Ideal CRM Software should contain following modules:

1. Customer Interaction Management

Managing customer relationships requires a meaningful interaction between customers and the business.  Using multi-channel eCommunication tools, clients build closer relationships with their customers. Customer interaction services help provide:

eCustomers with a unique user experience which results in forging lasting bonds with them. Also, web-based technologies such as live chat help convert browsers to buyers and buyers to loyal customers.

Opportunities for members to spend more time interacting with and contributing to the community, besides encouraging visitors to convert to community members for community based business models.

Customer Interaction Services includes:

2. Time Management

All appointments and tasks can be shared, enabling coordination of team efforts. Histories of appointments, actions or calls made, are automatically linked to the related customer, contact or opportunity.

3. Contact Management

The core of all relationship management lies in the availability of relevant and up-to-date data about customers and partners, such as address information, contact persons, order history, business relations, past and existing opportunities and so on. Beside this central information, the tracking of past interactions, such as calls, visits, event participation and complaints, is an essential part of enterprise relationship management. Contact management enables anyone in the organization to track every contact made with a customer. Only the direct access to all available information enables the sales professionals to generate real knowledge about their customers and to plan their sales efforts accordingly.

4. Campaign Planning & Tracking

Campaign Planning & Tracking is used to define the different steps, means and media for the campaign, including time lines, budgets, task assignments.

It supports one-off and multi-level campaigns, i.e. campaigns with repeated waves of activities. Using the workflow automation on the Campaign Planning & Tracking, one can define rule bases for driving the campaign execution. Users and teams are automatically notified on tasks to execute, like outbound calls, mailing fulfillment, etc. In addition, a notification in-box always keeps the campaign manager up-to-date and serves for escalation purposes to the whole campaign execution team. The campaign planning exercise can be executed in collaboration with, for instance, the sales force as well as other parts of the organization, including even the channel partners over the web. Campaign templates support the reusability of frequently used campaign types.

5. Campaign Execution

Campaign manager withvarious tools for the campaign execution. In addition, it supports the execution of campaigns .

The functionality contains:

• Mass Mailings via Mail, Fax, Email
• Tele-marketing and tele-sales inbound and outbound campaign generation.

6. Lead Qualification

Incoming leads are assigned to the sales team who then qualify the lead. All relevant criteria such as expected revenue, market position (leader, start-up…), reference-ability, potential, competition presence/absence, fitto product Portfolio / CaseStudies, etc must be available to qualify the lead. Once the lead has been qualified, it is part of the sales pipeline. Rejected leads go back to the Marketing department, for further marketing efforts.

7. Contact Management

At the core of all relationship management lies the availability of relevant and up-to-date data about customers and partners, such as address information, contact persons, order history, business relations, past and existing opportunities and so on. In addition to this central information, the tracking of past interactions, such as calls, visits, event participation etc., is an essential part of enterprise relationship management. Contact management enables anyone in the organization to track every contact made with a customer. Only the direct access to all available information enables the sales professionals to generate real knowledge about their customers and to plan their sales efforts accordingly. Contact management ensures that pertinent address and contact changes come to the sales staff’s attention, no matter where the change is entered.

8. Opportunity Management with Leads Generation

Enables the tracking of an opportunity throughout the whole sales cycle, resulting in greater transparency and control of the sales process. The sales force is automatically and instantly informed when a new lead is identified, for instance via a telemarketing campaign. Overview of the actual Sales Pipeline is available all the time with up-to-date information.