2010-01-28T02:02:00.000-08:00

when customers say positive things about you. It's even better when they are unsolicited. So, I was delighted to see Clicktools mentioned as Brian Vass's (Sant Corporation) favorite app in the recent AppExchange newsletter.

Read more about Sant Corporation's use of Clicktools and Brian's other favorite AppExchange apps here.

Clicktools Spring 2010 release notes...

2010-01-28T01:31:00.000-08:00

Release notes for the Spring 2010 release of Clicktools are now available at:

http://www.clicktools.com/documents/spring_2010_release_notes.pdf

Spring 2010 release is coming....

2010-01-26T02:24:00.001-08:00

This weekend sees the release of new Clicktools functionality for Spring 2010.

The major addition is enhanced email capability including full wysiwyg design of emails, use of organization emails, bcc/compliance capability and full bounce/delivery management.

We have also been working hard on a video training library and the first courses (focused around the new capability and building content) will be available through the help.

In addition, features added on (or soon after) 1 February include automatic deployment of secure and personal URLs, ‘on demand’ rebuild of the CRM cache and Document upload.

Users will be sent a release note today and more details will be included on the blog shortly.

Downtime will be a maximum of 30 minutes on 06:00 GMT on Sunday 31st January 2010 (22:00 PDT on Saturday 30th January 2010)

Clicktools wins AppExchange Customer Choice Award

2010-01-06T02:26:00.000-08:00

For the 2nd year running, I am delighted to announce that Clicktools has been voted "Best Survey App" in the Salesforce.com AppExchange Customer Choice Awards.

Read Salesforce.com blog and find out the other winners here

The awards are based solely on customer reviews & re-affirms our leadership in the market. To win this for the 2nd year running makes it very special BUT we will not be resting on our laurels - watch out for exciting news in the coming weeks!

Clicktools is at Cloudforce 2 in London on 8 December 2009

2009-11-27T07:25:00.000-08:00

Clicktools is pleased to announce that we are sponsoring Cloudforce 2 in London at the start of December.

If you haven't booked your place yet, then unfortunately it is too late as all the guest book is closed.

If you are going, please stop by booth #17 and say hello. If you aren't going and want to see what you are missing then click here

Hope to see you there!

USA Sales Executive vacancy

2009-11-10T02:25:00.000-08:00

Clicktools has a vacancy for a 'Work from Home' Sales Executive.

The Sales Executive will become an expert and an advocate of Clicktools products to drive revenue for the company. The ideal candidate will be well versed in technology sales and have a proven track record of meeting and exceeding quotas. To be successful, the Sales Executive will have the ability to think outside the box and provide the appropriate value proposition based on the prospect or customer needs. He or she will have a strong understanding of CRM tools and ideally Customer Feedback programs and must be able to articulate technology and product positioning to both business and technical users. They must be willing to wear many hats and be comfortable in several roles from pre to post sales stages.

This is a home-based position reporting remotely to our VP of Sales. This is a great opportunity to join a dynamic and forward thinking team of talented professionals in this emerging industry as we shape and grow our business.

Primary Responsibilities:

Qualify and identify prospect immediate needs, introduce new ideas and explore value proposition and additional product offerings with prequalified leads.
Demonstrate the Clicktools product within the Salesforce.com and other CRM integrated environments and as a standalone solution based on requirements and the competitive sales situation.
Understand product functionality/capability gaps and define ways to address gaps.
Accurately maintain prospect information for processing sales, and keeping comprehensive and accurate client information in CRM tool.
Speak to all tiers within an organization to work through sales cycle from opportunity creation to close.
Build and maintain a consistent pipeline to meet and or exceed quarterly revenue goals and objectives.
Prepare in depth proposals and present innovative solutions to meet prospect objectives.
Manage top 10 Tier 1 accounts to retain and up-sell additional Clicktools products.
Qualifications and Requirements:
BA/BS and/or 5-7 year experience in technology sales, specifically SaaS/OnDemand
BtoB sales experience with participation in contract negotiations
Proven track record of meeting and exceeding quotas and goals
Ability to manage sales cycle from lead to close
Proven skills qualifying prospects and matching offerings with customer needs
Strong listening skills, consultative selling practices and exploratory info gathering skills
Excellent time management and follow up skills
Excellent PC and Internet skills, including proficiency in all MS Office applications, web meeting tools and salesforce.com – disciplined in capturing all communication and notes
Experience with online demos, ability to develop and present effective sales presentations
Knowledge of CRM & on demand software, experience with survey & customer experience a plus
Sales Engineer or Implementation experience a plus
Ability to think strategically and utilize excellent judgment, and exude a strong presence to create, influence and drive customer vision
Desire and ability to embrace new technologies and become proficient quickly
Excellent interpersonal skills, both written and verbal
Availability for travel, some international
Highly motivated and self-directed with the ability to work well both independently and as proactive team member – must be able to work and report remotely to supervisor
Sense of humor a must

Clicktools offers a competitive salary and a comprehensive benefits package. If you would like to be considered please submit a cover letter demonstrating your understanding of our business and how you can contribute along with your resume and salary history/expectations to patty.hopper@clicktools.com

USA Account Management Vacancy

2009-11-10T02:21:00.000-08:00

Clicktools has an opening for an 'Work from home' Account Manager.

The Account Manager will be responsible for cultivating and expanding relationships with current clients, gaining intimate knowledge of their business needs and acting as a liaison between the client and sales/support. He/she will identify clients’ needs and requirements in order to define the scope of solutions to meet and exceed client expectations.

The ideal candidate will be well versed in technology and have a proven track record of identifying sales opportunities within existing accounts. He/she will be adept at problem solving and be able to explain technical concepts to non-technical people in an easy to understand manner. To be successful, the Account Manager will be well organized and detail oriented with superior customer interfacing skills. He/she must be able to multi-task and prioritize. He/she will have a strong understanding of CRM tools and ideally Customer Feedback programs with a keen interest in providing technical solutions to meet business needs.

The Account Manager possesses a range of capabilities in order to perform a hybrid role of account representative, client liaison and technical support, this is a great opportunity for a motivated candidate with a positive, can do attitude.

This is a home-based position reporting remotely to our VP of Sales.

Primary Responsibilities:

Manage an assigned portfolio of existing clients
Ensure clients are successfully using Clicktools products by working with clients to understand business objectives and recommend strategies to achieve those goals
Develop strong relationships with clients to protect ongoing revenue stream and identify upsell/cross-sell opportunities
Consistently achieve and surpass quarterly quotas through additional products & services and renewing customer contracts
Provide insight on clients’ needs to internal teams on a regular basis; represent clients’ views, requirements and experience throughout the organization
Assist in design and implementation of customer solutions to include gathering business requirements, identifying needs and developing program scope
Coordinate day to day activities in support of client
Use salesforce.com to record and maintain daily customer activity
Qualifications and Requirements:
BA/BS required
3-5 years experience in account management or client services within technology environment
Proven track record of meeting and exceeding quotas and goals
Excellent verbal and written communication skills – must be good on phone
Strong listening skills, consultative selling practices and exploratory info gathering skills
Excellent time management and follow up skills
Excellent PC and Internet skills, including proficiency in all MS Office applications, web meeting tools and salesforce.com – disciplined in capturing all communication and notes
Must be extremely organized and detail-oriented
Ability to work tactfully through challenging client issues
Knowledge of CRM & on demand software, experience with survey & customer experience/customer feedback and/or a salesforce integrated product a plus
Desire and ability to embrace new technologies and become proficient quickly.
Highly motivated and self-directed with the ability to work well both independently and as proactive team member – must be able to work and report remotely to supervisor.
Problem solver who takes initiative to get things done; an enthusiastic go getter!
Sense of humor a must

Clicktools offers a competitive salary and a comprehensive benefits package. If you would like to be considered please submit a cover letter demonstrating your understanding of our business and how you can contribute along with your resume and salary history/expectations to patty.hopper@clicktools.com

Clicktools integration with Oracle is now validated!

2009-09-04T01:33:00.001-07:00

After much work, we are pleased to announce that Clicktools integration with Oracle CRM On Demand has been validated, meaning that the Clicktools integration is scalable, secure and works in the correct way.

Clicktools is the only provider with officially approved Salesforce, Oracle CRM On Demand and SugarCRM integrations. and it emphasises as our position as one of the leaders in integrating surveys with CRM.

Come see us at OpenWorld

2009-09-03T00:55:00.000-07:00

Further to our post yesterday about Dreamforce, I wanted to let people know that we are also exhibiting at Oracle OpenWorld this year (our 1st year!).

We will be in the CRM On Demand Pavilion with the other Inner Circle partners.

More details here: http://www.oracle.com/us/openworld/index.htm

Dreamforce 2009 - we are there on booth 218

2009-09-02T05:58:00.000-07:00

Just a short note to let everyone know that Clicktools will be at booth 218 at Dreamforce.

This will be our 6th year (we missed the first Dreamforce) and we invite you to join us at the could-computing event of the year with a special discount of $100 USD off your registration fees. To receive your discount, register at www.dreamforce.com and use the promotional code EXH12670 during the final step of the Registration Process.

Hope to see you all there!

Sales Executive vacancy

2009-07-15T07:24:00.000-07:00

Clicktools has a vacancy for a Sales Executive in the UK.

The Sales Executive will become an expert and an advocate of Clicktools products to drive revenue for the company. The ideal candidate will be well versed in technology sales and have a proven track record of meeting and exceeding quotas. To be successful, the Sales Executive will have the ability to think outside the box and provide the appropriate value proposition based on the prospect or customer needs. He or she will have a strong understanding of CRM tools and ideally Customer Feedback programs. They must be willing to wear many hats and be comfortable in several roles fro pre to post sales stages.

The Sales Executive will have the opportunity to work from home with 1-2 times a week in office in Poole, UK reporting to our VP of Sales located in the US. We are looking for a highly motivated self-starter. This is a great opportunity to join a dynamic and forward thinking team of talented professionals in this emerging industry as we shape and grow our business.

Primary Responsibilities:

Qualify and identify prospect immediate needs, introduce new ideas and explore value proposition and additional product offerings with prequalified leads.
Demonstrate the Clicktools product as a standalone solution as well as within the Salesforce.com and other CRM integrated environments.
Accurately maintain prospect information for processing sales, and keeping comprehensive and accurate client information in CRM tool.
Speak to all tiers within an organization to work through sales cycle from opportunity creation to close.
Build and maintain a consistent pipeline to meet and or exceed quarterly revenue goals and objectives.
Prepare in depth proposals and present innovative solutions to meet prospect objectives.
Manage top 10 Tier 1 accounts to retain and up-sell additional Clicktools products.

Qualifications and Requirements:

4 year University degree and/or 5-7 year experience in similar position, preferably in SaaS technology sales
Experience selling BtoB with experience participating in contract negotiations
Proven track record of meeting and exceeding quotas and goals
Ability to manage sales cycle from opportunity to close
Proven skills qualifying prospects and matching offerings with customer needs
Strong listening skills, consultative selling practices and exploratory info gathering skills
Excellent time management and follow up skills
Excellent PC and Internet skills, including proficiency in all MS Office applications, web meeting tools and salesforce.com - disciplined in capturing all communication and notes
Experience with online demos, ability to develop and present effective sales presentations
Knowledge of CRM & on demand software, experience with survey & customer experience a plus.
Ability to think strategically and utilize excellent judgment, exude a strong presence and create, influence, and drive customer vision.
Desire and ability to embrace new technologies and become proficient quickly.
Excellent interpersonal skills, both written and verbal.
Availability for travel, some international.
Highly motivated and self-directed with the ability to work well both independently and as proactive team member - must be able to work and report remotely to supervisor.
Sense of humor a must.

Clicktools offers a competitive salary and a comprehensive benefits package. For immediate consideration submit CV, and salary history/expectations to patty.hopper@clicktools.com

Integration through file import/export

2009-07-14T02:58:00.000-07:00

Integration through file import/export
Clicktools provides comprehensive integration with the most popular on‐demand CRM packages that allows real time, automated transfer of data between Clicktools and CRM. Whilst this level of integration is with a limited number of software packages, data can be exchanged with other systems using Clicktools Import and Export functionality.

The data that is used as the basis for Clicktools surveys often sits in other systems; for example a customer list may sit in an ERP, E‐Commerce or Accounting system. Equally, a company may want to take some of the Clicktools’results and embed these into core systems. Exchanging this information with Clicktools can be done using functionality to support file import/export.

IMPORTING CONTACTS
Clicktools includes a Contact database used for deploying surveys via email. A Contact record holds up to 28 data elements for each contact, 22 of which can be defined by the user: email address is used as the unique identifier and must be present. All of the data items can be used to personalise the content of a survey in two ways:

Personalise survey/form content. Different Questions in the survey/form can be presented based on the data in a contact record. For example if a Contact field holds information about product type, different questions can be presented for different types of product.
Information from the Contact record can be ‘piped’into the survey/form. For example, in a survey following a call to a help desk, the subject of the call (imported into the Contact record) can be inserted into the introductory title of the survey.

Bulk import is done using a file (typically a .csv file) that matches the structure of the Clicktools Contact record. It is important that the data matches this structure or surveys may not function correctly. Clicktools provides a header file for this purpose. Where a record with an email already exists, Clicktools will overwrite any of the associated data, ensuring that each record is unique. There is no limit to the number of contacts that can be imported.

EXPORTING RESULTS
Whilst Clicktools provides a low cost ‘iewer’license for people that only need to see results of their forms/surveys, some companies want to include selected results (e.g. overall satisfaction) in their core systems.

Clicktools provides an export facility, which produces a file that can then be imported into other systems. The Clicktools Export facility provides extensive flexibility for selecting which results to export:

Select questions to be exported
Filter records to be exported using contact data, question responses, dates or any combination of these.
Contact data associated with the results.
Data about the survey such as completion date and survey title.

Clicktools provides a file (a comma or tab separated values file) that most systems can import.

SCENARIO
Acme wants to send a survey to customers that have purchased products via their web site in the past month. Whilst Clicktools is used for detailed analysis and reporting, Acme want selected results to be visible in their accounting system, the primary system for their product and customer data.

The list of customers to be surveyed, their names, a unique customer ID, email address and the product they purchased are exported from the accounting system and imported into Clicktools.

Personalised email invitations are sent from Clicktools. The survey references the product they purchased (using piping) and, (using Conditional questions) presents different questions based on which of the six product families their purchase involved.

On completion of the survey each month, selected data are exported using Clicktools Export functionality:

Customer ID (originally imported into Clicktools Contact record from the accounting system), which is used to associate the data with the correct record in the accounting system.
Overall satisfaction score.
Date the survey was completed.
A data filter was set in Clicktools that selected only data captured in the last month into the export file.

The resulting .csv file was passed to IT for uploading the data into the accounting system. If you would like to discuss your requirements in more detail, please contact your account manager or sales@clicktools.com.

Deploying Forms/Surveys via email and web

2009-07-14T02:54:00.000-07:00

Deploying Forms/Surveys
Clicktools provides a number of ways of deploying forms/surveys including web, Clicktools email, third party email, phone, CRM web link, IVR and kiosk. This post outlines the most popular of these methods – Clicktools email and web.

EMAIL DEPLOYMENT
Clicktools includes a Contact record that holds up to 28 data elements for each contact, 22 of which can be defined by the user. The process for email deployment is:

Extract customer/contact list from your core system including email address and any associated demographic/segmentation data.
Structure the data using a header file provided by Clicktools.
Import data into Contacts using Clicktools Import facility.
Deploy form/survey using a plain text or HTML email invitation created in Clicktools. Invitations can be personalised using Contact data.
Unique form/survey URL is sent to each participant. Content can be personalised using Contact data or responses to previous questions.
Results are visible in real time in Clicktools and can be filtered (segmented) using Contact data, question responses and/or dates and any combination.

SIMPLE WEB DEPLOYMENT
Clicktools provides a URL for each form/survey which can be placed anywhere on a web site and controlled like any link. Common approaches to launching this URL include:

Simple button or link
Launch script that presents the form/survey as Pop up
Pop under
On exit – Message is presented at the beginning of a session asking the visitor if they will complete a form/survey on completion of their visit. If they agree, the form/survey is presented at the end of the visit or a point defined by the script.

NB It is wise not to interrupt a user’s core task when presenting a form/survey as this could lead to abandonment.

COMPLEX WEB DEPLOYMENT (INTEGRATED)
Whilst not part of core Clicktools functionality, it is possible to capture data from cookies into a Clicktools survey to personalise the content or associate a response with an individual. This is dependent on the information being accessible to Clicktools in a session or persistent cookie. For example, a cookie may hold a unique customer identifier that can be used to link survey results to a specific customer record in a third party system.

The launch script is more complex: on being triggered, the script reads the cookie and parses the required information from the cookie text. This text is used to dynamically annotate the basic survey URL with the information, which in turn populates a hidden question in the survey. As with other surveys, this data can be used to personalise the survey content (using conditional questions) and/or form part of the survey response. When the results are exported from Clicktools, this data can be used to associate the data with records in another system.To exploit this method, the script has to be launched from the same site that the cookie resides on.

Adding or displaying Clicktools analytics charts and question results in a Salesforce dashboard

2009-06-29T04:14:00.000-07:00

Adding/Displaying Clicktools analytics charts and question results in a Salesforce Dashboard.

Here is the process for putting Clicktools question views and analytics dashboards into Salesforce dashboards. The process uses a web-link for each element you want to display in your Salesforce dashboard and a custom S-control.

1- Grab the URL of the Clicktools element you want to display in Salesforce
2- Customize the URL to make it compatible
3- Create a custom S-control in Salesforce
4- Add the custom S-control component to your dashboard

1. Log in to Clicktools directly – not through Salesforce.

2. Go to the question by question view and look at the results for the question you want to display in Salesforce. Copy the URL from Clicktools – you can get this from the address bar in your browser.

Here's an example:
https://www.clicktools.com/dashboard/instance_question.jsp?instanceId=b41180e8866741d&questionId=b41180e60a4ad3b

For an analytics dashboard:
https://www.clicktools.com/dashboard/report.jsp?reportId=b611d53e4dac5ff&rgId=b611d53bb6f2eb3

3. You next need to customise the url by adding “_plain” to it before the .jsp, and ‘email={!User_Email}&sfsid={!User_Session_ID}&’ after the .jsp? as shown below. (Click on the links to see what this actually looks like – you may be presented with a login screen before you can view the link)

https://www.clicktools.com/dashboard/instance_question_plain.jsp?email={!User_Email}&sfsid={!User_Session_ID}&serverurl={!API_Partner_Server_URL_120}&instanceId=b41180e8866741d&questionId=b41180e60a4ad3b

https://www.clicktools.com/dashboard/report_plain.jsp? email={!User_Email}&sfsid={!User_Session_ID}&serverurl={!API_Partner_Server_URL_120}&reportId=b611d53e4dac5ff&rgId=b611d53bb6f2eb3

4. You next need to create a custom S-control in Salesforce. If you give it a name and then select the URL radio button and copy the URL itself into the content that is it! Don’t forget to save!

5. Next when you add a component into your SF dashboard select the custom S-control option and select the one you have set up.

That’s it! You can adjust the height of the chart using the Height in pixels setting as shown in the screenshot above. There is however a limitation in Salesforce dashboards that you cannot edit the width.

How to improve response rates...

2009-06-12T00:45:00.001-07:00

We are often asked how Clicktools can help improve Response rates. Whilst Clicktools can help in one or two areas; the most impact you can have on your response rates is entirely within your control. There are three areas that influence response rates and this blog gves out top 10 tips to improve them.

A. Show you are serious about collecting feedback - be professional.
If it isn't clear to the customer that you are serious about their opinion then one of two things will happen. They won't answer the survey or they won't give a serious response. In a lot of ways the second is far worse than the first.

B. Ask the right questions at the right time
If I asked you to tell me on a scale of 1 to 10 (where 1 is Not At All and 10 is Completely) how satisfed you were with your evening meal on 15 November 2008, I doubt you could tell me. In fact, if you did, I wouldn't be too confident about the answer. So, why do so many organizations take this approach to customer feedback. You can run a statistically sound survey to give you this information but come on people, apply the common sense factor - it ain't gonna work!

C. Build a relationship with the customer
Capturing feedback from a customer should be part of your overall operation business improvement process. This is by far the largest single influencer on response rates.

Here are Clicktools top 10 tips for improving response rates:

Reflect your brand - Show your customers you are serious about their feedback by reflecting your brand. You wouldn't use a landing page that had yellow background with purple comic font so why run a survey like that. Out of the top 5, this is the one where Clicktools can help. Clicktools doesn't provide templates called 'spring meadows' or 'summer flowers' but what it does do is enable you to completely match your website and/or brand guidelines.
Ensure correct spelling/grammar - The amount of emails I see that are poorly worded and/or misspelled never ceases to amaze me. At the very least turn your spell checker on.
Get feedback is as soon as possible after the experience or event you want feedback on. So, if someone raises a case/ticket then ask for feedback as soon as (perhaps an hour) after that case is closed.
In terms of relationship surveys, don't just bulk email customers once or twice a year - use an event such as license start date or date they became a customer to trigger and run a constant pulse of surveys.
Make the survey specific to the thing you are measuring. Don't overpad the survey with superfluous market research questions or try to sell me things.
Don't ask me things you should already know. If I am a customer you should know what products I have (certainly in a B2B environment) or what service/support program I have or, perhaps even worse, what country I am in. Please don't ask me this in a survey - it just shows me you don't really care. If you must ask do it in a survey intended to do just that - update the information you have. Asking for people to update one or two pieces of information in a survey can be acceptable - perhaps a phone number at the end of a survey.
Act on feedback. Give the opportunity for customers (or whoever) to request talk to someone or, based on their response ask them if they are willing to talk to someone.
Share internally. Integrating feedback with your CRM system will give everyone in your organization an understanding and picture of your customers' mindset the last time they gave you some feedback and over time. This can help Account Managers when making calls thru to call-center agents who are dealing with the customer
Share externally. Nothing frustrates someone more than completing a survey and not knowing (ever) what happened. Telling your customers what the feedback was and, more importantly, what you did because of their feedback will actively engage them in the feedback program and encourage them to be open and honest (and complete) in their responses.

Oops, that's a top 9. My final tip for survey success is, you guessed it - use Clicktools!

Implementation Consultant wanted

2009-05-27T00:13:00.001-07:00

We are rapidly expanding our operation in the USA and have an opportunity for an Implementation Consultant to join our team.

The Implementation Consultant will become an expert and an advocate of Clicktools products in order to provide expertise and technical support to users. The ideal candidate will have a strong understanding of CRM from a power user and product integration perspective, and have demonstrated success supporting and implementing technical solutions. To be successful the Implementation Consultant will have the ability to understand customers' business needs and effectively develop, communicate and deliver solutions that meet those needs.

This is a telecommute position for a highly motivated self-starter and a great opportunity to join a dynamic and forward thinking team of talented professionals in this emerging industry as we grow our presence in the US.

Responsibilities:

Analyze the needs of customers, and translate those needs to determine how Clicktools products can best be adapted and utilized to provide individual client business solutions.
Manage the implementation of Clicktools projects and solutions on behalf of customers.
Provide customers with technical support & training primarily via email, phone and online across all US time zones, with some onsite as needed.
Organize and manage interdepartmental activities and resources to complete solutions projects according to agreed specifications within defined budgets and time constraints.
Facilitate and manage communication between project team members and customers.
Institute administrative processes and procedures, including maintenance plans, logs, and status reports.
Develop an advanced knowledge of company products, policies, and programs and maintain in depth knowledge of the current market conditions and competitors.
Support US Sales by interfacing with existing and prospective customers to determine their technical requirements and to discuss and develop solutions.
Cultivate and maintain productive relationships with US customers.

Qualifications and Requirements:

BA/BS in related field.
5-7 years experience in a similar position preferably supporting and implementing SaaS/OnDemand CRM solutions
Demonstrated use of excellent project management skills, proficiency in PRINCE2 and project management methods a plus.
Demonstrated proficiency providing technical support and training to customers via email and phone in a timely, efficient and accurate manner.
Knowledge of CRM best practices; Knowledge of Survey & Customer Experience best practices a plus.
Ability to think strategically and utilize excellent judgment, exude a strong presence and create, influence, and drive customer vision.
Desire and ability to embrace new technologies and become proficient quickly.
Excellent interpersonal skills, both written and verbal.
Flexibility to provide support to customers in all US time zones.
Availability for travel, some international.
Ability to remain calm and positive while multitasking to meet customer needs.
Organization and attention to detail.
Highly motivated and self-directed with the ability to work well both independently and as proactive team member - must be able to work from home and report remotely to supervisor.

To apply please email patty.hopper@clicktools.com including a resume/CV.

Net Promoter calculations in Salesforce..

2009-05-19T00:52:00.000-07:00

We are often asked about how you can calculate Net Promoter scores in Salesforce. For those who don't know (where have you been??), Net Promoter was conceived by Fred Reichheld and is a common approach for measuring customer loyalty.
[Net Promoter is a registered trademark of Satmetrix Systems, Fred Reichheld and Bain & Co.]

To set up Net Promoter scores in Salesforce one approach is to:
(This should be tested in either a Sandbox or Development account prior to deployment in a production org)

1. Set up a custom 'number' field to collect the survey responses. This will usually be in a custom object linked to the Account (and any other relevant object such as a Contact etc.)

2. Set up 3 custom 'number' fields to convert the survey response in to a promoter value (Promoter, Detractor or Passive) using the following formulas:

Promoter: IF(score__c > 8, 1, 0)

Detractor: IF(score __c < 7, 1, 0)

Passive: IF(AND(score__c > 6, score__c < 9), 1, 0)

The above formulas assume a custom field to collect the survey response called "Score". Obviously, amend to your own requirement.

3. In a report use a "Custom Summary Formula" to calculate the overall Net Promoter score. Net Promoter score is defined as %Promoters - %Detractors. The following formula calculates the required percentage:

Net Promoter Score: Feedback__c.Promoter__c:SUM/RowCount*100)-(Feedback__c.Detractor__c:SUM/RowCount*100)

The formulas refer to two of the three fields defined in step 2 and will be automatically in the correct format if you use Salesforce to insert the field names. Obviously, amend this to match your own requirement. Depending upon the way the survey responses are stored you may need to amend this formula to calculate 'RowCount' in a different way.

4. This formula can then be used in any report to display overall and segmented Net Promoter scores in Salesforce.com dashboards.

5. You can also use a similar approach using summary roll-up fields in Parent objects (such as Account) to display overall Account scores and graphics (such as a traffic light where red is Detractor, Orange is passive and Green is Promoter).

Good luck!

Customer Experience - State of the Nation survey

2009-05-18T06:55:00.001-07:00

In association with MyCustomer, Clicktools is running a global survey on customer experience practices. We are keen to gather views from as many people as possible and in return for completing the survey, we will send you a free copy of the final report.

You can complete the survey at MyCustomer.

I look forward to hearing your views and sharing the findings with you.

Advanced Salesforce Synchronization Management

2009-05-13T06:38:00.000-07:00

Following feedback from and discussions with customers, earlier this year we changed the way that users managed responses and synchronizations with their CRM solution.

Want to know exactly what these changes mean for Salesforce users? This article explains how the new Advanced CRM Synchronization works and then goes on to highlight the answers to some of our Salesforce users frequently asked questions.

So what's new?

1. Clear identification of Synchronization status.
Previously, Clicktools simply told you how many responses were available for synchronization. It was not possible to find out whether these responses had been completed or failed synchronization. The only way to see error messages was to manually synchronize but this could result in synchronization of empty responses, and matching errors to responses was difficult.

Clicktools now separates responses in to multiple columns, enabling you to clearly identify the exact status of your synchronization and easily correct any errors before synchronizing again manually. The columns displayed are:

Not Complete – the number of ‘incomplete’ survey responses, i.e. the Submit/Close button has not been pressed or are in the process of being completed.

Ready For Sync – the number of ‘completed’ responses, i.e. The Submit/Close button has been pressed but the response has not yet been synchronized. This will be zero if synchronization is set to ‘Automatic’.

Failures – the number of responses that have failed to synchronize because of an error that needs correcting.

Retries – the number of responses with temporary errors (see bullet 2. below for further detail). Will always be zero if synchronization is set to ‘Manual’.

Successful – the total number of responses for the survey instance that are currently stored in Clicktools and have been successfully synchronized.

Sync Type – no change; shows ‘Automatic’ or ‘Manual’ synchronization.

Last Sync – no change; shows the date and time of the last successful synchronization.

2. Re-try of Automatic synchronization.
Previously, if Automatic synchronization failed due to a failure to connect to Salesforce (e.g. during standard maintenance periods, temporary connection problems) Clicktools would simply place the failed response in the “Responses to Synch” column. Now, these responses will be visible in the new “Retries” column and Clicktools will re-attempt the synchronization once an hour for another 4 hours. If a response has failed after this period it will be placed in to the new “Failures” column.

3. Clearer separation of Surveys.
Rather than placing all surveys in one list, the CRM control panel now places surveys in to their respective tabs easing identification and management.

4. Visible error management and tracking.
Each column in bullet 1 will contain a number representing the relevant total of responses for each survey instance (rows) that meet that criterion. Each number greater than zero in the ‘Not Complete’, ‘Ready for Sync’ and ‘Failures’ column links to a page that will display the relevant individual responses. From there, you can View, Edit or Delete responses and select one or more responses to manually synchronize. In addition, when the ‘Failures’ screen is displayed you will see two additional columns; ‘Fail Message’ and ‘Fail Date’. Fail message will show the error message returned by Salesforce whilst an icon to the right of the message may be visible which will show more information when you hover over the icon. Fail Date will show the date and time of the last failed synchronization for that response.

FAQ’s

Q. Why do I have a large number of 'Not Complete' responses, where previously they were marked as available for syncing?
A. Only newly created responses (post the application update) can be identified as being complete. All previously completed or part completed responses cannot be identified as complete and will therefore appear in the 'not complete' column.

Q. Why don't I see all my failed responses yet?
A. Only responses which have failed to synchronize after the application update will be listed against the 'failures' column. You will need to manually synchronize responses first.

Q. Can I just synchronize all the 'not complete' surveys?
A. Yes, but this requires qualification. The count of 'not complete' responses includes responses which have been abandoned (truly not complete), pre application update completed responses that have not yet been synchronized with Salesforce, as well as responses which are in the process of being completed at the time the page was accessed. This last set of responses should not be synchronized as this may cause incomplete information to be populated into Salesforce. To exclude these responses from synchronization, a date filter can be applied which excludes for example those created in the previous 24 hours, the remaining can then be selected for synchronization.

Q. When I manually synchronize responses for a survey marked as 'automatic', it doesn't use my current Salesforce credentials.
A. This is part of the new functionality in the latest release. If a survey is marked as 'automatic' for Salesforce synchronization, then the credentials specified for that survey instance will be used whenever responses are synchronized, either automatically due to a survey response being completed or a response being manually synchronized.

If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us on: USA: 1-800-774-4065, UK: 0800 0432587 or click here to e-mail us

Creating HTML deployment emails

2009-04-27T08:16:00.000-07:00

We often get asked how you can make survey invites look better, and how to hide the long survey link behind a simple message like 'Take Survey'. This can be done using some simple HTML - the language that controls the layout of web pages. In the text template area, in Clicktools, where you create emails for deploying surveys you can code HTML directly into the edit area.

Take the following text based email template:

Dear ${firstname},

We are constantly striving to improve the service we provide to you. To help us, we need your feedback. We would be grateful if you could answer a couple of questions about how well we responded to your case using the following link:

Please give us your feedback

Regards
VP Customer Support

In HTML, this is written as:

The HTML used is as follows:

Try copying the HTML version and pasting into a new text template in Clicktools (download the code here: http://www.clicktools.com/documents/html_code.doc) to see what it does. Now view the template to see the link hidden behind the 'Please give us your feedback, text.

If you want more help with HTML, there's a great website here: http://www.w3schools.com/.

HTML is much richer than what we have provided here and if you want something more sophisticated and don't have the resource or expertise to write html yourself, we can build a custom html email for you. For further information and costing please contact sales@clicktools.com.

Using a 'custom URL' to mask Clicktools.com branding from your survey URL.

2009-04-27T07:37:00.000-07:00

Clicktools allows you to apply a custom URL to replace the clicktools.com part of a survey link. This is visible in the address bar of an internet browser and will enable you to mask Clicktools branding with something relating to your organisation. This is achieved through the use of a DNS alias for the http://www.clicktools.com/ address, specified in your domain.

For example: if you want to replace the 'www.clicktools.com' part of a survey link with 'survey.yourorganisation.com' you would create a CNAME DNS record 'survey.yourorganisation.com' IN CNAME 'www.clicktools.com' This doesn't require you to register a new domain, only that you create, or get a DNS/web hosting provider to create the DNS record. The survey URL would then become for example: http://survey.yourorganisation.com/survey?iv=1234567890

NOTE: This is different from creating an HTTP redirect, which does not hide the clicktools.com address in the browser, and will not work due to additional redirects that happen from within the Clicktools application.

For the technically adept, it is possible to configure a web server to act as a reverse proxy for the Clicktools survey. This allows any URL to be used for the survey. We don't provide technical support for this, but it's not too difficult to setup if you know what you're doing.
Once you have set up the sub domain, you need to tell us what it is and we can apply it to your account. Once we have done this, survey links deployed from Clicktools will automatically show the new sub domain as part of the link.

NOTE: There is one off set cost to enable the custom URL functionality in Clicktools and apply your sub domain to your account. For further information please email: sales@clicktools.com.

Building a Global opt-out form

2009-04-08T04:13:00.000-07:00

What better way of getting to know how to use Clicktools for AppExchange than building a very useful short form to enable individuals to ‘opt-out’ …

You can see an example opt-out form here: http://www.clicktools.com/survey?iv=b611329eb33557

We are going to walk through the steps required to build a Global opt-out form. This form will provide a link that you can use in all email communications to Leads and Contacts (and custom objects with ‘individual’ information in it).

With a little more work, this form could easily be adopted to provide an opt-in confirmation form or be expanded to provide opt-in/outs for multiple communications (more on these at the end of the document).

Download a step-by-step guide here: http://www.clicktools.com/documents/global_opt_out_form.pdf

Creating a Closed Case Survey

2009-04-08T04:03:00.000-07:00

This document discusses how a Closed Case Survey can be integrated with Salesforce. Whilst the document focuses on a Closed Case Survey and a custom Feedback object, the aim of this document is to provide experienced Salesforce users with everything they need to implement their own survey and integration.

Download the step-by-step guide here: http://www.clicktools.com/documents/ct4ae_closedcase.pdf

How to add a 'Thank You' page after survey submission

2009-03-26T04:36:00.000-07:00

We often get asked how to set up an end page to a survey so that we can confirm that a respondent's survey has been successfully submitted and their answers have been received.

In a standard survey, a respondent will either see a 'Submit' button or a 'Close' button on the final page ('Submit' if there is a question on the last page, 'Close' if there isn't). When the respondent hit's this button, Clicktools attempts to close the survey window. This can sometimes leave the respondent unsure if the response has bee received, especially if they have disabled JavaScript on their browser as the window will not close and may just go to a blank page.

So, to combat this, we suggest the creation of a separate thank you and confirmation page (basically just a survey with some text and no questions) which is used as an exit page for your main survey. An exit page is a feature that allows you to direct a respondent to any webpage when they submit a survey. For example, build your survey as normal:

Now build an end page by creating a separate survey, with text element:

Take the survey URL from your end page survey, and add it as the Exit Page for your actual survey:

And this is what you get:

http://www.clicktools.com/survey?iv=b51203e8e8dac36

NOTE: You could create one generic end page and apply it as an exit page on multiple surveys

How to add a progress bar to your survey

2009-03-26T04:05:00.000-07:00

Progress bars are a great addition to any survey that extends over more than one or two pages. They clarify to the respondent where they are in a survey, and how far they've got to go. We've seen numerous occurrences of people dropping out part way through a survey as they have no indicator of how much of it they've completed.

Progress bars are a feature of a 'Presentation Template' and can be switched on (or off!) and applied to every page of your survey.

Go to 'Templates' in the main menu bar. Now go to the 'Presentation' tab. Now either 'Create New' to create a new template or hit the 'edit' link on the right-hand-side to edit an existing template. In the edit screen, on the left-hand-side is a 'Progress bar' option. Select yes, and then choose the progress bar colour.

Remember to hit the 'Apply' button to save the changes.

Your progress bar will now be automatically applied to your survey:

NOTE: Making changes to a presentation template will affect the look and feel of any survey instance that uses that template.

How to contact support & your training options

2009-03-25T12:09:00.000-07:00

Support and Training
Clicktools offers a number of help and support options. This document outlines what these are so you know how you can learn about the application and what to do if you get stuck! Here are your options:

Search the Online Help Documentation
This is your first port of call and contains functional help for the whole application. It can be accessed 24/7/365 by clicking the ‘Help’ link in the top right hand corner of the application:

Use the Contents menu to navigate around, or click on the ‘Search’ tab, type a topic into the text box and hit ‘Go’. Related search results will show as a list to the right of your search topic.

Ask Our Support Team a Question
Our application support team is on hand to answer any of your technical questions. The level of support you have will determine your options for contacting us and how we prioritise cases:

*With our very best endeavours and under reasonable circumstances, but some things can take longer!

For basic support, the quickest way to raise a support ticket is via the ‘Still need help’ link in the online help:

This takes you to a form where you can provide details of your question or problem and get a support ticket raised for you automatically the moment you submit the form (if you didn’t guess, the form is all built and managed using Clicktools). You can also email support@clicktools.com - once we receive your email, it will go into a queue where an agent will raise the case for you with the details you provide.

In addition to this, Premium support customers will be provided with a dedicated phone number and named contact.

Attend a Web-based Training Session
Led by a Clicktools instructor, these free to attend sessions are perfect for new Users or as a refresher course and are designed to demonstrate essential Clicktools skills without taking you away from your desk. The web-based sessions incur no travel costs and each session only takes up to an hour of your time. Web sessions are run on a Regular schedule as detailed below:

To join any of the sessions, email us at training@clicktools.com

Session Outline

Building surveys
How to build web based surveys, forms and landing pages:

Creating a new surveys from scratch
Adding question content and the three key survey elements
Adding question for automatic answering
Editing and managing survey content
Question conditions, piping, formatting tools, adding content from Word
Creating a branded look and feel template
Creating and testing a live survey instance

Duration: 1 hour approx.
Who should attend: New Users at Architect or Principle level

Deploying surveys using Clicktools
How to deploy web based surveys forms and landing pages form Clicktools:

Uploading and managing contact lists
Creating and managing participant lists
Creating and editing deployment templates
Anonymous surveys using a generic link
Deploying surveys to Clicktools contacts
Automatically answering questions using annotated URLs

Duration: 1 hour.
Who should attend: Users at Organiser level or above looking to deploy and manage surveys

Analysing Results in Clicktools
Looking at results for a survey instance:

Viewing results
Segmenting data using date, respondent and question filtering
Cross-tabbing question results
Exporting data and publishing results
Set-up options

Duration: 1 hour.
Who should attend: Users at User level or above

Salesforce Connector

Integrating Clicktools with your Salesforce CRM environment

Integration overview
Setting up surveys to allow integration with Salesforce
Mapping survey data to your Salesforce environment
Setting up deployment templates with annotated URLs and merge variables
Deployment of surveys using Ct4ae deployment wizard and communication templates
Managing synchronization

Duration: 1 hour.
Who should attend: Users at Organiser level or above looking to integrate Clicktools with Salesforce
Suggested prerequisites: Attendees should be familiar with Salesforce including setting up custom objects and fields, creating communication templates, building custom reports, Salesforce IDs and using the key features of Salesforce. Attendees should also be comfortable with the Clicktools application specifically editing survey content.

On-site Training
On-site training involves a Clicktools trainer visiting your work-place to cover Clicktools functionality and specific applications of Clicktools relevant to your organisation. In an in-house setting, Clicktools training has a real hands-on approach and is a great way to "kick-start" a new project by giving participants immediate, directly-relevant experience using Clicktools. Training courses can be tailored to meet your specific needs.

Please contact us to discuss your on-site training requirements via email - sales@clicktools.com

Creating Ideas with Clicktools..

2009-03-10T04:39:00.000-07:00

This blog entry looks at how you can use Clicktools to create Ideas. If you don't know about Ideas, it's a great tool to capture and organize any suggestions from anyone whether they be internal users, customers, partners etc. One of our customers recently asked us to look at ways of capturing Ideas from a survey and this outlines what we came up with.

The use case is fairly simple. The customer loved using Ideas internally but didn't want to expose the Ideas interface to their customers. They wanted a way of enabling customer to capture ideas, suggestions or even praise following a survey and in support emails. They would then manage the Ideas, to share praise (and criticism!?) as well as vote within their product management team on features. Once, the product management team had voted they wanted to issue a survey with the top ten Ideas, collecting comments from customers (again added to Ideas) and then voting.

Sure, it's not a pure use of Ideas but some organizations are just not quite ready to put the whole of their product roadmap in the hands of customers!

This blog entry looks at the first element in the use case - capturing ideas.

1. The survey in Clicktools
You can see an example of a survey to capture Ideas here and is shown in the mini-screen shot:
http://www.clicktools.com/survey?iv=b411fb322c0d52c

click image to magnify

The area we are focusing on is an area at the bottom of the survey. A light bulb indicates that start of the 'Ideas' area and, in Clicktools, there are three questions used to create the Idea.

1) A text question asks for a summary of the idea. This will be used to capture the Idea 'Title'
2) A radio question alongside the text asks the user to categorize the idea (these should match the categories you want people to create)
3) An essay question collects the detail to create the 'Idea Body'.

2. The mapping
is quite simple. You simply create an Idea using the questions in the survey. Additionally you may want to consider adding a custom field to your Ideas object to capture a link to a Contact or Account. That way, you can easily see which ideas your customers are creating...

This is a very simple but exceptionally powerful application for Clicktools. Please let us know if you think of any ways to expand on this...

Clickthru agreements..

2009-03-10T02:27:00.000-07:00

It's been a while but it's back - the blog that is. We have been including more and more hints and tips in the help but we decided it was time to bring the blog back. This is simply because there are so many good ideas and uses of Clicktools with Salesforce - we just have to tell everyone about them.

Ok, for the first new entry we are going to talk about using Clicktools for clickthrough (click-sign) agreements.

The use case is quite simple. You need to get a customer or partner (or someone) to agree to your terms and conditions before proceeding with the relationship. Usually, this involves sending a word document or pdf to the customer/partner. them printing, signing and returning. It's a simple but potentially lengthy process that can, using Clicktools and Salesforce be completely automated...

1. Decide how to record agreements in Salesforce.
There are several options here. The most obvious would be to use the standard Contract object in Salesforce. However, there are some alternatives that other Clicktools customers use. Some record the fact the agreement was signed, the date is was signed and by whom - all against the Account. Others record agreements against the Contact or Opportunity. Or perhaps you have a custom object called "Agreements" and link to both the Account and Contact. You may of course consider a combination of the above. For the purposes of this example, we are going to create a new Contract and link it to an Account and a Contact.

2. Build form in Clicktools.
The form in Clicktools is quite simple and consists of three main elements. a) Hidden text questions to connect the form back to Salesforce. b) The agreement text and c) a checkbox question so the individual can confirm the agreement. Here is some more detail:

a) You will require hidden text questions for each of the elements you wish to link back to in Salesforce. As we are creating a Contract and linking to an Account and Contact, we need two hidden text questions. One for Account and one for the Contact.

b) Entering the agreement text can be done in many ways. You can display the whole text as a standard text element. However, this could take up a lot of screen real estate. The standard approach appears to be to use a 'window' with a scroll bar with only a small amount of the agreement visible at any one time. There are two approaches to this. One, use an iFrame. An iFrame enables you to reference text on another web page which eases potential maintenance however the downside is that iFrames are not particularly well supported in all browser environments (e.g. Safari). The other option (and the one used in the example) is to use a 'textarea'. You will need to enter this html directly in to the 'Source' of a Clicktools text block. To do this, create a text element, show the formatting bar and click the 'Source' button. Then, enter the code below, replacing the text with your own:

-- sample code begins --
<textarea cols="80" rows="10" readonly="readonly">Your agreement text in here.</textarea>"
-- sample code ends --

You can change the number of rows and columns to show more (or less) of the agreement whilst the readonly setting ensure the text cannot be changed. Please see http://www.w3schools.com/TAGS/tag_textarea.asp for more help on this html.

c) The final element is perhaps some thank you text but, importantly, a single checkbox which the user has to check to complete the form. Make this question 'Required' which forces this.

You can see an example here or, click on the mini-screenshot:
http://www.clicktools.com/survey?iv=b411feffe4d65dc

click to magnify screenshot

3. Define mapping from Clicktools to Salesforce.
Obviously, the mapping will depend entirely upon what you want to do with the information in Salesforce. In our example, we are creating a Contract, then using the answers to the two hidden questions to populate the links to the Account and Contact. We can then use some additional items like the date completed to record and use some fixed text to record the status of Draft, the length of the contract term and place a link to the completed form in the Description.

4. The email to send.
The final element is to create an email in Salesforce to send to the contact to sign. Obviously, each person will use their own text but the important element will be the link to the survey. It is important because the link must pass across information to Clicktools. We do this by appending two merge fields on to the end of the survey link like this:

http://www.clicktools.com/survey?iv=b411feffe4d65dc&q1={!Account.Id}&q2={!Contact.Id}

The bold element at the end of the link is what you would need to add. So, when you send the email the values {!Account.Id} and {!Contact.Id} will be replaced by the real values in Salesforce which allows Clicktools to link the newly created contract to the correct people. You could hide this URL behind some other text or an image using Salesforce's html email editor to produce a very smooth email.

That completes the example - it's a fairly simple process and can vastly reduce the amount of effort involved in getting click-thru's implemented!

Net Promoter webinar...

2007-06-13T10:21:00.000-07:00

More and more Salesforce customers are using Clicktools as part of their Net Promoter initiative. To explain more about the way that Clicktools supports Net Promoter, we now have a webinar available at:

www.clicktools.com/help/webinars/ct4aenp/player.html

The Net Promoter extension is available to all Clicktools for AppExchange customers at no charge.

Required information

2007-04-22T21:26:00.000-07:00

When creating information in Salesforce, there are 'required' pieces of information that must be included in the form. The table below gives you a list of required fields for some common objects in a standard Salesforce implementation:

Account: Name

Contact: Last Name

Lead: Last Name, Company

Campaign: Name

CampaignMember: (i.e. Adding a Contact to a Campaign): Contact ID, Event ID, Status

Event: Subject, Date, Time, Duration (usually defaults)

Task: Subject, Priority, Status

Opportunity: Name, Close Date, Stage

Case: Status (usually defaults to New), Origin

Solution: Solution Title

Product: Product Name

In terms of some common AppExchange applications, here is the required information for a few popular installed Salesforce Lab Apps:

Class Enrollment:
Class: Class Name
Enrollment: Class ID, Contact ID

Project/Issue Management:
Project: Project Number
Issue: Project ID

Recruiting Manager:
Candidate: Candidate Name:
Applicants: Applicant Name

I hope you find this useful. Don't forget, this includes the information you MUST include, you are likely to want to include much more than this...

When responses don't auto-synch...

2007-04-09T12:21:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, it's possible that form/survey responses don't auto-synch. Unfortunately, it's really not possible to guarantee 100% auto-synchronization 100% of the time. The main reasons for this, in order from most to least likely, are:

1. The mapping is incorrect or some information is missing. Try the manual synch to see what is causing the error.
2. The person does not complete the survey and does not press the submit button. When this happens the response will sit in the manual queue waiting for completion or you to manually synchronize.
3. None of the information that is required for synchronization is completed. Note - If this happens then the survey is 'tagged' as being synched and will not be placed in the manual queue.
4. The credentials (username and password) against the survey instance are incorrect (or have changed - this is common when, for example, a password is changed).
5. You have exceeded the maximum number of API calls your organisation is allowed to make during one day.
6. The Salesforce API is not available and we cannot 'activate' a session (i.e. login) to automatically synch.
7. You have exceeded your Clicktools licensed responses and so responses are not available for auto-synching.

Using Vertical Response to send Clicktools surveys...

2007-03-13T08:18:00.000-07:00

Many of our customers use Vertical Response to send emails from Salesforce. And, finally, I have got round to documenting how to use the two tools together!

It's actually quite simple and involves two changes in your email template:

There are two important rules to be aware of:

Use 'nr_' in front of the 'http' in any Clicktools survey link.
Any link to a Clicktools survey should begin "nr_http://...". This simply switches off the redirect from within VR and enables the merge field values to work correctly. This only stops tracking on the Clicktools link not the rest of your tracking (e.g. opens, bounces, etc.).
Use VR merge field values.
Most importanty, to pass any value you must use the corresponding VR merge field value. Importantly, to pass across the ID of a Contact or Lead you must use the special VR value of '{salesforce_id}'. So, for example, a standard Salesforce template would have &q1={Contact.ID} at the end to pass across the Contact ID. In Vertical Response this would read &q1={salesforce_id}.

Remember: These merge fields will not work in any 'test' messages that are sent!

Note: If you are using Clicktools surveys to update campaign records then you would use the special merge value for the campaign member status record which is {sf_campaign_member_id}. Unfortunately, I don't think any other IDs (e.g. Account) can be included.

Analysts review of Clicktools for AppExchange

2007-03-12T09:47:00.000-07:00

Please find below a review of Clicktools for AppExchange by Infiniti Research.

Infiniti Review

We score a strong 4.5 out of 5 with the only highlighted weakness being the omission of 'standard' surveys. Interestingly, this is something we used to include but we removed them as 90% of our customers had their own.

We do have sample surveys coming out of our ears so, as a result of this feedback, we will be including some standard surveys that map to Salesforce objects in our starter kit.

Clicktools get wizzy!

2007-02-16T07:44:00.000-08:00

We have today launched our latest addition to Clicktools for AppExchange - the Form Wizard.

The Form Wizard uses a simple concept to simplify the process of building, deploying forms, surveys and landing pages that are fully integrated with Salesforce.

You basically select the fields you want and, hey presto, the form is built for you. You can build forms to create/update multiple objects (e.g. Accounts AND a Contact AND an Opportunity) and a form can be presented according to ANY brand guidelines.

The Form Wizard provides several benefits:

No html skills required
No need to wait for Web/IT teams to host your form

You can build and deploy a form in minutes. We think it's a leap forwards in the functionality available to Salesforce users.

Here are a couple of webinars to get you excited:

Introduction to Form Wizard

Advanced Form Wizard webinar

More webinars live...

2007-01-19T02:57:00.000-08:00

3 more webinars are now on-line. Whilst the first three focused on functionality, these three focus on real world applications:

The first focuses on implementing case/support satisfaction surveys, the second on how to use Clicktools to manage event invites and other campaigns to automatically update campaign member status records and thirdly, we look at how you can use Clicktools to manage the email opt-out field in Salesforce.

Each webinar includes details of any Salesforce customizations, the forms/surveys required and how they can be deployed.

Have fun.

Clicktools gets incubated!

2007-01-17T09:58:00.000-08:00

I am very pleased to announce that Clicktools will be taking one of the "cubes" within the Salesforce.com Incubator in San Mateo. This will become the base for our US operations.

More details to follow on the web site and here but you can read the Salesforce press release here:

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/news_press_release,44900.shtml

More webinars on-line...

2007-01-11T08:11:00.000-08:00

I am pleased to say that we now have another couple of webinars available.

The first covers passing information from Salesforce in to forms and surveys, the second how you set up mappings to transfer information from completed forms and surveys back in to Salesforce.

Both take about five minutes so go grab that coffee...

More will be on-line very soon to cover both learning how to use Clicktools for AppExchange as well as real-worl examples.

Auto-sync is live!

2007-01-05T04:13:00.000-08:00

You've been asking for it and it's here - All Clicktools for AppExchange customers now have the ability to define automatic synchronization to Salesforce.

Uniquely, this contains the ability to:

Select either manual and automatic synchronization
- Different types of forms will require different settings, stay-in-touch for example may be best left as Manual so you can review findings before synching back in to Salesforce)
Use different users for different survey synchronizations
- This was specifically asked for by you and means that you can more closely track updates in Salesforce to individuals not just one id. Of course, you can use the same credentials for all synchronization if required.
Fix forms/surveys with errors and re-synch
- Any forms that do not successfully synchronize are placed in the manual queue so you can examine exact errors and fix or delete as required.

This is something we only used to offer as a custom service but it's now part of the standard subscription. Forgive me for blowing our own trumpet but again, I think ths raises the bar on form/survey integration with Salesforce.

You can see more by looking at the following webinar http://www.clicktools.com/help/webinars/ct4aeautosync/player.html

There will be more exciting functionality coming soon so keep an eye on the blog.

Andrew

Question Guide

2006-11-17T05:08:00.000-08:00

Are you struggling to understand which Clicktools question types to use when?

Then why not use the Question guide to help you understand when to use which question type.

Surveys in emails

2006-11-17T02:26:00.000-08:00

I am often asked about including surveys in emails. There are several ways of doing this and we could (and people do) argue for a long long time about the rights and wrong of each approach. Obviously, some people's email readers block any form of html so the ony guaranteed way to esnure your link gets through is to send it as a pure link. If, however, you do want to use html or place a survey in email, These are my preferred three options.

Option 1: Hide complex links within a "Click Here" (or similar) link - EASY, LOW RISK.

This option doesn't duplicate any of the survey in an email BUT usefully hides long and unwieldy links under something that a) takes up less space and b) won't be broken. To do this you need to use a HREF statement. The following example html code will place a link in an email displaying click here and, when clicked on, will take the user to the survey. This should work in most emails but some text only email readers may not display the link.

-- example code begins --

<html>
<body>
<a href="SURVEY LINK HERE">Click Here</a>
</body>
</html>

-- example code ends --

There is a great site (W3 Schools) that enables you to learn and play with html. To try the HREF example click the following link:
http://www.w3schools.com/html/tryit.asp?filename=tryhtml_links

Option 2: Include one or two questions in the email and then take them to the complete survey - DIFFICULT, MEDIUM RISK

Now for something a little more tricky. This option involves coding some html to duplicate question(s) in a survey. Clicking on a button (or link) then takes the user to the survey and auto-populates the answers.

This involves building a html form that presents the question(s) and you can only generate four question types: Text, Radio, Pulldown and Checkbox. In the example code below we present one question (the Net Promoter question) in the html. Note the use of a 'hidden' field that records the SURVEY CODE. This is the 15 digit code that is at the end of a Clicktools survey link. Each of the input options presents a value and passes a corresponding value across to Q1 in a Clicktools survey. Finally, the Input type at the bottom of the code presents a button that actually transfers the answers and presents the rest of the survey to the user. This should work in most emails but obviously will not work if people accept text only.

Please Note: The Code below only works with Anonymous URLs.

-- example code begins --

<html>
<head></head>
<body>
<form action="http://clicktools.com/dashboard/survey/go.jsp">
<input type="hidden" name="iv" value="SURVEY CODE HERE">
<strong>Where 0 is 'Not at all' and 10 is 'Extremely'. how likely is it that you would recommend us to a friend or colleague?</strong>
<table border=0>
<tr>
<td><input type="radio" name="q1" value="1"></td>
<td>0</td>
<td><input type="radio" name="q1" value="2"></td>
<td>1</td>
<td><input type="radio" name="q1" value="3"></td>
<td>2</td>
<td><input type="radio" name="q1" value="4"></td>
<td>3</td>
<td><input type="radio" name="q1" value="5"></td>
<td>4</td>
<td><input type="radio" name="q1" value="6"></td>
<td>5</td>
<td><input type="radio" name="q1" value="7"></td>
<td>6</td>
<td><input type="radio" name="q1" value="8"></td>
<td>7</td>
<td><input type="radio" name="q1" value="9"></td>
<td>8</td>
<td><input type="radio" name="q1" value="10"></td>
<td>9</td>
<td><input type="radio" name="q1" value="11"></td>
<td>10</td>
</tr>
</table>
<br>
<input type="submit" name="OK" value="Submit">
</form>
</body>
</html>

-- example code ends

Again, look at the W3 site for more instructions: http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_forms.asp.
Paste the above code in to one of the example windows to see how this looks.

Option 3: Include the whole survey completely in the email - EASY, HIGH RISK

If you want to actually include the survey in the body of the email itself you can use what is called an IFRAME. This quite simple to do as the code below shows.

Paste the following html in to an email template, replacing the SURVEYLINK with your own survey link and, obviously, test!... Note: Active content in email is increasingly becoming blocked by email readers so this approach will NOT work in some email readers (e.g. where IE security settings are set to HIGH.). If you use this option I would recommend including a link as well at the top of the page giving people an alternative should they not be able to see the survey.

-- example code begins --
<html>
<body>
<p> Introductory text here </p>
<iframe src ="SURVEY LINK HERE" width="100%" height="400" frameborder="no" scrolling="yes"> </iframe>
</body>
</html>
-- example code ends --

You can change the settings (width, height etc.) to find the right setting for your survey. Again, there is a W3Schools page where you can test the html to see how your survey would look in an email: http://www.w3schools.com/tags/tryit.asp?filename=tryhtml_iframe.

Clicktools questions to Salesforce fields? What goes where...

2006-11-13T07:29:00.000-08:00

Below is a list of all the field types in Salesforce with a recommendation of what question types to use to populate these types:

Salesforce Field Type	Recommendation	Alternative/Notes
Auto Number	Not possible
Formula	Not possible
Master-Detail Relationship	Text	NOTE: A Salesforce ID MUST BE USED to create/update any reference field.
Lookup Relationship	Text	NOTE: A Salesforce ID MUST BE USED to create/update any reference field.
Checkbox	Checkbox NOTE: Please see earlier blog posting here.	Radio.
Currency	Number
Date	Date	Date completed option. NOTE: You cannot create/update the Date created or modified fields in Salesforce.
Date/Time	Date	Date/Time completed. NOTE: You cannot create/update the Date created or modified fields in Salesforce.
Email	Text, Multi-text
Number	Number, Radio/Drop with Numeric choices in the question. NOTE: Clicktools passes numbers across with TWO decimal places so formatting in salesforce must be set to this to work correctly.	Multi-numeric
Percent	Percent, Multi-percent	Number
Phone	Number	Text, Multi-text
Picklist	Radio, Dropdown, Multi-radio, Multi-dropdown
Picklist (Multi-Select)	Checkbox, Multi-checkbox
Text	Text, Multi-text	Any other question type except Essay
Text Area	Text, Multi-text	Any other question type except Essay
Text Area (Long)	Essay	Any other question type
URL	Text, Multi-text

If you have any questions about specific mappings, drop us an email...

Integration with Angel.com IVR.

2006-11-13T06:38:00.000-08:00

A great example of three-way on-demand integration is Clicktools integration with Angel.com. Angel provides an on-demand IVR tool and we have built an integration that transfers results directly from IVR phone based surveys in to Clicktools which can then, obviously, go in to Salesforce (any object!).

The basic use case is:

Customer calls Support Desk
Call center agent uses Salesforce to respond to call
At end of call, Agent re-directs caller to Angel.com to take survey
Angel.com collects survey response and passes to Clicktools
Clicktools can be used for real-time analysis and transfer back in to Salesforce.

At the same time, an email survey could be sent to cases closed through that channel. Responses to both the email and IVR survey can be collected in the same survey in Clicktools - hey presto, a seamless, real-time multi-channel feedback environment enabling you to compare and contrast support levels across different channels.

To have a look at the demo:

Click www.clicktools.com/dashboard and login to the demo Clicktools account with the email angelivr@clicktools.com and the password 'angelivr'
Call 866-248-8135 and answer the short four question survey by saying the numbers or pressing digits on your phone. Leave a comment too.
In Clicktools, Click the + then 'Results' link in Clicktools to see your result appear before your eyes. This includes storing a link to the comment which you can cut and paste in to another browser window to hear.

This is all seamless and all in real-time, integrating three enterprise strength software tools in minutes. You gotta LOVE on demand software!

It's official - Clicktools is cool!

2006-11-10T04:22:00.000-08:00

Wendy Close, ex Gartner Analyst and Salesforce CRM guru (aka 'Ask Wendy'), has included Clicktools in her cool tools list...

Cool Tools Heat-Up The AppExchange