CRM System

[samwoo]

Good evening,

I think we are looking at replacing our CRM system, hopefully I've not misunderstood what was being said. I've not been asked by anyone to look into this, I was merely just wondering... 

Is there any CRM solutions being developed or in discussion at Hornbill? 

I will admit I know almost nothing about CRM...  So cannot answer any questions or anything. 

[Victor]

@samwoo short answer is no, not really, but would be good if we can find some details as to what this CRM system would be used for in your organisation (apart from the obvious acronym) ...

[samwoo]

Hi @Victor,

Happy New Year

I missed this one. As far as I understand it could be used for organizations to design very specific services and requirements for residents or members of the public, tenants or third-party organizations (including on behalf of customers), where each screen is different depending on the type of service. These are not ITSM type services, more managing requests from customers. For example, if we offer a waste service, members of the public can make a request for more bags they can collect from various locations, or if there is anti-social behaviour needs to be reported and reported on then people can do that and each screen based on the type of service will look different according to the information that needs to be displayed.

This is probably quite a terrible description as I don't really know what we offer that is managed by our existing CRM system and how it works, but I suspect it would be along those lines and highly configurable. Might be something that we can do once the functionality is introduce allowing us to develop our own Apps (assuming that's still on the cards).

Thanks,

Samuel

[Victor]

2 hours ago, samwoo said:

These are not ITSM type services, more managing requests from customers. For example, if we offer a waste service, members of the public can make a request for more bags they can collect from various locations, or if there is anti-social behaviour needs to be reported and reported on then people can do that and each screen based on the type of service will look different according to the information that needs to be displayed.

@samwoo you mean like progressive captures with specific questions and answers?

[Steve Giller]

2 hours ago, samwoo said:

These are not ITSM type services

That's no reason not to use Service Manager - this is not an IT-only product, there should be no reason you can't have Bag Collection catalog item.

[Gerry]

 

@samwoo,

You could mean anything from customer management, account management, sales automation, marketing automation... etc... sort of endless category really.  If you can be more specific I would be very interested to know more. Good questions to answer would be: -

* What CRM tool are you currently using?
* Who is using the CRM tool?
* What are they using the CRM tool for?

Thanks
Gerry

 

[samwoo]

I think it would come down to things like the following (but likely not limited to the following):

• How would members of the public report issues, request for services. It would need to be integrated into the orgs main website. To enable to do things such as (using Local Authorities as examples) request a new bin, new bags, report anti-social behaviour, register to vote, report overgrown vegetation. This would require a very advanced kind of progressive capture which could include having a map that public can pin, integrate with google potentially, have questions where multiple answers can be added dynamically on by the customer etc.
• It should hold every interaction about the customer, their contact details with full customer lifecycle
• Managing sales leads and opportunities
• Forecasting sales based on past data, market trends
• Marketing campaigns
• Customer Service (this would be closest to Service Manager)
• Would need to be able to integrate with other systems (for example to pull data from a Housing system)

This is the extent of my knowledge, I'm certain there is more that goes on.

[samwoo]

Thanks @Gerry - I'll ask those questions to the people who mentioned it and see what they see

[Gerry]

@samwoo

from your other post, what you are talking about is handling/managing requests from your citizens right?  This is actually quite a big, and very specific area.  The main reason for this is a lot of the interactions (requests) would not include a login.  For example, an inquiry into a council tax bill might only require you to provide your address, surname, DOB and last bill value to "authorise" the request you are making, and each service you present to your citizens would have different authorisation criteria etc...   as I understand it, the who and where information in a typical local authority is very fluid, and because of the diverse range of people, there are age demographics, some have smartphones, some still use pen and paper etc...   and all of those people need to be catered for.   A "CRM" system used in  this context is not something you can easily classify as "A CRM Tool". 

As I am sure you can appreciate, Hornbill is technically capable of doing this quite well, the portal (customer) is not ideally tuned for this sort of thing, but IC is a good potential alternaive to the other "forms" system you will likely be using.   In reality though, you will not get very far into your organisation before they will ask you the "who else is using Hornbill for the CRM requirement in organisation s like ours..." question to which the answer will be none... and I expect that is where the conversation will come to an end. 

It really does to depend on what CRM tool  you are using, and how its being used. Service Manager can certainly handle the transactional and fulfilment end of things no problem, am happy to explore that a little further with you if you want. 

Gerry