CRM and OPEN SOURCE CRM
CRM is Customer Relationship Management. Nowadays each and everyone is competitive with each other. Hence to get a proper market/customer is very difficult. As you all know the best advertising is done by satisfied customers. Hence we have to follow “the customer is king” strategy to treat our customers. In addition to this, we need a special tool to treat our customers. That tool is CRM. Implementing CRM software will definitely help us to manage all our customers/clients, Leads efficiently.
An Open Source CRM software uses open source programs, where the source code is available to the public over the internet. This can be modified and customized according to the requirements of the organization. Many businesses from small to large uses open source CRM. Open source CRM software helps the organization to achieve their goals easily.
Even though there are many CRM software available in the market. But we suggest Odoo CRM. Because it can offer you with many functionalities to manage customers in the more effective way and also it includes lots of modules which can help you to attain better future development of the software. Odoo CRM or open source CRM can be integrated with different modules such as Purchase Management, Warehouse management, Accounting and so on. OpenERP CRM modules help you to manage your Leads, Phone calls, Opportunities, customer meeting, further, it manages the customer communication, notifications, prioritization, and resolving the problem quickly.
TYPES OF CRM
Based on the various roles and different dimensions of customer relationship managing the CRM can be classified as follows.
1. Operational CRM
2. Analytical CRM
3. Collaborative CRM
4. Geographical CRM
5. Sales Intelligence CRM
OPERATIONAL CRM
Main aim of operational CRM is to automate and integrate 3 main functions; Marketing, Sales, and Support. It generally consists of dashboard that provides a single page view of all 3 functions for any specific client. Ie dashboard displays, any client's contact, information, previous sales and support help (if any) etc...
CRM capabilities:
1. Sales force automation:
This feature mainly involved in all stages of sales. It deals with lead management, opportunity, forecasting, supervise sales performance and incentive compensation management. Ie, handle all sales responsibilities.
2. Marketing automation:
This feature deals with all marketing process. Its capabilities include email and campaign management, lead reporting and analytics, search engine optimization of websites & blogs and social media management and landing page and form creation.
3. Service automation:
This feature is all about customer service and support. Customers are supported in different ways like email, phone, ticketing portals, etc...
ANALYTICAL CRM
Here, the major aim has critically evaluated the data of customers obtained through a variety of sources and present findings so as to permit the management to make better decisions. Analytical CRM systems make use of techniques such as data correlation, mining and pattern recognition. This analyzation help to upgrade customer service by discovering each and every minor issue which, if undetected. This proactive study will help in building customer faith, expectation and loyalty. It also helps to take a good decision and helps to make a better plan for business development.
COLLABORATIVE CRM
Here, the aim of this CRM system is to organize external collaborators like vendors and suppliers as well as interactions across the organization. Mainly this type of CRM involved in improving communication between organization and customers. Which also helps to attain the high-quality customer service.
GEOGRAPHICAL CRM
Geographic CRM (GCRM) blend the geographic information system and traditional CRM. Geographic data can be analyzed to plan about customer visits.
SALES INTELLIGENCE CRM
Most of the successful organizations overcome the challenges of spotting out the most likely buyers of their products or service via sales intelligence CRM. These CRM can be used to acquire more information about the market by using different features of this these firms are able to maximize their chances of hitting the target and can be able to improve efficiency and productivity.
IS IT TIME TO THINK ABOUT CRM???
If your organization is struggle with any of the following issue. Then within no time, you have to think about CRM.
1. You go through “ who will do?? What will do?? When will do?? ” syndrome.
2. Increasing the unsubscribes and everyone blame marketing team.
3. You are totally blank about the last activity with your key client.
4. The whole picture is blurred.
5. Losing of data.
6. The team is asking for a better tool.
1. You go through “ Who Will do?? What Will do?? When Will do?? ” syndrome.
Nobody knows who's doing what and when and no one knows where our opportunities with clients . Your marketing team might familiar with a proper marketing methodology . But it is in a spreadsheet or in an outdated sticky note. Hence we have to attain a tool for monitoring and tracking all integrated activities of marketing, sales and customer relationship management department.
2. Losing your subscribers /clients or Increasing the unsubscribes and everyone blame marketing team.
Complaints or unsolved issues are increasing. There is no proper methodology to record the data related complaints and no proper method to monitor the follow up the customer complaints and no efficient customer relationship management system. These are all lead to your customers to think about another vendor/service provider. Definitely this will lead to a headache to the marketing department . Actually, the whole problem is there in your system.
3. You are totally blank about the last activity with your key client.
Was a phone call placed within the time limit after receiving the complaint??? Was I request any client meeting ?? and you are not at all sure about; who last follow up the particular client??? how far back it is??? And you don't have any idea about any particular client's previous transactions with the company.
4. The whole picture is blurred.
The sales team marketing team and customer service team do their job, but definitely not streamlined. Nowadays everyone knows that if these 3 departments integrate with each other which will definitely improve the quality of the product/service.
5 . Losing of data.
Even in today's world, a number of organizations are facing challenges by losing of data or information; if key person leaves the company since all data are kept in spreadsheets or in the form of a word document. Hence we have to think about any new system which can store the data/information. In addition to this we have to access the data according to the privilege level.
6 . The team is asking for a better tool.
If your team faces a numerous problems and we have to solve these issues for better development . By using a CRM you will definitely improve your team's productivity and efficiency.
FEATURES OF ODOO CRM
1 . Sell Faster
1. Modern User Interface : Sales targeted User Interface . A better overview of the sales activities is given by dashboard.
2. Mobile: Mobile user interface working even if you don't have an internet connection.
3. Reduce Data Entry : Get leads automatically created from VoIP calls and emails. Within a few clicks we can send quotes. Drag and Drop functions available.
2. Leads
1. Leads Nurturing: Campaign creation and automatic Email generation.
2. Lead Scoring: Score your leads based on pages viewed, localization, time ie, Explicit and implicit criteria. Based on the lead score and team assignation rules define different actions .
3. Import Leads: it is used import prospects files with column matching tool of Odoo.
4. Online Acquisition: 30+ marketing apps to raise leads acquisition from your websites: SEO tool, SEA, form builder etc...
5. GeoIP: Detect countries, states, and cities of leads automatically from your visitor IP address.
6. Live Chat: By enable Live chat on your websites you can talk to your visitors and convert them into leads.
7. Deduplication: Get proposition of leads to merging when converting from a lead to an opportunity. Create contacts automatically based on leads.
8. Assignation Rules: Define your own rules to assign leads.
9. Call-to-actions: Optimize leads acquisition with Odoo's five call-to-actions and the a/b testing tool.
10. URL Trackers: Track the source of the leads using UTM trackers.
3. Opportunities
1. Activities and calls management: Organize and Schedule sequence of activities per opportunity. track, log, monitor and analyze the activities of your team .
2. Pipeline management: Get an overview of the opportunity pipeline. Drag & Drop interface helps to work faster. For better process organization Substage Creation is possible. Automatic archiving and manual archiving of opportunities are possible.
3. Customize stages: pipeline customization is possible.
4. Schedule Meetings: Schedule meetings and Sync with mobile phones and Google calendar.
5. Plan Next Actions: According to the importance of opportunities and tasks we can plan and schedule your daily work .
6. 360° Visibility: We can access all information right into the opportunity: mails, pages visited on your website, meetings, next actions etc.
7. Log Calls: If we log calls in just a few clicks Odoo automatically reschedule the next action after the call.
8. Lost reasons: For improving the sales effectiveness we can analyze the lost reasons for the opportunities.
9. Revised configuration options: Activate leads if needed.
4. Customers
1. Address book: We get a clear address book shared among the sales persons.
2. Customer Preferences: We can easily set customer preferences for eg. Language, financial data, delivery methods etc...
3. Multi Address: For a single company we can have multiple addresses and contacts.
4. Full history: We can get the full history of the previous activities with any customer; Opportunities, order etc...
5. Efficient Communication
1. VoIP: It creates dial queue on customers. Automatically log calls, open the customer form and automate the next actions. It also reschedules or sends emails for failed calls.
2. Emails Templates: Email templates creation is possible for most common communication.
3. Custom Alerts: You can get alerts for relevant activities.
6. Email Gateways: Get all your email communications automatically attached to the right opportunity. Based on incoming emails it is automatically created new leads.
6. Reporting
1. Dashboard: We can use predefined dashboards or we can create new with advanced reporting engine.
2. Leads Analysis: we get statistics about the sources of leads for the purpose of evaluating the ROI (Return On Investment) .
3. Opportunities Analysis: Opportunities pipeline can be analyzed with advanced filters.
7. Integration
1. Sales: We can easily convert opportunities into quotes and easily get a complete overview of the customer history.
2. Inventory: We can get the information about product availability right into the quotation. We can easily trigger delivery orders and can check delivery status from the order .
3. Powerful API: Make Odoo CRM do pretty much anything with the API: connect other software, automate the lead creation, etc .
4. Google Docs: We can use Google Docs integration to link any document
5. All sales channel: All sales channels can be integrated.
6. Marketing Apps: Leads acquisition can be boosted and development with the help of odoo's different marketing apps. Online marketing, email marketing, URL tracker etc,
BENEFITS
1. Centralized database
Any business person can easily access the complete information from a centralized database.
2. Marketing Automation
Marketing automation boosts the workflow capabilities for lead routing. And it also ensures that no leads are missed.
3. Integration
The major advantage is that It can be integrated with the system.
4. Increased Customer Satisfaction
After the implementation Service provides in better and quicker way. High level of satisfied customers because they are getting exactly what they want.
5. Growth in the number of customers
Increases in a number of customers. And maximization of opportunities.
6. Profitability and sustainability
Long-term Profitability and sustainability.
7. Effective Time Management
It reminds users to follow up on activities and alerts when any important events occur.
8. Repetitive Manual Task Is Replaced By Process Automation
the certain process where eliminated and avoid duplication.
9. Communication = Strength
shared calendars, activities chart etc will give a clear idea of the individual responsibilities.
10. Focus oriented
CRM makes your company a focused business organization and thereby increasing sales.
11. Security
It provides a secured cost-effective solution for the business. These are some advantages and the list is going on. From the above discussion, you can easily understand the features of Odoo CRM and benefits.
Now let's go for practical applicability of these features. ie,
Things you have to consider before implementing the CRM.
1. What are my goals?? What is our core business and how will it evolve in the future ??
Before you invest in a CRM, you have to determine your goals. And also you have to think about your core business and its future enhancement.
2. What scheme of CRM is appropriate for our business?? Does it integrate with my existing system??
You have to make a clear cut idea about the CRM modules and your requirements. It will help you to choose the appropriate CRM. If your marketing, sales and service process is simple, then you should be able to get up and running quickly. However, your major preference should be implementing a system that meets your requirements.
3. What IT infrastructure do we have and what do we need to support the future organizational needs??
A CRM definitely make your work easier, not more difficult, so you need to consider what tools you presently use and if you want these to communicate with your CRM.
4. What vendors and partners do we need to choose ??
Not every company needs a complicated, feature-heavy platform to manage client relationships and their sales cycle. So when you approach a vendor you have to consider their experience in the similar field. Experience makes quality products, hence you should better choose experienced and professionally qualified vendor team.