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| Working with the sales process | ||
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 | Chapter 3. Working with the CRM System |  |
The CRM system has been designed to support you in all phases of the sales cycle, from leads to closed business, by integrating all relevant data. Sales processes are defined differently in each enterprise, yet there are common principles for the work flow, which the CRM system represents. The most common scenario for goods or services with longer sales cycles could be:
When you have your first contact with a prospective customer, create a lead. At this time you may not know whether this contact has serious interest in the goods or services your company offers. You may collect as much information about this contact as possible.
Now sales activity will be starting with this lead. You may schedule meetings, make some calls or send emails until you know whether there is a business opportunity.
If you find out that this lead does not go any further, you set the lead status to lost and forget about it. If this lead looks promising for your business, you can convert it to a sales potential.
During conversion the CRM will create a sales potential, an account and a contact, using the data you have already collected. The lead will be deleted.
Now you start working with the potential. You indicate the progress by setting different sales stages.
The contact and account information related to your sales potential are the foundation for you and your co-workers to build a relationship with a potential customer. You may use this information for scheduling and controlling activities, distributing tasks, forecasting revenues, understanding the purchase decision process of a customer, and much more.
A lead represents the first stage of the sales process and is therefore the starting point for many activities. In order to work with leads effectively the CRM system provides a set of tools.
You may reach the lead list view at the Sales > Leads menu as shown in figure: Lead List View.
At this menu you may
delete leads: Mark the leads to be deleted and hit the appropriate button.
send emails to leads: Mark the leads to be recipients and hit the appropriate button. Refer to section: Sending Emails for further instructions.
edit multiple entries at once: Mark the leads to be changed and hit the appropriate button. Refer to section: Mass Edit In Lists for further instructions.
create, modify and use display filters: As described in section: Customize Lists, you may change the content of your list view on the basis of filters.
merge lead information with email templates: Mark the leads to be merged, select a template and hit the appropriate button. You may refer to section: Mail Merge for further information.
You may link a lead with other activities such as calls, meetings or tasks and with emails, attachments, notes or products. To establish such links, you may use one of the following methods:
By the lead detail view
Open an existing lead and create new entries related to this lead at the More Information tab.
By direct entry
Click [New Event], [New Task], [New Note] or [New Product] in the entry area of your CRM system, or open an existing entry. Select the related Lead as a reference before you save your entries. The information will be linked to the lead and will be available at the lead's detail view.
![[Note]](images/note.png) | Note |
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All established links will be also available at sales potentials after conversion as explained in section: Creating Potentials from Leads. |
In the sales process, potentials are the logical successors to leads. Therefore, you should create a sales potential from a lead and transfer all information available for the lead to this sales potential as explained in the next section. You can also directly create a sales potential (see section: Direct Entry of Potentials). Sales potentials are characterized by the contact having displayed obvious interest in your company's offering. Sales expects that an offer can be made in the future and estimates that it is appropriate to take over lead data.
To create a sales potential based on an existing lead, you must switch to the lead detail view as shown in figure: Lead Detail View - Master Data.
Click the link [Convert Lead]. A new pop up window will open as shown in figure: Convert Lead.
With the lead conversion, the following operations are performed automatically by the CRM system:
Creation of a new potential.
Creation of new entries for Accounts and Contacts and linking both to each other and to the new potential.
Transfer of all data from the lead to the new created entries.
Assignment of the created account, contact and potential to the selected user or group.
Deletion of the lead.
| Note |
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A lead transformation cannot get reversed. |
In reference to the figure: Convert Lead, you can control the conversion by making the following entries:
Table 3.4. List of settings for lead conversion
| Assigned To: | Here you may choose a new owner for the converted data. |
| Account Name: | This shows you the account name for the new CRM account's entry. The name comes from the lead's account entry. |
| Do not create a new potential upon conversion: | If you mark this check box, only new entries for an account and for a contact will be created by the conversion. There will be no potential related to it. You may use this function if you intend to store account and contact information which are not related to an upcoming business but important enough to be listed in the CRM system. |
| Potential Name: | Here you must enter a unique name for your new potential. It makes sense to include the account name in order to maintain a clear name structure. |
| Potential Close Date: | Pick a likely closing date for this potential business. You will be able to change it later if necessary. This is particularly useful information for creating forecasts. |
| Potential Amount: | You may enter a potential amount of the business you expect. You may change it later. This amount may be used for forecasts. |
| Potential Sales Stage: | You must enter a sales stage for the potential. The sales stages can be defined and changed by the CRM administrator. |
Click [Save] to execute the conversion.
After conversion, the browser content will switch to the detail view of the account you have just created. At the More Information tab you will also find the links to the related contact and the sales potential. Your new potential is now also listed at the potential list view as shown in figure: Potentials List View.
| Note |
|---|---|
Contents of this list representation are freely configurable as explained in section: Working with Lists. |
You may reach the lead list view at the Sales > Potentials menu as shown at the previous figure: Potentials List View. At this menu you may:
delete potentials: Mark the potentials to be deleted and hit the appropriate button.
edit multiple entries at once: Mark the potentials to be changed and hit the appropriate button. Refer to section: Mass Edit In Lists for further instructions.
create, modify and use display filters: As described in section: Customize Lists you may change the content of your list view on the basis of filters.
search lists: As describes in section: List Search, you may reduce the number of potentials displayed by using the filters of the advanced search function.
You may reach a potential's detail view by clicking on a potential's name in the list view. You may use this view to link a potential with further CRM information which might be important for your customer relationship. At the [More Information] tab you are provided with a large variety of possibilities for linking a potential with other CRM records. This is the right place to enter any activities, documents, or other information related to your sales process. Each time your reach a new sales stage an automatic entry at the Sales Stage History will be made.
In order to send an email to a contact which is listed at the potentials detail view, you need to select this contact by clicking its name. The detail view of this contact opens. Proceed as described in section: Sending Emails. You may send an email to multiple contacts by creating a special list and using the mass mail function as explained in section: Email Mass Mailing.
You may link a potential with other activities such as calls, meetings or tasks and with contacts, products, attachments, notes, quotes or sales orders . To establish such links you may use one of the following methods:
by the potential detail view
Open an existing potential and create new entries related to this potential as described in section: Use the Potential Detail View.
by direct entry
Click [New Event], [New Task], [New Notes], [New Quote] or [New Sales Order] at the entry area of your CRM system, or open an existing entry. Select the related potential as a reference before saving your entries. The information will be linked to the potential and will be available at the potentials detail view.
The CRM system offers extensive functionality to maintain the valuable customer relationships after sales. Why should you use the support functions?
Above all, the support functions help you to collect and sort customer requests, inquiries, disturbances, problems etc. related to sold goods or services.
The support functions keep CRM users and customers informed on the status reached in respect to the response to customers' messages.
Support staff have a very effective tool to keep track of customer complaints or requirements related to customers or products or both.
Sales staff and management can get a quick overview of support activities related to customers or products or both.
CRM users or customers have convenient access to frequently asked questions (FAQ). This can help your company keep the service requests low and maintain standard procedures in responding to customers' requests.
The CRM's capability to provide FAQ as well as tickets are extended by the Customer Portal functions as explained in the Customer Portal manual.
In CRM terminology, tickets are any kind of customer service requests as they occur after sales. Tickets are listed at the Support > Trouble Tickets menu.
To create a new ticket, open the Support > Trouble Tickets menu as shown in figure: Trouble Tickets - List View. You may use the magnifying glass icon on top of the list for searching the list. You may also use this menu to change the content of a single or multiple tickets at once, delete unwanted tickets, set filter functions for the list view or merge ticket information with templates.
Click the plus icon to open a new ticket as shown at figure: Ticket - Edit View.
You should enter as much information as possible. Use the Priority, Severity and Category to weight the ticket. Your CRM system administrator may add additional custom field to your tickets or change the contents of the drop down lists.
Table 3.5. Special default entry fields for tickets
| Assigned To: | You may assign the ticket to a person who is listed as CRM user or to a user group. This user or group will be in charge to answer to the customer's request and will be notified by email about any changes to a ticket. |
| Title: | You should give each ticket a unique name. |
| Contacts, Accounts: | If you link a ticket to a specific contact or account and you have not disabled the automatic email distribution for such a contact or account an email will be send to the related contact automatically any time the content of the ticket changes. |
| Hours, Days: | If you link the ticket to a service contract these information are used to calculate the total time amount at the service contract. |
![[Caution]](images/caution.png) | Caution |
|---|---|
If you intend to use the Customer Portal, you may check the information provided to customers at the portal in order to preserve the confidentiality of internal data. |
In figure: Trouble Tickets - List View, one sample ticket is already listed. To work with a ticket click its title. A new window will open as shown in figure: Ticket Detail View - Master Data.
At this menu you may:
edit, duplicate or delete a ticket: The edit function allows you and your co-workers to change the entries and to make comments before or after a solution has been found. Note that you may enter data without opening the edit view. Just move the mouse pointer to the appropriate fields within the detail view to make your entries. With the duplicate function you may copy a ticket. This function might be useful to split ticket. Use the delete function carefully. It might be better to keep a ticket in the list and change its status.
convert as FAQ: You may receive frequent customer requests to a same topic. This function allows you to convert a ticket to a FAQ as explained in the next section.
add a tag: You may use this function to set your own priorities as explained in section: Tag Cloud.
merge the ticket information with a template: You may use this function to merge ticket information with an email template.
You may modify the master data in the edit view of a ticket as shown in figure: Ticket Edit View.
Each ticket can go through different working stages and will be closed sooner or later. The CRM will help you to keep track of the working progress and records the changes. Any CRM user can post a comment. The comments will be sorted in chronological order and indicate the CRM user who made the comment. At the end of the live cycle of a ticket, you may present the solution.
![[Warning]](images/warning.png) | Warning |
|---|---|
If you have the ticket related to a contact or account be aware that every time you are making changes to the ticket an automatic email will be send to the related entry, informing about the changes. If you do not want such an email notification to be sent out you have to set the field (check box) Email Opt out of the related entry to yes. |
All changes to a ticket are displayed at the ticket history. The information provided allows you to find out:
Who changed the ticket information?
What changes have been made?
What was the time line of changes?
Click the More Information tab to view or to add ticket related activities, documents or services.
The CRM system can help you create FAQ list. FAQ refers to listed questions and answers, all supposed to be frequently asked in some context, and pertaining to a particular issue. You may use this, for instance,
as a knowledge base to inform your customers about your products, services or procedures,
for your employees to inform on internal business procedures,
ffor your service staff to discuss procedures for helping customers, and much more.
You may reach the FAQ list at the Support > FAQ menu. Click the [plus icon] on top of the list to enter a new FAQ. In figure: New FAQ Entry you see the screen for a new FAQ entry. You may enter a question and an answer. In addition, you may
link this entry to a product or service your company offers,
assign a category for this entry,
set a status for the entry.
After saving you may add documents to your FAQ by clicking the More Information tab.
| Caution |
|---|---|
FAQ with the status Published will be visible at the Customer Portal. |
The CRM provides you with several possibilities for evaluating your data according to criteria you have selected beforehand.
The dashboard gives you a graphical representation of your sales and service data.
You may summarize the data stored in the CRM using reports. There is a set of predefined reports available which you can customize to your needs.
You should use these report and analysis features to get an overview of customer-related activities and to draw conclusions on how to improve your sales process.
You can reach the Dashboard function at the Analytics > Dashboard menu. The dashboard includes a graphical representation of sales and services-related data as partly displayed in figure: Dashboard.
You may switch between different reports and views. Some reports, such as Dashboard Home, allow you to modify the period as well as the type of data included. Click [Edit] to modify the settings. Use the ctrl button on your keyboard to select multiple data sets to be displayed. The sales stages, status as well as the other source information used may get changed by your CRM system administrator.
| Note |
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The time period used at the dashboard does not automatically update with the passing time. You have to set the required period, and you should click [Refresh] to make sure the actual data is shown. |
You may get a report for almost any data you have stored in your CRM at the Analytics > Reports menu as shown in figure: Reports Home.
The CRM features a report generator as well as a report designer.
The report generator offers reports which you can see on the screen or export as PDF or Excel files.
The report designer allows you to select the data you want to see in a report and to modify its representation.
The CRM comes with a rich selection of standard reports as illustrated in the previous figure. Each of these reports comes as two types:
Tabular reports are the simplest and fastest way to get a listing of your data.
Summary reports allow you to view your data along with subtotals and other summary information.
The following section explains how to modify reports or even set up your own report folders.
To change an existing report click the Report Name. A new window will open which lists the selected report and allow to customize it.
To open the report editor for changing an existing report, click Customize Report as indicated in figure: Report Detail View. Follow the instructions.
To create a new report, click the New Reports icon shown in figure: Reports Home. First you are asked for the CRM module which provides the data for the report. Based on this selection, the fields available for the reports are selected by the CRM system. The opening pop up window displays the next steps for report creation as shown in figure: New Report Detail.
Follow the instructions. Designing a report can be a very complex task. You should start with a very simple report and frequently check your results before beginning to use filter functions.
| Caution |
|---|---|
At the current release, the CRM does not monitor the available site space for an aesthetically-pleasing PDF to be created. If you choose too many columns, you might not create a useful or beautiful PDF export. |
If your report design is finished, click [Next] to save your settings and to start the report generator. Then you
can see the report at your screen,
may export the report as PDF or Excel file, and
may print the report.
Example: Let's assume you want to have a list of accounts who bought a specific product
You should follow these steps to create a report:
create a new report with a name, report folder and description
you will be asked for the related module; select Products
you will be asked for the format of the report; make your choice
select the fields you want have in the report
select the field in advanced filter as Product Name - equals -<name of your product>
To create your own report folder, click the [Create New Folder] icon as shown in figure: Reports Home. In the new pop up window, you may give this folder a name and a description. Click [Save] to create this folder. You could use this folder to store your own or modified reports. The new folder will be listed at the Analytics > Reports menu. At the Analytics > Reports menu you may also move or delete reports by clicking at the appropriate buttons or icons. You may create any report to be listed in your own folders. Select your folder in step 1 of the new report creation process.
The CRM comes with a set of programs which enhance the functionality of your office environment by linking your desktop computer with the CRM system.
The Thunderbird/Mozilla email client is an Open Source program that runs under Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems. It allows you to send and receive emails and contains an address book. You can think of it as a free version of Outlook. With the help of the Thunderbird Extension program you may:
send emails you have received, to the CRM and store them in reference to the appropriate contact
send contact information from your email client to the CRM
receive contact information from your CRM
Please consult the Thunderbird extension manual for further information.
Microsoft Outlook is very common in office environments. The Outlook plugin enhances the functionality of Outlook and allows users to synchronize data between Outlook and the CRM system. In detail you may:
transfer any email to the CRM system and attach it to the appropriate contact
synchronize your calendar
synchronize your contacts
synchronize your notes
synchronize your tasks
Please consult the Outlook plugin manual for further information. Note that there are additional and improved Outlook Plugin versions available as community contributions from the vtiger Extension site.
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| Chapter 3. Working with the CRM System |  | CRM User FAQ |
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