A practical guide to organisational design and technology infrastructure for CRM/CIM - Purpose

A CRM/CIM solution should be a set of functional modules specifically designed for facilitating, controlling, monitoring and measuring strategic and tactical business processes for marketing, sales and contact management. There are many other supporting and back office functions which can be undertaken via the various channels available and this document is meant as a general guideline, regardless of any functional requirement.

To cover this large, diverse and complex series of requirements adequately, CRM solutions should be designed to address the relationship between the organisation and recipient of the organisations' activities and the routes to market chosen by the organisation.

The components of a comprehensive toolset for CRM are:

Database Management

For setting up and maintaining the base system. Including de-duplication, cleansing (washing), loading (importing) and formatting (addresses). Mail merge, document development, appointment handling and other related functions.

Database Analysis

For analysing relationships between data elements within the database and other sources, including response transactions, contact transactions and alternative files. Tabulations, Profiling, Segmentation and graphical output should be provided.

Call / Contact Centre Control

Full call management and scheduling facilities with powerful multiple choice and flexible logic scripting, as well as maximum integration capabilities between the user and the various systems required during a call. Comprehensive statistics by Job, Operator and Script for flexible reporting capabilities. Inbound or Outbound with transfer capabilities. Also links to CTI or many telephony systems (switches & PABX's). Preferably including strong dialling functions and call routing capability, as well as transparent automation of processes. The latter may include call backs, letters, emails, faxes, orders and much more. It should also be easy and low level enough that non-technically qualified staff can do most set up and configuration without the need of a large IT staff.

Lead Management & Tracking

Lead management, field sales force management together with quotations, forecasting and pipe-line analysis, are some of the capabilities that should be provided and requirements will vary from company to company.

Process Automation (Work Flow Management)

Similar to contact centre scripts and processes, but for the automation of specific office procedures and follow up work made of several separate or dependent stages and completed work. Improved control and consistency of quality of work can be completed wherever and by whoever is appropriate, when implementing an organisation wide work flow solution.

Campaign Management / Fulfilment

For strategic and tactical development of direct marketing and client relationship building campaigns. Response entry (generic capabilities only) with full campaign, media and product analysis maintained on a daily basis. Recency, frequency and value history kept, by contact, as well as on-line lifetime value analysis with campaign, media and method included. This should be fully integrated with order functions, payments, service, as well as contact management.