New CRM Feature: Web-to-lead forms unveiled at ISP Summit

Method_Paul — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 18:23:00 GMT

We're happy to announce that "Method Web Forms" are now in beta. We unveiled this to Method Solution Providers at the Intuit Solution Provider Summit in Los Angeles last week. I had the pleasure of demonstrating and getting early feedback from MSPs such as Herman Baptist and Joe Woodard. Their eyes bulged. Hearing "this is big!" and "game changer for CRM!" was music to my ears.

What is a Web Form?

A web form consists of simple HTML code that you copy and paste inside a page on your existing web site. It collects information from your visitors and automatically enters it into Method. For example, a standard Web-To-Lead form enters a potential customer as a lead in Method, creates an opportunity, and a follow up activity - so you don't have to copy and paste them into Method, or hire a programmer to design a form using the MethodAPI.

What took so long? Lots of CRMs have web forms!

While it's true that other CRMs have web forms, I think they stink, and do not fit the customization mindset of a Method user. Earlier this year we were looking to do something quick and dirty to allow someone to put up a simple "contact us" form on their websites. We looked at the competition. I won't mention any names but I found their web-to-lead forms weak and very limited. In my Method mindset, I wanted not only to create a customer lead and a CRM opportunity, but also have control over automatic follow-up activities, choose which of my custom fields got inserted, and the ability to create automatic formulas to do things like calculate the QuickBooks "Name" field from "FirstName LastName" or "Company Name" if it was present. I also wanted to configure automatic emails sent to the customer and to our staff internally. Finally, I felt that web forms shouldn't be limited to just "web-to-leads" - it should be any table, for any purpose. So, after meeting with Method_Manish and Method_Victor, we devised a massive web-form project that would leave Method users comfortably satisfied. Method_Victor then set to work making all this happen. He did a great job coding this.

Basic Example

Let's face it. Most of you are going to want a standard web-to-lead form. So it's important that this is super easy.

Go to Customization > Integration Tools > Web Forms.
Choose the Basic option, and click Next.
Enter your website's URL, and click Next. This is so that we can validate that your form is really coming from your site and not from some imposter.
Just take the HTML code that it provides and copy it into the HEAD tag and BODY tag on your site.
Test it out. You'll see that the customer gets inserted automatically into Method, along with an Opportunity, Activity marking the date of the web form submission, and Follow-up Activity for your staff to contact the lead and work on closing the sale.

Advanced Example

Go to Customization > Integration Tools > Web Forms.
Choose the Advanced option, and click Next.
Follow the steps. You'll see lots of options here for customizing the fields included, email templates and internal alerts.
Don't get intimidated by Step 8. This is a summary of all the fields used by the form. Most of them are not shown to the user, but they are needed to make sure there is smooth data entry into Method when the user presses "Submit".

I think the setup has awesome potential for Method Solution Providers to provide to their Method clients as a service. In talking to MSPs this past week, web-site integration with CRM is in high demand.

Okay, I'm sold, but how much does it cost?

It's FREE!! You'll need Method CRM or Method Full Blown to use the web-to-lead form, but Remote Entry users can do custom web-forms on QuickBooks tables and fields.

I think you are going to love what we did. Make this your weekend project!

Paul

Blog : Intuit Solution Provider Summit, Web forms

New CRM Feature: Web-to-lead forms unveiled at ISP Summit