With the creation of Lizzy™, nizeX, Inc. has set the stage for the next evolutionary step towards a better business system. We’ve not just written a new software package that can manage your business, we’ve done something far greater. We’ve created a software package that opens up more doors for your business and your organizational abilities than you can imagine. Yes, it’s true, we do Invoicing and Inventory control, just like our competitors, or is it? Do we really do it like everyone else? Let’s take a look at not only some of the differences, but why these differences open up a whole new world to your business that the others don’t understand yet. The first thing you’ll notice with Lizzy™, is that she requires no specific software installation to get started. This means you can access her from literally anywhere in the world from almost any device and at any time. Do you work on the road, from a trade show, from a customer’s office? You can access your business system from anywhere now.

So while it might appear true that in the end we’re all just creating invoices, the real question is, but what else can I do? In the current version of Lizzy™, she creates an invoice. In a very near version she’ll be able to allow your customers to generate their own invoices from their homes. They’ll be able to check on their service tickets and orders without bothering you. The most beautiful part of this is that because she’s web based, they will be accessing your live data, not a copy of information that has been transferred from one system to another. Because Lizzy™ is completely integrated, we don’t make copies of anything. If you’re in the CRM system and want to view invoices for a specific customer, you’re basically asking the Invoicing module to show you the data. We’ve also added a lot of extra processes to the system to allow Lizzy™ to better track your inventory, better maintain your General Ledger, Checking Accounts, Payroll and pretty much everything else. We’ve even added the ability for Lizzy™ to manage all of your emails, allowing you to access and respond to emails from anywhere, using Lizzy’s™ email system. This will not only allow you to keep track of all employees’ emails, it will automatically link those emails to their respective customers and maintain a history of correspondence in one location instead of on 20 different computer email packages scattered around your office and home.

We’ve also designed Lizzy™ with the idea of growth from the start. In the past, one of the problems we always had with our older system was how to integrate needed changes into the system without breaking the older processes. Lizzy™ has been designed from the ground up with expansion in mind. We’ve laid out every single piece in a way that can be expanded upon without breaking any of the underlying code. Everything has been created as separate objects that can basically grow as needs are discovered or future ideas come to mind. Our goal with Lizzy™ is simple. We want to provide a system that can literally run every aspect of your business, not just figuratively.

The list of bullet points on our main website at nizeX.com are not just ideas, but things we’ve started with. We’ve redesigned the entire user interface to create a system more easily learned and navigated with built in video tutors at every step of the way. Instead of trying to design a whole bunch of new processes into the system at the beginning, we decided that we’d just design the regular needed functions better than anyone could have thought possible. The exciting part however is not in what we’ve accomplished today, but what is coming next.

Now that we’re reaching the end of Phase I and II ahead of schedule, we’ve already started laying out plans for the next release with even more features. When we say we have a CRM system built into Lizzy™, this is not just to say we have CRM. Our true goal, and one we’ve already reached in many different areas, is to give companies like Microsoft and Salesforce.com a run for their money. With Lizzy™, we’ve designed a system that is going to make you ask, “why isn’t everyone else doing it this way”.
At nizeX, Inc. we’re very excited to be involved with Lizzy™ today, but the future is what has us and our customers looking forward to tomorrow…..and our competitiors hoping tomorrow never comes….

Click here to see the video

Click here to watch the video

Eric has been doing an awesome job on the Financing module. Currently we can attach units and trades to a deal, attach items to units and are in the final stages of working up an actual quote. Eric has jumped right in with the rest of us and is no longer a newbie. He’s doing a really good job at pumping the code out and giving the project that extra little bit that is going to make it the best F&I package around. We should be getting close to being able to demo the quote portion of the package within the next few weeks. I’m still shooting for January being the month we enter full testing mode on the module and I’m optimistic that we’ll reach that goal.

Jeff is entering the final testing phase of the special order processes and has also done an awesome job. I don’t think I could have put together a better team of developers if I tried. Everyone is working together really well and getting a lot of stuff done. So far we’ve started demoing the special order processing and overall inventory work flow and Lizzy™ has received A+ grades from all of those able to see it. It’s like everything else you do in life where you work in a closet and are a bit worried about what everyone else will think of your hard work when you finally show it to them. We were also concerned but optimistic that it would be well received. So far we’ve not been disappointed and each demo just makes us that much more excited. I’m going to have my video processing system up and running full bore next week and should be able to start producing some demo’s that everyone can view on the different modules that are about to be unleashed on the world.

The CRM system also received some needed upgrades this month in a new and improved call logging facility, being able to pause telephone conversations to do other things and a totally integrated Email system. The email system is in the final phase of development now, but is set to completely replace your email clients and integrate your company email with your customer database. So that incoming and outgoing emails are not only in your inbox/sent box, but are also automatically attached to the customers records. We’re very excited about this here at nizeX, Inc because it’s going to allow us to better track and respond to our customers needs as well.

So what’s left?

We still need to finish up being able to attach labor to a service ticket, receive and pay units on the payable form, add the gateways to process credit cards, handle warranty claims and rebates, handle F&I and plug in the code for the departmental accounting. Most everything else is either finished or is in testing at the moment. I know that a lot of you are anxious to get your hands on Lizzy™ and we’re just as anxious to get it to you. Unfortunately we’re not going to rush it out the door and are going to take our time to make sure all aspects are 100% before we let her loose to run your entire business. Most modules such as CRM, PDM, Accounting, Inventory control and so forth are already ready to go, but because they integrate fully with the other modules we have to make sure that they all speak the same language and don’t get in arguments.

Pete and I have been discussing the switch over date for Lizzy™ in respect to new sales and the phasing out of TBA, and we think we’ve about reached the point. Unless something changes, December will mark the first month we begin active demoing and sales of Lizzy™ and begin to talk about TBA less and less. For those still demanding a Windows based package we will continue to sale and support it for the next few years, but will no longer be making it our central focus. We believe that once everyone has had the chance to see and use Lizzy™ that The Business Assistant (TBA) will become a distant memory.

Well, I think that gets us mostly caught up for now. There are a ton of exciting things going on here at nizeX, Inc. and the world is about to finally get to see.

Until next time…

glenn

In this article we’re going to cover the new sitecode.html file that comes with Lizzy™, that can be utilized to take contact information straight off your website and have it entered into Lizzy™ automatically, not only speeding up that critical turn around time between request and response, but also to help eliminate retyping and data entry errors.

The code can be customized in any way you like as long as the critical pieces stay in tact. For just two examples of how different the input can be, refer to http://www.nizex.com and http://www.geeksonsteroids.com. Both utilize the same Lizzy™ sitecode but look completely different.

You can remove all but the green required fields if you like, and move things around anywhere on the page. The idea is to collect the required data which is then fed into Lizzy. Here are a few Lizzy™ specific steps that must be taken before plugging in the script.

1) You must go to Settings / CRM /Teams and make sure that you have a Sales and Support Team setup. These should be entered in that order so that Sales is the first and Support second. Lizzy’s™ sitecode uses these when adding new contacts from your website as you’ll see shortly.

2) Next go to Settings / CRM / Contact Types and write down the exact name you wish to default all new contacts to. This will need to be inserted into the hidden field named “contacttype” at the bottom of the example code.

3) Contact Nizex.com for a reference key that can be used to gain access to your specific company database and insert this value into the hidden field called “nc”.

4) Add your full web address to the hidden field called “site”. This will be used to redirect the user back to your website after their data has been entered.

5) Lastly, if you’d like for Lizzy™ to send you an SMS message on your phone whenever a new or existing user submits data through your website, add your SMS email address to the “sms_phone” hidden field. If supplied, Lizzy™ will automatically notify you when she’s added a new contact. Also note that you can enter a regular email address here if you like as well and she’ll just send an email instead of an SMS message.

Once you’ve supplied all the required data, the script should be ready to go. From then on the following processes will kick off whenever a new user submits data. Keep in mind this also works for existing customers coming back to ask questions.

1) The email address is looked up to determine if the user is already an existing contact. If not, Lizzy™ adds the new contact information, if so she continues with the located contact record.

2) Next she will log a correspondence in order to capture the date, time and detail of the request. The topic for the correspondence is left open in order to keep track of it and a call back is automatically scheduled for the appropriate Team calendar.

3) A text message is sent to the appropriate telephone if the SMS field was supplied.

4) If the contact is a newly created contact, they will have been entered with a sales progress level of “Initial Contact” to enable you to also quickly locate new contacts on the CRM locate screen, as well as a status of New. Both of these should be changed once you begin communication and collect more information from them.

As for the Team Calendar, the process for dealing with events on Team calendars are as follows: You can not delete a calendar entry from a team calendar, you first need to move the item to your specific calendar. Once you’ve accomplished this, you’ve insured that you’re the sales/support rep that will be handling their call and you’ve removed it from the view of others that might otherwise try to call. Once you call and resolve the open topic for the correspondence, Lizzy™ will automatically remove any scheduled calls on your calendar, keeping your calendar showing only calls that need to be made for today, instead of showing a list that never changes. Rescheduling a call will automatically move the current scheduled event to another day.

So as you can see, with the new sitecode.html plugin, you can add a whole new dimension to Lizzy’s™ abilities, as well as the overall functionality of your company website.