CRM Application

To conceptualize the CRM Application, there is a need to separate the data pertaining to Leads, Contact
and Opportunities. If all these information are lumped together, it will be difficult to identify the
customer and his needs. Hence to manage the sales pipeline, it is very important to detach these data
from one another. Let us look at who is who:

Leads
 These are unqualified sales leads.
 There is no current or past history of the customer
 Leads progress to become Contact/Opportunity
 Ex – Leads generated through a promotional campaign

Contacts
 These are existing customers
 They had been qualified opportunity at one point
 Could help in
 They can also be the vendors
 Ex- Customer serviced previously

Opportunity
 Are prospective customers
 Typically source of revenue for the company
 There can be either Open/Won/Lost Opportunity
 Before any opportunity finally converts into a customer, it goes under lots of activities. They
typically follow an activity plan.

An Activity Plan is a series of actions which are performed by any organization to convert an
opportunity into customer. It might have sales stages to identify the progress of the opportunity
and Actions, which are performed by the organizations at various point of time. It is very
important to keep a tract of the Activity performed and which Sales Stage it followed. This will
help us follow a systematic procedure to convert any deal.

An Activity plan for our purpose might look like the following:

Sales Stage Activity

Call
Follow-up with Customer
Opportunity Identified Meeting
Call
Meeting
Need Analysis Follow-up with Customer
Proposal/Price Quote Email
 Call
Call
Negotiation/Review Meeting
Closed Won/Lost  

As we can see in the above Activity Plan, there are 5 sales stages starting from Opportunity Identified till
deal closure. The activity represents the action which was performed. They could be tailored to the
user’s needs. However, the general idea remains the same.

We can also have some of the activities with due dates which needs to be performed at some later point
of date. Suppose, the customer agent calls the customer to explain about the services being offered and
the product. This would fall under Opportunity Sales Stage. The company might opt for either calling the
customer, or meeting up with them. This could be recorded in the activity which was being carried out
at each stage. They might even ask for some future date which might be recorded in the Follow-up
Activity created for the opportunity. One the activity is closed, the deal is ready to move forward, and
need assessment of the customer is done. We might thus have a proper system in place to convert the
opportunity to a Contact.

Advantage of the Activity Plan

 Sequential processes which are easy to follow and understand
 Easy to understand the sources of income
 Identify the loop-holes in the process. For ex - if majority of the opportunities are stuck in one
particular sales stage say Proposal/Price Quotation, and then do not move forward, we could
look up at our pricing strategy to attract the customer further
 Identify open opportunities and work with a target of closing minimum opportunities which can
be quantified
 Can also help us know the source of the opportunity. How did any customer get to know about
us and our products (is dealt further in the document).

Campaign Management
Along with the management of Customer, a CRM application would also help us provide the data about
any campaign done by the organization. This would enable us to judge the effectiveness of the media
campaign. We can further identify the best means to reach to our customers. Whether it is the print
media more important, or some other medium.

This could be done easily by any CRM application as the customer is stipulated either by an
advertisement or word-of-mouth publicity. To further to that, WOM is possible if I provide best of the
services to my customers. This being a service industry needs to understand the customer more in
depth. Providing unmatched service which delivers more than their expectations will be the key to
success.
For example, if we have customer’s data, we could provide them with special offers for special occasions
like Birthday, Anniversary etc. This will not only help repeat customer, but also these customers will act
as our ambassador. They will stimulate the need for our services amongst their peers which is always
better than simulation.