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CRM module: Please give us inputs!
Last Post 28 Jul 2009 08:31 AM by Rob Ralston. 15 Replies. |
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Davide G.
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| 26 Jun 2009 04:55 AM |
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There are already a couple of posts about suggestions on how we could enhance the CRM part. Now we are ready to put our hands on the code, but still we have too few suggestions on what to implement. If you have ideas, requests, anything that could help us to make the CRM more complete, please post here! Your inputs are very important to us. Thanks!  |
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Mike448
Turtle Egg
Posts:28
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| 26 Jun 2009 12:23 PM |
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That's good news!
I think one of the most important features for the CRM is the ability to use the existing DNN members as contacts. I know you have provided a script to import DNN users into contacts and you also have the ability to search DNN users to add as contact but it's still not effeciant. When new registrations happen you still have to manually add them as a contact.
The best method I believe would be to use all the DNN users by default as contacts and then add users to a company if needed. Then you could also manually add certain people to contacts who are not registered DNN users if you need to.
Thanks
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Rob Ralston
Baby Turtle
Posts:116
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| 29 Jun 2009 11:50 AM |
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I agree that the process of adding contacts could be more streamlined. However, before I give my thoughts, I wanted to comment on Mike's feedback:
From my very limited use of the product, if registered users are given access to view the EasyHelp module, they can add a ticket, even if they are not linked to a BizSuite Contact or Company.
While I think that is good, I have noticed what may be a bug in that process. If a registered user, not linked as a Contact, creates a ticket, the Category display rules have no effect (maybe other items, too.) So, perhaps that area of the code needs to be looked at. I would think it might be most appropriate for an admin to designate which categories are visible to a user in this context.
Now with regard to linking contacts to companies, it does take too many steps. I would like to see the ability to create a new contact directly from an existing portal user.
Now I know EasyHelp has it's own contact record, with its own ID, which you then link to a portal user ID and Company. What I think would help, is if you had two "Create Contact" options. The existing one, and one that says, "Create contact from Portal user".
In this new case, you would auto-create the EasyHelp contact and immediately link it to the existing portal user, rather than making the admin do it manually. I think this would be more intuitive.
You still need the ability to manually link, for the case where a Contact later registers at the portal, but that case makes more sense to do manually, so is more intuitive.
Rob |
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| Rob Ralston,
SilverBullet Technologies LLC,
www.silverbullettech.com |
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Davide G.
Veteran Turtle
Posts:550
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| 30 Jun 2009 04:22 AM |
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Hello guys, thanks for the input. @ Mike448 - Yes we will definetly look if there is way, by using some DNN API maybe, to save a new registered user as a new CRM record, automatically (as an option). @ Rob - the Category display rules have no effect What "rule" you are referring to? What I think would help, is if you had two "Create Contact" options. The existing one, and one that says, "Create contact from Portal user".
Do you mean having two different buttons in the Ticket Creation page, or in the CRM Contacts manager? Thank you both! |
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Rob Ralston
Baby Turtle
Posts:116
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| 30 Jun 2009 05:52 AM |
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Davide,
Sorry for not being clear. When I said "rule" what I am referring to is this: When in the "Edit or Delete Category" screen, there is a checkbox labeled: "Default Deny to Companies".
If this is checked, Portal users, that are not set up as Contacts in Companies, but have access to the module to create a ticket, will still see all of the categories. So I was suggesting that this scenario needs to be handled differently.
For the two "Create new contact buttons", I think this would apply wherever I am allowed to create a new CRM contact.
I hope that is clearer.
Rob |
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| Rob Ralston,
SilverBullet Technologies LLC,
www.silverbullettech.com |
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Rob Ralston
Baby Turtle
Posts:116
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| 30 Jun 2009 06:13 AM |
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Here are some additional thoughts that may be helpful.
Perhaps it would make sense to have a Generic/Default Company defined that cannot be deleted. This "Generic" company would be used to define the modules behavior for CRM contacts not explicitly associated with another company, as well as portal users that are not set up (linked) as contacts in the CRM.
This way, an admin could define Default behavior within this "Generic/ Company" for such contacts (like what categories they see).
The description for this Generic company would be: "The settings defined here will apply to all CRM Contacts and Portal Users, not explicitly linked to another CRM Company record".
Rob |
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| Rob Ralston,
SilverBullet Technologies LLC,
www.silverbullettech.com |
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Mel
Turtle Egg
Posts:1
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| 09 Jul 2009 08:20 PM |
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Hi Davide, As we are starting to use the CRM seriously we are listing down all of the issues / improvements and intend to post these regularly, starting with the list below (I work with Fabie and Adam.. so there will be 3 of us now...) - We would like to be able to display more than 5 clients at a time e.g. 25 in the search list
- Have a nice work - you are logged in as ** - Can you change this to be more coherent such as 'Have a nice day' or any other welcome message that makes sense.
- both Contacts and Companies should hyperlink between each other in the CRM search results
- should be able to directly edit a contact through the company screen, and vice versa
- contacts and companies details should have a tab which lists associated tickets related to a company
- Tickets should have a tab to show all other tickets to that company and these should be hyperlinked
- can you please include a checkbox/ radio to the extended field options
- Suggested buttons to go along the top of the page - all icons available to user i.e. new ticket, search ticket, etc.
- Rotating dashboard reports - can these be customisable so that we can add the company next to the contact name in unassigned tickets
- Search tickets via - company OR client not just client
- Enter - this could be our skin, but when we press the enter button it triggers the core search as apposed to the ticket/ contact/ company search
- Can you please add a button from the Support Dashboard that links to the CRM for users in the correct role
- We are currently using the ticket system as a communication log
for all of our clients, in this regard we use both comments and tasks
to keep track of progress on a client. We rotate the client through
various categories and statuses in the one ticket, it would be
extremely useful if the current category and status could be time
stamped against a comment.
e.g. We could look at a series of comments and see the status the client was at when the comment was made. - While the events log is good it requires you to flip between the comments and the events log to piece together the story. A smarter approach would be to capture specific information such as the category and status at the time a comment is made, which would display as an expandable section underneath each comment similar to how the events log works now. Potentially it could draw on the event log for a data source.
Thats all for this installment, I hope this has been of use we will keep the idea's flowing. Cheers Mel  |
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Davide G.
Veteran Turtle
Posts:550
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| 10 Jul 2009 02:35 AM |
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Hello,
thank you everybody for all inputs and suggestions.
We scheduled a new BizSuite release this week, to address some bugs and add features to POP3 polling system.
After that, we can work on the CRM deeply. One of the dev here is also almost done in producing a calendar/task view for your BizSuite Operator, as an optional small module.
Thank you!
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Adam
Turtle Egg
Posts:23
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| 10 Jul 2009 06:49 PM |
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Another request which is part CRM/ part helpdesk - We have created a daily report which displays all companies/clients/Categories/Statuses etc so we can see a snapshot of everything we have on the go each day. We'll be adding on individual task assignments and a range of other reporting features soon.
It would be great to be able to hyperlink the records to tickets (and ideally even the appropriate tab, company or contact). While Ajax is great for usability it limits the ability to do this. Would you be able to add an option where we could append to the query string parameters to load specific screens? E.g TicketId=34&tab=comments or Company=34 or contact=34 etc
We use dotnetnukeemail.com to send out the daily reports.
Will be installing the beta soon!
Cheers
Adam |
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Adam
Turtle Egg
Posts:23
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| 15 Jul 2009 07:44 PM |
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Campaign monitor is a smart product and i see they now integrate into this CRM - http://www.tactilecrm.com/ while i haven't used it, it appears to be following the same design/usability principals as ActiveCollab, basecamp etc. Something which no DNN module developers seem to adopt.
Aside from the usability considerations it may be worth watching their tour video and seeing if there are any smart CRM features which you can leverage into the road map.
Cheers
Adam |
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Steven Webster
Turtle Egg
Posts:4
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| 27 Jul 2009 01:49 PM |
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CRM systems generally help manage the following concepts:
1. Contacts. In this case, I agree that contacts should be DNN users. They can be contained within a company, but that should be optional since CRM is not always B2B. In a retail CRM environment the contact is the only entity so forcing a user through the company creation process is unnecessary.
2. Opportunities. Being able to track opportunities for a contact is critical step. While an opportunity may be a simple dollar amount (for services as an example) it may also be a specific inventory item, property or catalog part. In any case, tracking an opportunity through the process (sales funnel) is important to salespeople and their managers.
3. Tasks. In addition to contact management, most salespeople rely on CRM to keep track of their "to do" lists. Your Help Desk already comes pretty close on this - perhaps the concepts could be shared/leveraged within CRM.
4. Communication (Marketing). Ensuring that followup and marketing information are handled automatically is an important step in the sales process. Another thread mentioned the idea of a communication planner where admins could create communications plans that contained timed steps. These steps might include letters and emails in which case a library of documents could be "merged" with contact and opportunity information to create a letter or send an email. Additional communication items might remind a salesperson to make a phone call, etc.
5. Measurement (Reporting). Tracking progress, overdue tasks, sales funnels, etc is an important step for management buy in for any CRM system. Reports for salespeople, managers and business owners should quickly and easily display data that helps them track trends and identify problem areas.
6. Easy to Use. 90% of all CRM implementations fail. Most of the time it's because the system is too complex for salespeople to actually use. Simple is powerful as salespeople will always follow the path of least resistance. The CRM needs to be that path. Wizards and simple step by step screens will help.
7. Extensibility (APIs). Allowing operators to integrate other ideas into this would be terrific. If you are already leveraging the core DNN user then an email module could be used to send out newsletters. Tying this into roles would give other modules even more automatics control (when a contact becomes a customer they are added to the role "Customer" and now have access to the customer forum. get the customer newsletters, can access the customer pages on the site, etc.
Additionally, an operator might want to insert new contacts from email listeners (Again borrowed from your Help Desk) or from online forms.
Lastly, the ability to integrate with other modules for things like inventory would be most helpful. Ventrian's Property Agent for example when combined with your CRM would deliver a feature rich CRM for Real Estate offices. Same for car dealers, etc.
These are the top level items I can think of as someone who has implemented and then written CRM system for the last 8 years. I look forward to seeing where this module goes with CRM.
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Davide G.
Veteran Turtle
Posts:550
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| 28 Jul 2009 07:22 AM |
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Thank you all for the additional suggestions.
This week, we are making another release to address some more little helpdesk bugs.
Starting from next week, we'll dig into each point that was suggested.
Thanks! Stay tuned! |
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Rob Ralston
Baby Turtle
Posts:116
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| 28 Jul 2009 08:09 AM |
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I was very interested in Steven Webster's comments, especially since he has implemented/written CRM systems for several years.
Prior to starting my own IT business, I worked for a small consulting company which worked with clients to develop requirements specifications for, and implement a popular CRM package called GoldMine. In addition, they had a complementary software product for doing sophisticated sales quotations. This was over 10 years ago.
At that time, GoldMine was quite sophisticated and implemented most if not all of Steven's points. 10 years later, I am certain it has evolved significantly. I am not suggesting GoldMine is the leader, or the best, or anything. There are other popular systems like ACT!, and also web based systems, SalesForce.com as probably the most notable. Microsoft now has a well regarded CRM package called Dynammics CRM.
I agree that what you currently call "CRM" needs some work just to make it a better component for the HelpDesk system. My experience with true CRM systems as an integrator years ago, taught me they are technically deep products. There is a lot more to them than simple "contact managerment" as Steven corretly points out. We all have Outlook for that purpose.
So, if you truly want to dive deep into this, you should buy GoldMine, and ACT! and sign up for a SalesForce.com account to see what these packages offer, and to understand the challenge ahead of you.
Aside from the above, one of my reasons for posting is to express concern. I purchased your HelpDesk system because that is what I need. It still can evolve significantly. Perhaps you have a large development team, but I am concerned that a deep focus into CRM and the huge development effort it will require will cause the HelpDesk system to flounder.
About 2.5 years ago I purchased a help desk system from the same company which created the forum software you are using. The company focussed completely on their forum product (which is a great product), and then on social networking components, all while promising the help desk customers for 2 years, there would soon be a new release. They completely stopped responding to requests about it.
Please don't let that happen to your HelpDesk product. |
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| Rob Ralston,
SilverBullet Technologies LLC,
www.silverbullettech.com |
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Davide G.
Veteran Turtle
Posts:550
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| 28 Jul 2009 08:26 AM |
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Hello Rob, but I am concerned that a deep focus into CRM and the huge development effort it will require will cause the HelpDesk system to flounder.
BizSuite's Helpdesk is the main part of the Suite, and that will hardly change. We have received many request to make the CRM evolve a bit (now it is just an address book!), and we want to make it grow TOGETHER with the helpdesk part. Focusing on the CRM part a bit, does not mean that Helpdesk module will see no additions for months; we recently added a calendar module, still in beta, that is an add-on to the helpdesk, not at all for the CRM. Right today and this week, we are addressing the points you listed with all your posts. I will open later an "official" thread where post features suggestions for the helpdesk itself. We do not have many modules going, just Bizsuite and that very small module for Docs management, that were required (and paid..) by a customer. We will sure invest not less than 90% of our time on BizSuite, both helpdesk and crm parts; I do not see reason why this should change, as the trend of sales (luckly!) increased in the last months. Thanks, and keep your idea for helpdesk coming. |
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Rob Ralston
Baby Turtle
Posts:116
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| 28 Jul 2009 08:28 AM |
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Sorry, but one more point.
You need to understand why sales people want, but typically hate CRM systems. They need the tool, but want to live in Outlook. That is where they do a huge amount of interaction with customers. They don't want to go to some other system to enter notes about a call, or schedule an appointment or anything. This is one of the reasons these implementations fail.
For that reason, all of the major CRM systems have some sort of Outlook integration. Some better than others. Microsoft, coming late into the game a few years ago, understood the ubiquity of Outlook, and that sales people love it. They designed Dynamics CRM to be an new Outlook node. If you're in Outlook, then you are in the CRM system. Transparently.
You can get documentation on MS Dynamics CRM at their website, of course. |
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| Rob Ralston,
SilverBullet Technologies LLC,
www.silverbullettech.com |
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Rob Ralston
Baby Turtle
Posts:116
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| 28 Jul 2009 08:31 AM |
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Davide,
I'm very glad to hear you will not let the HelpDesk system go by the wayside.
Thank you. |
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| Rob Ralston,
SilverBullet Technologies LLC,
www.silverbullettech.com |
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