| Key Functionalities of a CRM - Customer relationship management software |
| Based on its functionality, a typical CRM system is subdivided into three basic sub sections: |
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| Marketing |
| Marketing primarily deals with providing functionalities of Long term planning and Short term execution of marketing related Activities within an organization. For long term marketing plans, Quantitative as well as Qualitative measures (targets) can be set for a defined period and for different product groups which are then monitored based on the actual performance throughout the defined period |
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| Short Term execution includes running Marketing campaigns via different communication channels targeting a pre-defined group of potential buyers with a specific message referring to a product or a group of products |
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| One key objective of the Marketing function of the CRM - Customer relationship management software is to generate sales related leads, which finally get converted into Sales Revenues for the company. Lead management deals with processing these Leads, carrying out a sanity check, evaluating the genuineness of the information (Since, there is a lot of information that is gathered during Marketing Campaigns it becomes necessary to screen these leads), and finally converting them to Hot Leads or Cold Leads. |
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| Sales |
| The sales functionalities of the CRM - Customer relationship management software are focused on helping the Sales team to execute and manage the presales process better and in an organized manner. Sales team is responsible for regularly capturing key customer interactions, any leads or opportunities they are working on etc, in CRM system. By organizing all the relevant data such as Prospective customer, expected budget, total spending, products interested in, expected closing date, Key players in the deal, important dates and milestones etc. regarding a prospective deal into one place, Opportunity Management of the CRM system helps by "Guiding" the Sales representative to carry out certain suggested activities for its various phases such as, initiation, identification, qualification, RFP received, quotation sent, final stage, won or lost. These recommendations are based on the company's sales policy. This is often referred as "Guided Sales Methodology". |
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| When opportunity management reaches a “Quotation phase”, a quotation is generated which if “won” gets converted into a sales order. The sales order then flow in to the Back end (ERP) system for further execution and Delivery |
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| Service |
| Service related functionalities are focused on: |
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Effectively managing the customer service (Planned or Unplanned) |
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Avoid "leakage" of Warranty based services |
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Avoid "Penalties" arising due to Non conformity of SLA (Service Level Agreements) |
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Provide first and Second Level support to Customers |
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| Some of the service related functionalities can be: |
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Service Order Management |
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Service Contract Management |
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Planned Services management |
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Warranty Management |
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Installed Base (Equipment) Management |
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SLA Management |
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Resource Planning and Scheduling |
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Knowledge Management (FAQs, How to guides) |
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Call Center Support |
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Resource Planning and Workforce Management |
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