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Software functionality - good CRM software should:
Have high functionality
Have the functions included within the software, rather than as add-ons
Perform the CRM functions:
- required by your organisation
- the vendor claims the CRM software performs
Provide the following CRM and system wide functions (depending upon your requirements)
Market Research:
- support multiple types of market research information and intelligence
- off-line and web-based questionnaires / surveys
- competitor tracking
Marketing:
- marketing campaign design and planning
- campaign / prospect list generation
- personalised campaigns
- campaign execution and management
- campaign project and task management
- support multiple marketing methods eg email, e-marketing, internet, social media, telemarketing, direct mail, event and trade promotion marketing
- budget and revenue tracking
- real-time campaign analysis and response tracking
Sales:
- sales strategies
- territory management
- account configuration
- contact information and contact management automation
- integration with 3rd party contact management systems
- support multiple sales process stages eg prospecting, opportunity management, lead routing, pipeline management, activity management
- support multiple sales methods eg team selling, website sales, mobile / field sales, channel partners
- sales forecasting and business planning
- multimedia reference library and literature / information requests
- sales incentives and commissions
- sales process scripts
Sales order processing
- proposal management
- quotation management
- prices, cross-selling and up-selling
- contract management
- order processing
- order fulfillment, product configuration and delivery
- invoicing
- customer portal and website integration
- customer self service and electronic payments
Customer support:
- account and contact management
- support management
- ticket management and escalation
- product returns and tracking
- defect tracking
- quality and change requests
- knowledgebase of common product / defect / procedural problems and solutions
- customer support portal
Field and service management
- warranty management
- service management
- service call logging
- schedule optimisation and despatch service requests / engineers
- problem resolution and solution management
- call progressing and escalation
- preventative maintenance
- service / mobile parts management
- repair management
Contact centre
- multiple channel / multiple role contact centres
- communication and CTI
- email response management
- customer self-service via web portal
System wide functionality:
- e-crm ie fully web enabled, to operate over the internet / intranet
- ESS (employee self service) / MSS (manager self service)
- employee portal
- workflow
- alerts
- DIP (document image processing)
- euro compliance
- multi company, country and currency
- support multiple Windows versions
Be a fully 'open system'
Be written in a widely used programming language
Be fully integrated, or easily / seamlessly integrated with other relevant systems (if stand alone modules)
Provide links to other systems eg distribution, manufacturing, desktop software
Have the scope to grow with the business
Be flexible to accommodate changing user or business requirements
Support good CRM practice
Management information - good CRM software should have:
Full online enquiry and drill down / around capability
Multiple search and select facilities
A suite of ready-to-use standard CRM system reports / enquiries
Standard reports / system enquiries that can be tailored to the user requirements, saved and then reused when required
Interactive graphics
Reporting across modules
E-reporting: reports that can be prepared, reviewed and sent over the internet
Easy to use, flexible report writer either within the CRM software or provided by third party software
Advanced analytics eg
- self service analytics
- pre-built configurable applications, analyses, alerts
- dashboards
- scorecards
- customer and product / service analysis
- forecasts
Business intelligence tools eg
- data warehouse
- data mining
- OLAP
- combined business intelligence and analytics
For additional ‘key software criteria’ visit: Software efficiency criteria / Vendor criteria or for the current CRM software trends visit: CRM software trends
For other software criteria, click: Accounting software criteria / HR software criteria / Payroll software criteria
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