Types/variations

Sales force automation

The sales force automation (SFA) system provides an array of capabilities to streamline all phases of the sales process, minimizing the time that sales representatives need to spend on manual data entry and administration. This allows them to successfully pursue more clients in a shorter amount of time than would otherwise be possible. At the heart of SFA is a Contact management system for tracking and recording every stage in the sales process for each prospective client, from initial contact to final disposition. Many SFA applications also include insights into opportunities, territories, sales forecasts and workflow automation, quote generation, and product knowledge. Newly-emerged priorities are modules for Web 2.0 e-commerce and pricing.

Marketing

Systems for marketing (also known as marketing automation) help the enterprise identify and target its best clients and generate qualified leads for the sales team. A key marketing capability is tracking and measuring multichannel campaigns, including email, search, social media, and direct mail. Metrics monitored include clicks, responses, leads, deals, and revenue.

Customer Service and Support

Recognizing that service is an important differentiator, organizations are increasingly turning to technology platforms to help them improve their clients’ experience while aiming to increase efficiency and minimize costs.[4] Even so, a 2009 study revealed that only 39% of corporate executives believe their employees have the right tools and authority to solve client problems.“. The core for these applications has been and still is comprehensive call center solutions, including such features as intelligent call routing, computer telephone integration (CTI), and escalation capabilities.

Analytics

Relevant analytics capabilities are often interwoven into applications for sales, marketing, and service. These features can be complemented and augmented with links to separate, purpose-built applications for analytics and business intelligence. Sales analytics let companies monitor and understand client actions and preferences, through sales forecasting, data quality, and dashboards that graphically display
Marketing applications generally come with predictive analytics to improve segmentation and targeting, and features for measuring the effectiveness of online, offline, and search marketing campaign. Web analytics have evolved significantly from their starting point of merely tracking mouse clicks on Web sites. By evaluating “buy signals,” marketers can see which prospects are most likely to transact and also identify those who are bogged down in a sales process and need assistance. Marketing and finance personnel also use analytics to assess the value of multi-faceted programs as a whole.
These types of analytics are increasing in popularity as companies demand greater visibility into the performance of call centers and other support channels, in order to correct problems before they affect satisfaction levels. Support-focused applications typically include dashboards similar to those for sales, plus capabilities to measure and analyze response times, service quality, agent performance, and the frequency of various issues.

Integrated/Collaborative

Departments within enterprises—especially large enterprises—tend to function in their own little worlds. Traditionally, inter-departmental interaction and collaboration have been infrequent and rivalries not uncommon. More recently, the development and adoption of the tools and services has fostered greater fluidity and cooperation among sales, service, and marketing. This finds expression in the concept of collaborative systems which uses technology to build bridges between departments.
For example, feedback from a technical support center can enlighten marketers about specific services and product features clients are asking for. Reps, in their turn, want to be able to pursue these opportunities without the time-wasting burden of re-entering records and contact data into a separate SFA system. Conversely, lack of integration can have negative consequences: system isn’t adopted and integrated among all departments, several sources might contact the same clients for an identical purpose. Owing to these factors, many of the top-rated and most popular products come as integrated suites.

Small Business

Basic client service can be accomplished by a contact manager system, an integrated solution that lets organizations and individuals efficiently track and record interactions, including emails, documents, jobs, faxes, scheduling, and more. This kind of solution is gaining traction with even very small businesses, thanks to the ease and time savings of handling client contact through a centralized application rather than several different pieces of software, each with its own data collection system. In contrast these tools usually focus on accounts rather than individual contacts. They also generally include opportunity insight for tracking sales pipelines plus added functionality for marketing and service. As with larger enterprises, small businesses are finding value in online solutions, especially for mobile and telecommuting workers.

Social Media

Social media sites like Twitter and Facebook are greatly amplifying the voice of people in the marketplace and are predicted to have profound and far-reaching effects on the ways companies manage their clients. This is because people are using these social media sites to share opinions and experiences on companies, products, and services. As social media isn’t moderated or censored, individuals can say anything they want about a company or brand, whether pro or con.
Increasingly, companies are looking to gain access to these conversations and take part in the dialogue. More than a few systems are now integrating to social networking sites. Social media promoters cite a number of business advantages, such as using online communities as a source of high-quality leads and a vehicle for crowd sourcing solutions to client-support problems. Companies can also leverage client stated habits and preferences to personalize and even “hyper-target” their sales and marketing communications.
Some analysts take the view that business-to-business marketers should proceed cautiously when weaving social media into their business processes. These observers recommend careful market research to determine if and where the phenomenon can provide measurable benefits for client interactions, sales, and support.

Non-profit and Membership-based

Systems for non-profit and membership-based organizations help track constituents and their involvement in the organization. Capabilities typically include tracking the following: fund-raising, demographics, membership levels, membership directories, volunteering and communications with individuals.
Many include tools for identifying potential donors based on previous donations and participation. In light of the growth of social networking tools, there may be some overlap between social/community driven tools and non-profit/membership tools.