A01 chaf6542 06 se fm indd

1 

Type of applications.

2 

Integration  with   back-  office  systems.

3 

The choice of  single-  vendor solutions or a more fragmented choice.

4 

Data quality.

Types of CRM applications

Figure 9.23 is intended to convey the complexity of providing CRM solutions. The aim of 

CRM technology is to provide an interface between the customer and the employee that 

replaces or facilitates direct interaction. From both customer and employee perspectives, 

Customer 

 self‑  service

Customers perform 

information requests and 

transactions through a 

web interface rather than 

contact with customer 

support staff.

Figure 9.23

An overview of the components of CRM technologies

Customer

Face-to-face

Mail/Fax

Phone

Web / WAP kiosk

Email

Evaluate product

information

Place order

Customer service

enquiry

Sales contact

management

Customer

details and

preferences

Sales order

processing

Support

contact

management

Campaign

response

database

Campaign

management

system

E-newsletter

or email

campaign

Salesforce

automation

Place order

Customer service

call centre

knowledge base

Face-to-face

Mail/fax

Phone

Web/WAP

Email

Employee 

channels

Employee 

applications

Databases

Customer 

applications

Customer service

channels

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Part 2  Strategy and applications

the ultimate aim of CRM systems is to enable contact regardless of the communications 

channel that the customer wants to use, whether this is traditional methods such as phone 

or fax or newer digital technologies. Thus the ideal CRM system will support multichannel 

communication or the  customer-  preferred channel. Regardless of channel, the customer 

will have different needs depending on their stage in the buying process (see section on 

‘Differences in buyer behaviour in target markets’). In the figure, we identify three core 

needs for the customer – to find out more information about a product, to place an order 

and to receive  post-  sales support. Applications must be provided to support each of these 

needs. Likewise, the employee will have applications requirements to support the cus-

tomer and the sales and marketing objectives of the organisation; in the figure these are 

sales force automation, to place an order received by phone, by fax or in person and to 

answer customers’ questions via a support system and knowledge base. At the heart of the 

system is the database storage needed to support these applications. The IT infrastructure 

(described in Chapter 3) such as servers, middleware and networking is not shown in the 

figure.