Reliable CRM Development Company

In short, CRM is a part of ERP. ERP handles manufacturing and financial operations, while CRM traditionally deals with customers on all stages, automating marketing and sales activities. In real life, there are several scenarios: a company uses ERP but not CRM; a company uses CRM but not ERP; a company doesn't have either ERP or CRM. Whatever your scenario is, you can get the benefits of both systems and keep all your business's data in a centralized database by developing the ERP with CRM functionality from scratch, integrating CRM into ERP, or customizing ERP adding CRM features. Contact us to learn how we can help you. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Using the ERP, you can reduce operating costs by 11% according to the research from a global research company. That's why the bigger a company is, the more savings in absolute numbers it can gain. Such saving numbers can be achieved on condition of automating key business processes typical of your industry. In practice, it's about implementing particular functionality in ERP. Budget Forecasting and Planning The ERP acts as a single database that provides business leaders with current financial data across the company, including profitability ratios, fixed assets, inventory margins, liabilities, and many more that can be added and customized individually. Using these metrics, business leaders can forecast revenue, expenses, and plan budgets across departments and company-wide. An example of the accounting module of the ERP with key performance indicators and trends necessary for making data-backed forecasts Automating Accounting Tasks The ERP automates all bookkeeping repetitive tasks, such as creating invoices, bills, entries for material costs, collecting data from other departments for calculating payrolls, order costs, or incomes. Now, your finance team can allocate dozens of hours saved monthly to more beneficial tasks, such as analyzing trends, reviewing transaction details, and investigating anomalies. The ERP can replace your standalone accounting software. Or, if you already use one (such as QuickBooks, Sage One, Xero, or others), the ERP can be integrated with it. As a result, all the financial activities will be managed through the ERP solely. An example of the accounting module of the ERP with outgoing and incoming cashflows details Procurement and Inventory Management The inventory is updated based on actual sales data, helping avoid both out-of-stock and excess inventory. The ERP alerts managers when it's time to place purchase orders and assists them throughout the procure-to-pay process. The software simplifies procurement management, saves time, and improves accuracy by automatically creating purchase orders, linking procurement transactions with vendor records, goods receipts, and billing documents. All procurement-related information, such as transactions, a list of approved suppliers, pre-negotiated contracts, is consolidated in the procurement dashboard. An example of the ERP dashboard with monthly inventory trend, orders to fullfill, purchase orders, and other essential data. Here you can also see reminders for purchasing managers Order Management The ERP helps handle the complete order lifecycle, from receipt to delivery. This module can automate and ensure accurate record keeping, covering order readiness status, order release, shipment confirmation, etc. Some ERPs, such as the woodworking ERP by Belitsoft, also support complex processes such as split shipments (when a large order can be shipped in several batches). All of this favors increasing on-time delivery rates and customer satisfaction. An example of a custom ERP dashboard where a split order shipment is applied Manufacturing The ERP grants you real-time visibility into every step of the production process, from production planning and scheduling to order fulfillment. There is a lot of potential for different technologies and features in manufacturing management. Here are the examples of what Belitsoft has implemented in custom ERPs: Quality monitoring by implementing IoT technology on production lines to allow the ERP to get data about the number of quality items and the number of defects. The ability to schedule employee hours, accept sick leave requests, see the projects that staff members are working on to correctly allocate human resources, and more. It streamlines the entire manufacturing process, reducing costs and increasing on-time delivery. An example of an ERP dashboard with employees' workload during the manufacturing process Make faster, data-backed decisions, impacting profitability and efficiency across your company by building a custom ERP as a single, shared database for all financial and operational data. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) According to the research from a consulting group, Microsoft’s partner, every $1 you spend on your CRM implementation returns as much as $8.71 in ROI on your sales revenue. So it's no wonder that over 91% of organizations with more than ten employees in their workforce use CRM. Marketing automation The CRM allows tracking and measuring all marketing campaigns, including emails, multichannel campaigns, events. It gives valuable data about a prospect's activity and helps identify when a lead meets certain buyer-readiness conditions. CRM analytics help marketers pass a lead to a sales team at the right moment. In addition, the CRM allows segmenting leads based on demographics, response patterns, purchase trends, and support histories to deliver personalized marketing campaigns. By aligning marketing with sales in real-time, you can continually fine-tune marketing campaigns, generate more leads, and maximize ROI. An example of a CRM dashboard illustrating the number of gained contacts, deals, the lead target, the list of leads, and other key data Sales and Customer Service Automation A study shows that sales teams spend only about a third of their day selling, while all the other time goes for tasks that could be automated, such writing emails (21%), entering data (17%), scheduling calls (12%). The CRM cuts out manual work from day-to-day sales tasks by managing quotes and invoices, automating follow-up messages, scheduling meetings, and much more. All of this speeds up the lead-to-cash process and boosts overall sales efficiency by shifting your sales managers' time from routine tasks to more beneficial ones, such as improving customer acquisition, upselling, and retaining existing customers. An example of a CRM dashboard with the customer history, including the latest messages, information about previous tickets and deals, contact data, and other helpful things Analytics and Forecasting The CRM can use real-time sales data to more accurately predict future sales and revenue, consequently. Thanks to advanced analytical tools, the CRM allows marketing, sales, and service teams to monitor their performance: Marketing reps can examine acquisition, engagement and conversion metrics for certain campaigns. Sales managers, for example, can access personal goals, such as sales achieved against the benchmark. Customer service teams can measure post-sales inquiries trends and overall client satisfaction. An example of forecasting sales opportunities based on actual sales data Through integrating CRM analytics into your business strategy, you can not only enhance your CRM capabilities and successfully implement them but also foster growth and attain your organizational goals. Make informed decisions on how to service customers efficiently, which customers to pursue for higher revenue, how sales teams are performing, and much more by building your proprietary CRM with a skilled development team.

CRM Strategy Starting with a clear destination (vision) allows for a more effective mapping of the path (strategy), considering the realities identified during the situation analysis. Customer Interaction map CRM Vision Different stakeholders have different views on what CRM means.  IT personnel may view CRM primarily as a technology project, focusing on the systems and infrastructure required. Marketers may see CRM as a tool for campaign management and customer outreach. Salespeople might consider CRM as a contact database for managing customer interactions or a way to oversee the sales pipeline, while service teams use it to reduce costs through improved customer support processes. All parties involved should have a shared understanding of what CRM represents for the company.  The CRM vision should articulate the desired future state, such as having all customer information accessible in one place or creating personalized experiences for long-term relationships with valuable customers. Situation Analysis The development of a CRM system starts with a CRM strategy. The first step is a situation analysis to create a customer interaction map, which identifies all customer touchpoints and the processes performed at those touchpoints. Interactions that significantly impact customer experience, or the company's costs, are candidates for re-engineering and automation. For instance, in courier organizations, the logistics process of picking up, moving, and delivering packages makes up 90% of their cost base, making it ideal for re-engineering with a custom CRM solution. The audit determines the desired outcomes of CRM development and implementation. Check out our case study to see how we improved patient recruitment and retention for clinical trials using our customized CRM database solution. With features like efficient communication and advanced analytics, our platform promotes the success rates of trials. Get in touch to discuss a customized CRM solution. Goals and Objectives Goals refer to qualitative outcomes, while objectives are specific measurable outcomes linked to those overarching goals. For example, a common CRM goal is to gain new customers, and a related objective could be to generate 300 additional qualified leads by the fourth quarter of the next fiscal year. CRM goals usually fall into three major themes: customer satisfaction and loyalty, revenue growth, and cost reduction. Effective CRM strategies often pursue multiple complementary goals simultaneously, such as increasing customer retention rates while also reducing service costs. CRM Software Costs CRM ROI The benefits of CRM are interlinked with building out other organizational capabilities as brand management, customer focus, innovation, etc. It's a complex system with long-term effects. Estimating potential return on investment (ROI) upfront for a major system like CRM is challenging. The costs are more tangible, but the benefits in terms of increased profits from better customer management are difficult to measure until the system is actually implemented and its real-world impacts occur. Rather than relying on speculative ROI numbers upfront, it may be better to use scenario planning to look at the potential upsides and downsides when pitched against the certain costs of, for example, $1 million over three years. Using standard discounted cash flow (DCF) analysis with an "expected value" makes little sense in transformative investments, like CRM. The outcomes are binary - either losing the $1 million investment or unlocking $5 million in value. CRM investments often yield returns in two phases, with the second phase being uncertain. Initially, they result in operational improvements, like merging duplicate databases, enhancing integration between front- and back-office operations to cut costs, and executing marketing campaigns more efficiently. These improvements can increase sales by targeting customers effectively. While the potential benefits from these efforts may not be immediately apparent, they unfold gradually over time. As time passes, these investments create new skills, such as data analysis, database management, and customer interaction. These resources and skills can drive significant shifts in CRM to better serve valuable customers, even though their benefits may not be immediately obvious. Similarly to financial markets, with the use of real options pricing models, companies can view initial CRM investments as an "option" to pursue more significant and transformative projects in the future. They can start small and test strategies and capabilities before scaling up. Taking this step-by-step approach helps to lower the risk involved and promotes learning from customer interactions. Calculating CRM ROI can be complex and requires evaluating both immediate financial returns and long-term benefits. It encourages companies to value learning and adapt their business model using CRM insights. To support the idea of staged CRM investment, we can combine traditional discounted cash flow analysis with evaluating the option that provides flexibility based on test results. CRM project budget and cost analysis CRM projects require organizational buy-in and adaptation, not just limited to marketing or IT. Otherwise, the organization may struggle to develop complementary capabilities and resources, even after significant investment. The costs associated with a CRM project go beyond the software itself.  Additional expenses include: systems integration to connect the CRM platform with existing systems and data sources infrastructure costs for hardware and computing resources to support the CRM solution configuring the system settings, user interfaces, workflows, and automation rules to meet specific needs (for instance, for a retail company, this involves aligning data fields, sales pipelines, and communication templates with company strategies) data modeling to integrate customer data into the new system ongoing support change management process re-engineering aligns workflows, procedures, and employee habits with CRM functionalities for seamless integration and optimal performance training programs external consulting services temporary staffing required for CRM implementation, involving diversion of existing employees These costs, which go well beyond the initial software development fees, must be carefully projected and included in the overall CRM project budget and cost analysis. CRM TCO Which is better, building a custom CRM or using an existing solution? When initiating a CRM project, consider the total cost of ownership (TCO) over different time periods, such as one, three, and five years. Large-scale projects with complex demands across sales, marketing, and customer service departments, a custom CRM may require. It can integrate with your existing back-office systems and be based on unique business rules or proprietary algorithms. Pre-built CRM software often falls short of meeting all user requirements. Some CRM vendors offer industry-specific versions for verticals like banking, retail, public sector, and others. But customization is often necessary to align with the organization's processes, workflows, and user requirements. However, for smaller organizations, building a custom CRM may not be cost-effective. In these cases, adopting or customizing an existing CRM platform could offer a better TCO and faster implementation. RFP for CRM System Development A Request for Proposals (RFP) sets the benchmark for assessing vendors' proposals, encouraging structured responses from interested parties. It covers topics, like customer interaction mapping and process re-engineering, and technology issues. These issues include delivery models (SaaS, on-premise, blended), required functionalities (sales, marketing, service), management reports, hardware needs, architectural considerations, systems integration, customization needs, upgrades and service requirements. The RFP also addresses project management, implementation details (including pilot programs, deployment strategies), training for management and staff alongside costing issues like Total Cost of Ownership targets and timelines. Custom CRM Development CRM Project Management When planning your custom CRM project, you may wonder who should oversee the project and make high-level decisions. Here's a breakdown to guide you. CRM Project roles and responsibilities The Program Director is in charge of achieving deliverables and controlling costs. They typically have a full-time role for project success. The CRM Steering Committee makes high-level policy decisions, like technology selection and hiring consultants.   IT resources play critical roles: Lead developer for developing or customizing the CRM software. Database developer for integrating customer data sources. A systems integrator may be needed to align disparate systems. Front-end for designing the user interface and and back-end developers for implementing the underlying functionalities of the CRM system. External consultants and system implementers may also be involved. CRM Project Plan This plan outlines specific tasks to be performed, their sequence, and timelines. It also details the resources required, including personnel and budgets. The project plan clearly states what each task should deliver. To manage the project effectively, tools like Gantt charts are used to show tasks, dependencies, and the overall timeline. Some tasks may run in parallel to optimize efficiency, while others need to be done one after another.  Periodic milestone reviews are conducted to check if the project is on track with timelines and budgets. A CRM project often encompasses multiple constituent "mini-projects," each with its own set of deliverables and timelines, but collectively contributing to broader CRM goals. They can involve tasks, like database development, implementation of new management reporting capabilities, technology search and selection for the CRM platform, and user training initiatives. The program director typically owns and oversees the project management responsibilities for the CRM implementation. However, in some cases, these duties may be outsourced to external consultants with expertise in managing complex projects. Critical Success Factors (CSFs) CRM consultants and vendors often cite some commonly recognized CSFs, including: Addressing people and process issues, not just implementing technology Starting with lower-risk, quick-win initiatives that can be showcased as early successes Prioritizing automation of processes with major cost or customer experience implications Engaging of all key stakeholders, including end-users and customers, in planning and rollout However, there is a common misconception that CRM projects are solely IT endeavors and are only judged on technical success. This narrow view overlooks the importance of delivering tangible business results. Benefit Dependancy Network Example The Benefit Dependency Network framework encourages a shift in perspective from focusing on the technological aspects of CRM to its business benefits. It links CRM activities to desired outcomes, guiding managers in adjusting business processes to achieve goals. Risk Management Plan There are risks when critical success factors (CSFs) are absent. Gartner, a research firm, has outlined some common causes of CRM failure, including: relying solely on technology lack of coordination between departmental CRM initiatives having only IT people on the CRM team Inadequate testing To increase the chances of CRM success, organizations should develop a risk management plan that identifies potential problems and establishes ways to address them. The American Heart Association (AHA) faced challenges due to fragmented data across 150+ separate databases. They implemented a centralized CRM system, resulting in faster and more personalized service for donors. This led to a 20% increase in donations. Get in touch with our experts for a variety of custom CRM development services options. Features of CRM that Improve Customer Experience Typical CRM architecture with web, back-office integration, and mobile. Note the tiers: database (bottom), application server (middle), and user interface (top) CRM Usability Usability is about how easy and intuitive a CRM application is to use. The interface should be self-explanatory and require minimal user training. Users should be able to navigate and perform tasks easily, without confusion or frustration. Tasks like updating customer details, making offers, or resolving complaints should be effortless for users. For regular CRM systems, having clickable links for more details works well. However, in a busy call center, basic navigation is not enough. Extra programming is needed for a fast and interactive experience. CRM users don't always follow the exact steps or processes designed by the system. They may want to jump around or do things in a different order. A usable CRM allows users to have multiple options available at any point, rather than forcing them through a rigid set of steps. Usability is usually provided through hyperlinks, buttons, or tabs on the screen. These elements let users navigate to different sections or take different actions as needed. A highly usable CRM offers many navigational choices, enabling users to move freely without encountering restrictions like being blocked from doing B until they've completed A. Customers value the freedom to navigate the system in a way that suits their current situation. Yet, an inflexible and overly restrictive CRM frustrates customers, as it does not accommodate their need to deviate from the main process flow when necessary. CRM Scalability Having top CRM software alone isn't enough. If the network, database, or server performance is subpar, it will slow down the application's responsiveness. To boost performance, most CRMs separate the application server from the database server on different systems.  A high-performing CRM architecture also enables easy scaling out the application, web, and database server tiers by adding more servers as user loads increase.  Scalability is critical as a CRM gains more internal employee users and external customers. What feels fast with 100 call center users may crawl with thousands of customers on the website plus field reps syncing data across all regions simultaneously. Evaluating a CRM's proven real-world scalability for different usage profiles (web traffic, syncing loads, call volumes) is key to ensuring it can handle your future user base without compromising performance. During peak periods, like nightly data integration jobs, the CRM must be able to handle maximum throughput spikes seamlessly, without bogging down and frustrating users. Failing to scale performance efficiently as usage increases will cause unsatisfactory customer experiences. Information Required for Effective CRM CRM information requirements vary depending on the organization's goals and roles.  For example, a direct marketer planning an email campaign needs operational and analytical data like open rates, click-through rates, and click-to-open rates from previous campaigns. This data should be broken down by the target audience, offer and execution details.   On the other hand, senior managers who are reviewing strategic CRM decisions require details about the current customer base segmentation, purchasing behavior, and customer preferences across product, service, and channel. CRM Data Sources Internal customer data is scattered across different departments within an organization. The marketing department maintains data on customer profiles, acquisition channels, campaigns, and product registrations. The sales force records purchasing history, including recency, frequency, and monetary value, as well as buyer details, account information, trade terms, prospects, and proposal responses. Customer service holds data on service history, satisfaction levels, complaints, issues, inquiries, and loyalty program membership and status. The finance department has information on credit ratings, accounts receivable, and payment history. The web/IT team tracks website and digital platform click-stream data.   Integrating this data into CRM databases is challenging due to various formats such as hard copies, spreadsheets, and word documents. Data duplication is common, with overlapping customer data, for instance email addresses, that can be inconsistent.  To address these challenges, CRM projects often incorporate a data quality phase. This phase aims to identify, obtain, and qualify these disparate customer records from various sources. The key emphasis is on consolidating scattered customer data from across the organization, addressing duplication and inconsistencies, and migrating the cleaned and qualified data into the CRM system. CRM Data Quality STARTS is a mnemonic representing six key attributes of data quality essential for effective CRM strategies: Shareable, Transportable, Accurate, Relevant, Timely, and Secure. These attributes ensure data is accessible, reliable, pertinent, available at the right time, and protected, thereby supporting effective CRM strategies. Customer data needs to be shareable because multiple users may need access to it at the same time. For example, customer service agents across different locations often need access to the same customer profile information. Data must be transportable from storage locations to users, ensuring availability wherever and whenever needed, especially for businesses with globally distributed customers, products, and markets. Accuracy is critical in data. Errors during collection, entry, integration, and analysis can lead to ineffective marketing, poor targeting, negative customer experiences, and eroded trust in the CRM system. Relevant data meets the specific needs of its intended purpose, such as transaction history for creditworthiness checks or propensity-to-buy scores for cross-selling opportunities. Timely data informs decisions when needed. For example, bank tellers require up-to-date propensity-to-buy information during customer interactions. Data must be secured against loss, sabotage, and theft through backups, firewalls, and controlled access to sensitive information. Enhancing internal data If a company lacks sufficient internal data, they can import external data to fill gaps and enrich their customer data for more effective CRM and marketing efforts. To use external data for enhancement, companies often need to provide their internal data to the external source for matching and appending relevant information. Compiled list data refers to individual-level data assembled by list vendors or bureaus from a variety of personal, household, and business sources. These sources can include tax records, warranty card registrations, questionnaire response data, and published annual reports. For instance, if a retailer wants to diversify into dancewear but doesn't have relevant internal customer data, they can purchase or rent a compiled list from an external source. This list could be compiled from dance school members, dance course students, recent dance equipment buyers, dance enthusiasts from lifestyle questionnaires, dance magazine subscribers, and dance and musical theatre ticket purchasers. Another source of external data is census data obtained from government census records. Individual-level census data is not usually accessible, but aggregated geo-demographic data is useful for marketing. Census data at different levels (zip codes, block groups, census tracts) provides information like median income, household size, home value, monthly mortgage, ethnicity, marital status, and education levels in an area. Although individual-level data is a better predictor of behavior, census data can be utilized to enhance internal data when individual-level data is not available. For example, a car reseller could use census data about median income and average household size to identify potential prospects for a marketing campaign within specific geographic areas. Best Database for CRM Companies building custom CRM solutions need to evaluate database technologies as well as hardware capabilities to meet their specific requirements. If a company decides to create its own CRM application from scratch, it must handpick an appropriate database backend technology such as SQL Server, MySQL, etc.  Additionally, the choice of hardware platform for hosting the CRM system will be influenced by several key factors. One consideration is the anticipated size of the customer databases.  Another factor is the number and geographic distribution of CRM users. If users are spread globally, the hardware may need more powerful specifications to ensure real-time access to data 24/7.  CRM Data Import At this stage, it's vital to not spend time and effort on cleaning and verifying steps.  Poor-quality data can lead to negative customer experiences, such as receiving duplicate mail or being addressed incorrectly. Implementing systematic data verification, validation, and de-duplication maintains an accurate, high-quality customer database.  There are several steps involved in ensuring accurate data in a CRM system.  Verification, which ensures that data is entered exactly as it appears in the original source, even though this process can be labor intensive. Validation, which checks the accuracy of entered data and addresses common inaccuracies like misspelled names, incorrect titles, and inappropriate salutations. Validation techniques include range validation to identify entries that fall outside the ranges for a field, checks for missing values across columns, and verify data like postcodes against authoritative external sources. Deduplication, which involves removing duplicate records to avoid issues such as miscommunications with customers. Duplicate records for the same customer can occur when combining multiple databases into a single unified database. Therefore, it is often necessary to remove any duplicates after merging the databases.  Maintain CRM Database Databases inevitably become outdated over time due to various factors, such as job changes, business relocations, address modifications, and deaths. Ensuring database accuracy is a collective responsibility distributed among various teams. Identifying data entry responsibilities and setting strict guidelines for its execution are fundamental steps. Implement defined processes to effectively incorporate data obtained from transactions, campaigns, and customer interactions. Every interaction with customers, whether it's a sales call or addressing support issues, should be seen as a chance to validate and refresh customer information. Make it a regular practice to merge duplicate records through deduplication exercises. Recognizing the causes of duplicates, like data entry mistakes or system merging, is essential in resolving the issue. Annual audits reveal database inaccuracies and identify error-prone data fields and primary sources of data degradation. Allowing customers to update their own information through portals reduces staff workload and improves data accuracy. Respecting customer requests to delete records maintains privacy and database integrity. If a third party manages your database, inserting test records periodically can verify their effectiveness in identifying and removing outdated or incorrect data, ensuring the database's reliability and accuracy. CRM Data Integration Companies need data integration to create a single view of customer interactions across various channels. However, integrating data from different sources can be challenging in CRM projects. It requires tracing a customer's identity and resolving discrepancies between databases. One solution is Master Data Management, which captures and consolidates data into a centralized database. For companies with older mainframe (legacy) systems, adopting newer systems with a centralized database that can accept real-time inputs from multiple channels can be a solution. Even so, legacy systems often use batch processing, which does not support real-time data. Middleware (software that connects different parts of a system) is often used to integrate databases held on different legacy systems. US Xpress Enterprises faced siloed data and disparate IT systems after acquiring other companies. They built a centralized data warehouse and adopted a CRM system to consolidate information and gain a comprehensive understanding of customers. This allowed them to identify and recover up to $350,000 per year in lost opportunities. Contact us for CRM migration services with minimal disruption to your business. CRM and Knowledge Management Successful CRM requires not only customer data but also a broad range of knowledge about product features and benefits, price lists, competitors’ offers, market data, service issues and solutions, company policies and more. Knowledge Management (KM) in CRM involves gathering, organizing, storing, interpreting, and distributing knowledge to support customer acquisition, service, and retention goals. CRM-focused KM systems typically include databases to hold information, networks (intranets/extranets) for access, and tools for search, collaboration, and management.  KM enhances customer experiences by providing easy access to information through various touch points, such as websites, contact centers, and sales representatives. Effective leverage of knowledge requires specific characteristics: Multiple users should access the same data simultaneously, like product specifications Knowledge should be available on various platforms, like websites or service engineers' laptops Some data like pricing and transaction history need to be absolutely up-to-date, while market-related data can be reasonably outdated Only pertinent information should be available at touchpoints, without irrelevant details. Critical information should be readily obtainable Knowledge crucial for competitive advantage must be adequately protected. The integration of KM into CRM improves customer experiences. Consider a scenario where a customer encounters an issue with a product or service. They can seek a resolution independently through the company's online self-service resources, such as a knowledge base or FAQs, or to reach out to a conversational sales bot that has access to a centralized repository of solutions. The benefits of integrating KM extend beyond customer support. For instance, a dedicated portal can offer potential business partners access to detailed product information, competitive comparisons, and support details. Pilot Project, Testing, Modifying, and Rolling Out The custom development process begins with the creation of a pilot CRM solution. User testing feedback is then used to make final adjustments to the marketing, selling, and service processes that the CRM solution will support.  Before rolling out the final custom CRM solution, a review is conducted to ensure that all necessary modifications and adjustments have been made based on the user testing feedback.  Most organizations opt for a phased roll-out of the custom CRM solution, rather than a company-wide deployment at once. This phased approach helps to resolve any issues before the solution is adopted across the entire organization.   We successfully combined Business Intelligence (BI) and CRM for a healthcare provider in the United States, streamlining administrative tasks and automating patient management. We improved the quality of care, allocated resources more efficiently, and achieved better patient outcomes by consolidating EHR data and automating program assignments. Contact our experts to optimize your practice workflow.

Analytical CRM Goals The first step before developing an analytical CRM is to answer the question: 'What is expected from the analysis?' Analytical CRM, or analytic CRM, can provide insights on customers with the highest lifetime value, those at risk of switching to competitors, and the best next offer. With data analytics tools, a company can create more effective cross-selling, up-selling, customer retention, and acquisition programs. CRM databases help marketing teams find signals indicating potential customer churn. By analyzing these patterns, they can target retention offers to customers at risk, proactively keeping their valuable customer base. Companies may identify highly satisfied customers and promote tailored offers, capitalizing on their positive experiences to drive repeat sales. Website personalization is a strong suit of CRM databases. Organizations that use CRM analytics see lower cancellation rates thanks to personalized campaigns. E-commerce platforms can analyze customer browsing behavior and purchase patterns to dynamically recommend the "next best offer" as customers navigate the site. Personalized product recommendations increase the likelihood of conversions. Our custom CRM development services simplify operations and enhance productivity. With over 20 years of experience, Belitsoft offers tailored database solutions to enhance business interactions and customer relations. Whether you need a fully customized platform or modifications to an existing CRM, we adapt our services to meet your unique requirements. Contact us for a consultation. CRM Databases CRM Analytics relies on customer-related data from corporate databases like purchase history, payment history, campaign responses, loyalty scheme data. It can be augmented with additional information from external business intelligence organizations or social media, such as geo-demographic/lifestyle data. CRM databases serve as the central repository for all customer data. The effectiveness of CRM data analytics depends on the quality, comprehensiveness, and organization of the data within these databases. Structured Data Most corporate databases store data in a structured format with a fixed structure. Each field holds specific data, such as customer name, address, purchase history, etc. Records contain multiple related fields based on the data model. Commercial CRM applications come with pre-defined data models for different industries. For example, the data model for a banking CRM would differ from a life sciences CRM. Users can't modify the core data model but can add fields.  Structured data is common in corporate databases used by sales, marketing, service, logistics, and accounts departments. Third-party sources provide structured data, including market research firms and credit scoring agencies. Unstructured Data Unstructured data does not follow a predefined model. It includes text files like emails and customer feedback, as well as documents, presentations, handwritten agent notes on phone conversations, recorded calls, images, and videos.  The amount of unstructured data generated by social media users has significantly increased. This exponential growth of unstructured data from diverse sources has led to the term "big data". CRM practitioners can already utilize certain big data technologies, such as voice recognition, predictive analytics, social media monitoring, and text analytics. Our services are oriented towards integrating a broader array of both structured and unstructured data from various sources into the CRM. Your system will be capable of pulling in data from IoT devices and social media, among other sources, creating a 360-degree view of the customer. We enhance data quality, completeness, and cleanliness within CRM systems. This involves data cleaning, de-duplication services, or enriching the data. Relational Databases Relational databases are the standard architecture for CRM applications that use structured data. They store data in tables with rows and columns, similar to a spreadsheet. Each table holds information on a specific topic, such as customers, products, transactions, or service requests.  Each record (row) in a relational database has a unique identification called the primary key. For example, in a sales database, each customer has a unique number that serves as the primary key.  Companies often have multiple databases for marketing, service, inventory, and payments. The primary key for each customer is used to connect data across these databases. Data Warehousing and CRM Companies operating globally generate massive amounts of customer data from various sources. To convert this data into actionable information, data warehouses are used. These warehouses store large volumes of operational, historical, and customer-related data, often exceeding terabyte or even petabyte levels. Building a data warehouse involves several steps: Identifying relevant data sources Extracting data from those sources Transforming the data into a standardized and clean format Uploading the transformed data into the warehouse Regularly refreshing the data Basic Data Configuration for CRM analytics Retailers, home shopping companies, and banks have been enthusiastic adopters of data warehouses to consolidate and analyze their customer data. CRM Data Mart A data mart is a subset of a larger enterprise data warehouse that is tailored to the needs of a specific department. For example, marketing and sales departments can have their own dedicated data marts that contain only the relevant CRM-related data.   Salespeople can use it to determine revenue and profitability by customer, product, region, or sales channel. They can analyze call response rates and times. Partner managers can compare marketing fund approvals to partner-generated revenues and assess each partner's performance. Implementing data marts is less complex than a full data warehouse project, as they involve less data, fewer users, and a more precise business focus. Due to their smaller scale and scope, data mart projects tend to have lower costs compared to enterprise-wide data warehousing initiatives. The technology infrastructure required for data marts is less demanding, making them more accessible for departmental use. We develop data warehousing solutions as per the clients' requirements. They improve data analysis without disrupting operational data. OLTP/OLAP Models Customer data is divided into two subsets: operational data and analytical data. Operational data resides in Online Transaction Processing (OLTP) layer, designed to handle day-to-day transactional data processing, such as customer orders, payments, and account updates.   On the other hand, analytical data is stored in an Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) layer, optimized for data analysis and reporting purposes. The information in the OLAP layers is a summarized extract or subset of the data from the OLTP layer, or a consolidated view of data from multiple sources, containing only the necessary information for analytical tasks.   This optimization allows for data storage and processing for analytical queries and reporting, enabling complex data analysis, like trend analysis, forecasting, and data mining.  Online analytical processing (OLAP) OLAP technologies aid in data analysis with slice-and-dice, drill-down, and roll-up processes. Slice-and-Dice This process allows us to view data from different perspectives. For example, a salesperson could "slice" the data by region (e.g., North America) and "dice" it by a specific product to analyze the sales performance of that product in that region. Drill-Down The drill-down process starts from a summary view of data and goes into more detailed levels. For example, a sales manager can start by looking at the total sales revenue for the company. Then, they can drill down to see revenues by country, state, and individual salespersons or stores within a state. Roll-Up Roll-up is the opposite of drill-down. For instance, sales data can be rolled up from individual transactions to daily, monthly, and quarterly sales. OLAP is used to analyze data stored in a star schema. A data warehouse integrates multiple star schemas for different analytical subjects, like customers, opportunities, service requests, and activities. Star Schema A star schema is a type of database schema that is optimized for data warehousing and OLAP applications. It gets its name from its resemblance to a star, with a central fact table surrounded by dimension tables. Fact Table The fact table is the core of the star schema and stores quantitative data (or "facts"), such as sales revenues and volumes. For instance, in customer-focused schema, the fact table would contain metrics like sales revenue, sales volumes, cost of sales, profit margins, discounts, and promotional expenses. Dimension Tables Surrounding the fact table are dimension tables, which contain descriptive attributes related to the facts. The attributes (or "dimensions") are perspectives through which the facts can be analyzed. Examples of dimensions include geography, time period, customer, and product class. In the customer schema, dimension tables could include customer demographics, geographic locations, time periods, and product categories. Example of a star schema: fact table and dimensions Disaggregation and Analysis Facts can be disaggregated and analyzed through various dimensions. To illustrate, sales revenues can be segmented based on geography (country, state, city) and time (year, month, day). This helps understand sales performance across different locations and periods. Hierarchical Dimensions Dimensions often have a hierarchical structure, allowing for detailed analysis at various levels. In the geography dimension, one can analyze data at the country level and then drill down to states and cities for more granular insights. Questions Answered by OLAP Using Star Schema With a star schema and OLAP, users can address a wide range of business inquiries: What discounts are available to this customer? How do the quantities shipped or sales figures change annually? What are the total sales for a particular product? OLAP also enables users to explore data and understand the reasons behind certain metrics' performance. In the case of lower-than-expected sales in the UK, users can investigate the data more extensively by analyzing geography, time, or product class, giving them the opportunity to identify potential causes. The business analytics market features numerous providers that deliver OLAP capabilities. Key players include Tableau, Qlik, Microsoft, IBM, SAS, SAP, and Oracle. For a US-based digital health company, we developed a custom CRM database to enhance patient recruitment and retention for clinical trials. This solution improved patient engagement and trial outcomes by simplifying the process and providing advanced analytics. Get in touch for guidance. Data enrichment (ETL/AI/ML) Data enrichment involves adding extra measures or dimensions to enhance the existing data, allowing for generating forecasts using data mining techniques on the raw statistical data stored in the database. Techniques like classification, prediction, and clustering can segment customers, anticipate their needs, and personalize their experiences. This approach, which relies on data marts and warehouses, strengthens customer relationships and drives success within CRM strategies. Description One goal of analytics is to understand complex data. Descriptive analytics cut through the noise within millions of customer records, revealing trends and patterns. This simplified view of "what's going on" provides a starting point to realize the reasons behind customer actions. Classification Analytics also help in making informed decisions about new prospects. By classifying customers based on factors like customer lifetime value (CLV) and creating profiles for each group, you can quickly assess where a new customer might fit. This insight allows for tailored approaches and personalized interactions from the very beginning. Classification is like sorting items into distinct groups. Think of it like categories such as "likely to buy", "unlikely to buy", or "high-value customer". Customer classification based on their response likelihood to a new credit card offer is one way banks may segment their clientele. Estimation When dealing with estimation, the numbers involved can span a broad spectrum. The focus shifts from categorization to making accurate predictions of specific values, such as a customer's spending potential or the probability of them leaving (churning). The bank's marketing campaign probably utilizes a prediction model to assign a score (ranging from 0 to 1) to each customer, indicating their likelihood of responding positively.   Prediction Prediction in CRM means forecasting customer actions through either classification or estimation. Curious about who will recommend a friend, increase their spending, or upgrade? Predictive models examine past data where these activities have taken place, creating patterns that can predict future behavior. Affinity grouping Affinity grouping helps businesses understand the hidden connections within customer purchases. In retail, this involves examining shopping carts to identify frequently purchased items. This reveals potential cross-selling opportunities and informs store layouts. The Walmart example of diapers and beer on Fridays illustrates this strategy's effectiveness in boosting sales. Clustering Clustering transforms customer data into actionable segments. Instead of forcing customers into predefined categories, it analyzes their behaviors and characteristics to reveal naturally occurring groups. These clusters should contain members who are very similar to each other, yet distinct from members of other clusters. CRM practitioners can use this insight for targeted marketing, customized experiences, and even understanding factors behind customer complaints. Once formed, these clusters are given descriptive labels like "Young Professionals" or "Rich people in the suburbs" to easily understand their characteristics. Directed and undirected data mining Directed data mining aims to predict specific outcomes (customer response, churn likelihood, etc.) using historical data as a guide. Classification, prediction, and estimation are the key tools here. The goal of undirected data mining is to uncover hidden patterns and relationships within the data itself without a specific target outcome in mind. Clustering and affinity grouping techniques help identify these patterns. Data mining procedures Decision trees turn complex data into simple decision paths. They use a series of questions to make predictions. Each question is based on a specific factor and helps split the data into smaller groups. Consider the scenario of predicting customer turnover - the decision tree would pose inquiries such as "How long has the customer been with us?" or "What is their recent spending trend?". These questions lead to smaller and smaller groups and ultimately predict the likelihood of a customer leaving. Logistic regression Logistic regression is a powerful tool for understanding customer behavior. It goes beyond basic data analysis by considering factors like phone ownership time and social media usage. It predicts specific actions that customers are likely to take, such as upgrading or churning. The results provide probabilities for each customer's engagement in that behavior. CRM teams can use these probabilities to personalize offers and improve the success of their campaigns. Multiple regression When predicting customer spending, multiple regression analyzes multiple factors, including income and purchase frequency. It determines which factors have the greatest impact on spending amounts. This helps focus efforts on the factors that are most important. Discriminant analysis (DA) clusters This tool creates groups based on similarities. It helps identify patterns that differentiate "big spenders" from "budget shoppers". New customers can be assigned to groups using discriminant analysis. Neural networks Neural networks are powerful for prediction, even with complex, messy data. They can uncover hidden patterns and interactions. Picture them as a highly versatile brain that gains knowledge from vast amounts of data. However, they can be difficult to understand. They are best used when accurate results matter more than understanding the inner workings of the model. Hierarchical clustering Hierarchical clustering breaks down complex customer data into manageable groups. It is flexible and allows analysts to choose the level of detail they need. Imagine grouping export markets based on sales patterns. The hierarchical model can reveal both larger regions (like Northern Europe) with similar sales trends and smaller clusters with specific buying habits. This helps tailor strategies for each group and maximize the impact of CRM efforts. K-means clustering K-means clustering is a popular tool for organizing data into groups. You choose the number of clusters you want (that's the "k") and the algorithm finds optimal groups that are tightly packed together but well-separated from other groups. Analysts often experiment with different values of "k" to uncover useful groupings. Once the clusters are formed, the clusters are analyzed and labeled for easier understanding and use in CRM. Two-step clustering Two-step clustering helps make sense of extensive customer databases. It quickly breaks down complex data into smaller, more manageable chunks and uncovers patterns within each group. This is useful when you have mixed customer information, like demographics and purchase history. These insights can power targeted CRM strategies. Factor analysis  Factor analysis reveals hidden connections between individual data points, grouping them into a smaller number of underlying factors. This is valuable when you have many variables to analyze. It uncovers core factors, simplifying large datasets for better comprehension and usability. Imagine a company wants to improve customer satisfaction. They conduct a survey with many questions covering various aspects of the customer's experience. Instead of looking at each answer separately, factor analysis is used to find patterns. The results might show that customer satisfaction is driven by a few key things, like "product reliability" and "customer service responsiveness." The company can then focus on these core areas to improve overall customer satisfaction more effectively. CRM Data Visualization via Reporting   Reporting in CRM analytics offers valuable insights into sales, customer behavior, and market trends. Reports can be displayed as tables, charts, graphs, maps, dashboards, and can be exported to other applications for further analysis. CRM Reporting can be divided into two main types: standardized reports and query-based (ad hoc) reports. Standard Reports Standardized reports are predefined and often come as a built-in feature within CRM software. These reports can focus on performance against quota, sales rep/call center activity or, list key accounts and annual revenues. They are generated on a regular schedule (daily, weekly, monthly) to provide a consistent view of certain metrics over time. Standard reports may have limited customization options, such as date ranges, specific products, or geographic regions. While standardized reports are quick and easy to generate, their usefulness is limited to what the report designers anticipated. Organizations may find that standard reports may not always address unique questions. Query-based Reports Query-based reporting, also known as ad hoc reporting, is a flexible approach to data analysis. It allows users to create specific reports based on their role. For example, a report could be generated to identify customers in a specific territory with expired maintenance agreements and annual revenues above $100,000. Explore how Belitsoft modernized a US healthcare company's system by developing a cloud-native web app on AWS, integrating BI and CRM functionalities. This helped to improve patient relationships and streamline healthcare processes. Connect with us to enable your data-driven decisions.

Account management The account management dashboard contains details of the account (company) including but not limited to contacts, contact history, past transactions, current order status, shipments, inquiries, service history, opportunities, and quotations. As all customer informatics and account-related activities are within admissions central into the account management system, sales reps and managers can better control their responsibilities and stay organized regarding the accounts they are responsible for. Contact management Contact management feature enables users to create, share, and update contact information surrounding names, phone numbers, address, pictures, preferences, and email for both individual and corporate users. The system also catalogues the full history of each interaction, both inbound and outbound, encompassing emails, calls, meetings, and more. When utilized across an entire company, it provides a 360-degree view of the customer to sales, marketing, service, and accounts receivable. Staff may use that data to more intelligently and judiciously engage with customers as a consequence.   Activity management Activity management monitors all the activities that add value to an account, contact, or opportunity. Some examples include quoting, sales call scheduling, and following up on inquiries. With activity management, it is possible to create to-do lists and rank activities according to priority and schedule. Users may set their own reminders and be notified of impending activities. Activity management makes it easy to assess the status and advancement of all unfinished tasks. A manager can see which tasks have been completed, are still being worked on, or are overdue. Furthermore, employing activity-based management increases accountability on both ends – sales reps have greater assurance that their job will be tracked.  Contract management Contract management functionality is useful for creating, storing, and checking the status of customer contracts. This entails drafting, reviewing, approving, as well as automatic renewals. It provides visibility into the state of all contracts, and can be integrated with security controls and access restrictions. Since much of the sales reps’ contractual responsibilities are automated, they can focus on sealing more deals rather than contract management. Document management Document management provides a single repository for all sales-related documents like brochures, product and service specifications, user manuals, case studies, price lists, quote templates, and more. Users can tag these documents with metadata, allowing for efficient location through keyword searches. Document version control ensures that customers receive the most up-to-date information. Documents can be retained and retrieved in compliance with relevant legal requirements. Event management Event management allows to plan, implement, control and evaluate events such as conferences, seminars, trade shows, exhibitions and webinars, either run a single-handedly or common venture with customers and other partners.   Event management allows event planners to influence numerous functionality across the event life-cycle from preliminary growth and promotion of the event to the registration and the continuance to the operation of the event and assessment and reporting.  These tools consist of event calendaring, designing of an event website, event promotion, incorporation with social media, online registration, contact management, payment and refund registration online, partner management tools, event notifications and reporting, event performance, and attendance management tools,  creation of an event agenda, and venue management tools. Incentive management Sale managers concerned with commission use to reward achievements and concentrate sales rep attempts. In most businesses, compensation is determined using distinct spreadsheets. The spreadsheet data is no longer required when incentive management is part of sales force automation.  Sales team members get complete visibility into the origins and elements of their committee. Incentive management applications can be linked to back-office payroll applications to facilitate payment processing. Lead management An estimated 40-80% of generated leads are lost to the sales cycle before it can be completed. Lead management is the process of capturing, scoring, assigning, nurturing, and tracking sales leads.  A lead can be captured from multiple touchpoints, such as an online website form submission, social media pages, or an external database. It can be scored, typically against some defined criteria provided by a sales manager, such as data quality, source, and contact information. Based on this scoring and predefined rules, these leads are automatically routed and assigned to the appropriate sales reps or account managers. Maintaining the relationship with the lead occurs until they are ready to buy by customizing the type and frequency of content delivered using the channels preferred by the lead, such as email, events, or presales consulting. Lead management functionality provides sales reps with visibility into the status of each lead and equitable workload distribution across the team. It also implements security controls to ensure reps can only access their own leads.  Opportunity management The opportunity management tool generally has predefined “stages'' that a sales opportunity gets passed through. These stages could include initial contact, understanding the customer’s needs, presenting a solution, and closing the sales.   Sales reps can create records in the software for each potential sale they are working on. They can include the customer information, an estimate of the value of the deal, and the current stage in the sales process. The probability of each opportunity closing is often displayed directly within the software. The manager can see reports in the software that gives the status of all the sales opportunities that one's team is working on. The reports can be further filtered by the salesperson, territory, type, or the date. Thus, the manager can easily assess which opportunities are moving forward and which are stuck. Order management Order management allows the sales rep to convert the sales quotations and estimates into actual customer orders once the customer has made a decision to buy. It typically includes a quotation engine, price module, and sometimes a product configurator to make the order easy. Most of it is automated once the quotation is approved, or sales reps can easily fill the form to complete the order. This makes the process faster as it automatically receives an order, reducing the manual effort and error, and sending orders into production faster to speed up the “order-to-cash” cycle.  Order information can be viewed and accessed from a portal in front of the customer, giving both the customer and representative easy access to the up-to-date order information. Often it’s combined with a searchable electronic catalog of products (product database) that contains the product name, stock and/or part number, illustrations, and technical details.  The process can be hooked into back-office systems like invoicing and payment processing, again, improving the cash flow. Some even set up a customer portal to manage their account, reducing the costs of administration for the seller. Pipeline management Pipeline management refers to the overall process of managing an entire sales cycle from identifying prospects to closing the sale. Generally, sales people agree that there are about 5-7 defined stages in the sales cycle. These stages often include lead generation, lead qualification, initial meeting, submission of a quotation, sales presentation, and closure. As an opportunity progresses through the pipeline, the probability that an opportunity will close increases. Often the opportunity at the “initial meeting” phase may have a 5% probability, while one in the “sales presentation” phase has about a 60% probability. Pipeline management offers visibility into the health of the sales funnel and where opportunities are getting stuck or lost, thus allowing the managers to coach reps and optimize the sales process. Product configuration A product configuration enables salespeople or customers to get custom products, or services. They are most often employed with a sophisticated or customized product.  Configurators direct buyers via the purchase and specification processes by showing alternatives and characteristics at each stage. Customers may build their custom solutions that meet their particular requirements. Configurators are used to accomplish mass customization.  Buyers may purchase directly from the configurator. The figure illustrates how customers can use a configurator for their own Jeep vehicle. Once a model is chosen, custom-configured options (interior, exterior, and powertrain) are displayed with modified price and payments. The buyer is shown nearby dealers with a matching inventory Product visualization Product visualization software allows sales representatives and customers to generate realistic images or animations of a product before it is created. Visualizations may be photorealistic images that seem to be photos of the actual product. Alternatively, it may be a 3D model, a detailed, three-dimensional digital model of the product.  Some visualization platforms even enable them to be “drag and drop” into new contexts to view how the product will look in that environment.  Furthermore, users can change the model, color, fabric, size, etc., and the changes will also occur in real-time on visualizations. Lastly, the visualization may be enhanced with additional information, such as product specifications, pricing, or other details to provide the customer with a comprehensive picture of the product they are purchasing. Proposal generation This type of software enables a user to create a customized, branded proposal for your prospective customer. The user can choose many elements to include in the proposal from information stored in the database, including: cover page and letter, an introduction, objectives, products and features, services, benefits, prices, specifications, visuals such as pictures, drawings, and embedded video, company information, company people and experience, references, approach, schedule, scope of work, appendices, etc.  Templates make filling out each proposal easier and allow it to be sent to a customer while they are in a buying mood.  The proposal can even be created in real-time on a shared screen as users and customers talk about their requirements. Progressive proposals produced with software have a much better win rate than those that users currently produce manually (46% vs. 26%). Sales management reporting Sales management reporting is an almost universal subsystem that delivers a wide range of standardized reports. Sales managers can produce ad hoc reports on any variable or combination of variables stored in the sales database. For example, on contacts, contracts,  opportunities, proposals,  sales territories, or the like. Some types of reports include:  customer profitability, lead converted pipeline progress, quotation performance,  salesperson productivity, win-loss, and similar facts.  The reports can have tables, charts, text, and other forms of graphic presentation, and can be delivered to the users’ devices. A sales management drillable dashboard can uses real-time sales data to tell a manager in a certain role or responsibility what is going on and what follow-up he or she ought to be doing. They can also be integrated with third-party analytics solutions for detailed analysis of the problems and opportunities presented by that sales data. Sales forecasting Sales forecasting  presents sales representatives and managers with means of estimating sales revenues and close rates.  Some forecasting techniques extrapolate data about past sales to predict future ones.  A different method is to bring in data from various external sources and apply statistical methods of time-series analysis and regression to predict sales in the future.  Accurate sales forecasts benefit companies in numerous ways, including optimal allocation of resources within the organization. A reliable sales forecast helps companies make better decisions about resources such as personnel, inventory, production, and budget. Territory management A territory management application comprises tools that enable sales managers to design, change, and fine-tune sales territories. A defined territory management methodology comes with these applications for users to follow when creating sales territories . A few territory management applications even include geographic mapping or geo-demographic data with the software.  This software establishes and observes a wide range of eligibility and exception rules like a rep selling one product but not the other  or a rep must service all organizations in the reps’ territory of coverage except for some named accounts and so on. Workflow development Workflow applications, as their name suggests, automate business processes – they inform process owners of what they must do next, in which sequence this or that action must be performed, and who is responsible for a given action. When automated, a monitored process is easier to manage in the case of potential failure. A simple automated workflow would specify what to do when a business receives an inquiry from a customer using a web-form. It can be expanded to automating the very process of selling – it is a series of steps that a sales rep must do to get a prospect from the get-go to the closing stage. It's even possible to implement a module for automated implementation of selling workflows in accordance with already existing published techniques like the Solution Selling or Target Account Selling. 

Have a question about building a customer training strategy and the corresponding platform? Connect with us to gain insight from eLearning experts. What is a customer training platform? Customer training is educating your customers on how to use your product or service to get the maximum value out of it. To close common customers’ inquiries, most businesses email manuals, guides, and other documents. But these are all out-of-date methods that will neither drive significant business growth nor reduce costs. Just as your company uses training programs for employees and partners, you can use training programs for your customers. It’s especially helpful if your company sells complex products (e.g., software, technology, and subscription-based businesses). To get the maximum value out of the product or service as quickly as possible, your customers need guidance on how to use your product.  Using a customer education platform, your customers can get knowledge about your product or service without the intervention of your support or sales teams. On the LMS, a wide range of learning materials for customers is stored as guided or self-paced interactive courses and informative videos. And customers can access them whenever they need. A customer training LMS can store: Product manuals; Service guides; Safety measures; Care and maintenance; Terms of usage, etc. Our company knows how to make it work for business because we apply the customer training approach. And here’s how. We have developed a JoomLMS and sell it as a product.  Together with an LMS as a product our customers get the course for resellers and the course explaining how to start and how to easily manage the system.  What is the outcome? A quick-start training resolves the problem of product complexity. The consumption gap doesn’t appear, and customers return to us being confident in a proper service. Business challenges that a customer training LMS resolves The increasing interest in customer training is driven by the impact of 2 major disruptors of the modern sales process: customers have more choice and power; companies have more competition. To attract and retain customers, such forward-thinking companies as HubSpot and Google were among the first ones to develop their own customer training programs - HubSpot Academy and Skillshop respectively. This approach to customer education has proved to have a positive impact and has been adopted by other companies worldwide. When you properly train your customers you mitigate the risk of incorrect use of your products and brand underestimation as a result. Give your customers the education tool they need to make your business successful! Let’s discuss the details! Business benefits of using a customer training LMS Using an LMS for customer education increases customer satisfaction and retention. Why is this important? According to the research made by Fred Reichheld, a New York Times best-selling author, business strategist, and the creator of the Net Promoter System, “The 5% increase in customer retention leads to a profit increase by 25% to 95%”.  See the list of 6 major benefits of this approach for your business to get a clear understanding of what you can get with the best LMS for customer training. Reaching out to your prospects Show your prospects how your product or service meets their needs. Start with online training tutorials, video demos or trials.  It’s a risk-free option for potential buyers to evaluate your product before investing in it. You can also upload testimonials and case studies to show how your product has helped other customers. Outcome: Driving potential customers with minimal effort.  Smooth customer onboarding Show your customers what benefits this product can give them. Start with mapping out the best features of your product.  A clear well-built customer training program guides customers step-by-step through the first steps of the product usage to avoid confusion and frustration.  The faster your customers get value out of your product, the more likely they will stick with your product.  Outcome: Increased customer engagement and successful product adoption. Strong customer retention After leading your customers to the initial “quick win”, keep on assisting them in making continual progress toward their long-term goals.  For that, provide proactive training and guidance every step of the customer journey, resolving customers’ problems at each stage. Guide your customers from the core features and functions to the advanced ones. Show them new ways of using your product. Thus you will keep them engaged and satisfied, increasing loyalty to your brand and turning them to repeat buyers. Also, an LMS has the necessary tools for measuring customer training results. Track performance to get timely feedback. It will help you foresee potential problems with the product or identify gaps in your customer service that make customers leave.  Outcome: Lowered customer churn and increased loyalty to your brand. Reduced support time and costs Using a customer education platform, you reduce the strain on customer support, resolving all the ongoing issues faster and with fewer resources. The program provides answers to frequent questions. It leads to fewer support tickets. And you can redirect the saved time of your support team to resolving more serious customer queries. Outcome: Long-term savings of money and time of your support team. Improved upsell opportunities When you educate customers, you show them the value of your product. So educated customers are more likely to invest further. Using a training platform, you can show your customers what other products, adds-on, plans you have on offer. As a result, free-trial users upgrade to a paid plan, while current customers upgrade to higher plans. Outcome: Increased revenue, ROI, and higher profit margins. Nurturing brand advocates You guide customers through all stages of the customer journey resolving all key problem areas along the way. The result you get is satisfied customers that are loyal to your brand. The collateral benefit of strong customer satisfaction is an increase in referrals and word-of-mouth. To increase trust between your brand and your customers, encourage your customers to share their feedback. Show them that their opinion really matters.  Moreover, if your customers realize that their opinion will influence the product or course update, you’ll get true brand advocates.  Outcome: Increased number of referrals turning into new customers. How to create the best LMS for customer training in 6 steps 1. Conduct customer surveys and identify training goals. Start with identifying what the training needs of your customers actually are.  For that, conduct surveys with your potential customers to determine areas where they feel confused about how to use your product. Ask them what outcomes they hope to achieve using your product. It’s also important for you to understand what you expect that your customers will learn from training. Don’t be broad in defining your goals, stick to S.M.A.R.T. approach (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time).  An example of a S.M.A.R.T. goal: “My aim is that 80% of new customers could learn to create and send an automated newsletter from our platform within 10 days of onboarding.” 2. Create training content. Start from gathering the existing training materials.  Reach out to sales, marketing, and support teams that are likely to have their own training content. At this stage, you’ll be able to identify gaps in your existing content. And now you can prioritize what training content to create first. Use an agile methodology to develop training content gradually rather than create it all at once. Ideally, create training materials alongside the development process to describe each stage separately. When your product gets an update, the training program must be created simultaneously to deliver the update together with the ready-to-use training. Thus, your customers get instant access to everything they need to adopt the product right away. Here is an example of engaging content for a training program: Introduction video with graphics and examples to explain what the product can give to a customer. A series of micro-learning lessons to explain every feature or function of the product. Virtual sessions and chats between admins and customers to answer questions, resolve possible issues, give and get feedback and other follow-up actions. Blog posts to address different angles of the product usage across marketing, technical, business, and other aspects. Social learning to enable interaction among customers and with the company admins about best practices, insights and queries. 3. Choose the right technology. The key question is to build or buy a customer training LMS? As you start to consider different options, it's important to weigh the budget, timing, business goals and resources you are ready to allocate to the project. Each option has its own pros. The advantages of building over buying Meeting specific company needs; A custom set of features and functions; Corporate design; Advanced reporting and analytics; Branded certification; Scalability and agility; Full control and security. The advantages of buying over building A faster time to market; Strong community; Low initial cost. The technology stack you choose will also play a key role in the success or failure of your training program. Creating or choosing a platform, the key moments to consider are: compatibility with other platforms in your company (e.g., CRM or HRIS); the level of control and security; customization possibilities; analytics and reporting capabilities; must-have features. 4. Launch a trial run to gather feedback. Before deploying the training program to your customers, allow a group of selected users to pass the training course and share their feedback. It will not only help you detect possible gaps and issues, but also give you new perspectives and ideas on how to improve the training. 5. Deploy and gather analytics to improve. After deploying the training course, track the results, including how often customers complete training, hit milestones, or what content they close too fast. These data help refine the training program to stop creating unpopular content and focus time and resources on developing training on topics that customers do need more information on. Think about allowing your customers to rate how useful each piece of content is for extra information for your team. 6. Promote your training course. Treat your training program like your company’s product that requires a marketing approach to drive customers’ engagement. Here are some ideas on how you can promote your customer training program: training webinar in-product messaging landing page email marketing social media training packages, credits, or vouchers Success-driven features for a customer training LMS A compelling course packed with a strong asset of features is a key to delivering a unique online training experience to your customers. Individual Learning Paths In order to maximize the adoption of information, send your customers learning materials according to their individual needs. For that, organize your content based on products, customer type, roles, etc. For example, courses groupings by category for sales, marketing, web design, etc.  The customer training LMS should provide intuitive navigation showing content related to courses your customers are currently taking, recommending courses based on their previous activity, and personalized content by their specific needs. These personalized suggestions provide clear “next steps” for users, reducing confusion, and maximizing loyalty. hubspot.com Analytics And Reporting The reports will help you get the right results to assess and understand the ROI of your LMS.  Basic reporting includes test scores, the number of users who completed a course. The advanced reporting involves:  data about customer retention, conversions from free to paid accounts, churn reduction, etc; time spent on a course; what content was accessed by a user; Such advanced analytics and reporting show you the direct impact of training and allow you to make necessary improvements. thoughtindustries.com Online payments The in-built online payment gives you the possibility to up-sell and cross-sell directly through the customer training LMS. When the payment is completed, a learner enrolls automatically. Custom LMSs support credit cards by Visa and MasterCard and the most popular sales platforms (PayPal, Magento, Drupal, and others by your request). learnupon.com Gamification One of the best ways to motivate learners is to offer rewards (points, badges, or trophies). Also, provide dashboards to customers so they can see their progress and how close they are to completing a course and receiving the next award or certification. It increases learner engagement and allows customers to share their achievements on social media. Such activities attract new prospects and promote your brand. learninglight.com Mobile version Compatibility and multiple-device support should be a top priority. Build an LMS that works on as many devices as possible, including iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, and Linux. academy.hubspot.com Simple content creation and navigation Your LMS should support multiple content types (video files, blog posts, PDF, Google docs, YouTube videos, SCORM packages, HTML packages, etc.). Content libraries can be organized based on learning paths, topics, or both. Creating a content library, add the possibility to search within the catalog by using categories, keywords, dates, location, lecturers, etc.  Well-noticeable navigation buttons, course navigational maps, progress bars, availability of help, etc. will facilitate navigation within the course. academy.hubspot.com Single-Sign-On Single Sign-On gives your users the ability to securely access multiple systems, applications, platforms, and products from your company with one login and password. The clients’ credentials are managed independently, allowing you to mitigate common security threats. SCORM or xAPI Compliance If your LMS is SCORM or xAPI-compliant, you can create your online courses in any eLearning system and then run it in your LMS.  Also, xAPI and SCORM standards give the ability to track data within the courses. You can track learners’ scores, progress, results, and status. Also, you see what pages are viewed and how much time is spent on the course. Security If you build a custom LMS, you will get complete security with strong passwords, secure communication channels, GDPR compliance, etc. Consider the possibility to assign individual and group-level access to your content. So only designated people to receive access to confidential information. It will let you prevent confidential information from leaking. Microlearning The online training content should be provided in the form of bite-sized online training activities targeted to a busy audience that searches for to-the-point information.  Thereby, search options that easily locate such material maximize both course effectiveness and learner engagement. Social learning  Social learning is about learning with others and sharing your insights in forums and communities. Having interaction with other learners helps to stay up-to-date and quickly find solutions. Integrations support Ensure your LMS works with other tools. The integration of LMS with CRM or email marketing software are a must. hubspot.com 3 amazing examples of using a customer training LMS The globally famous companies Google, HubSpot, Salesforce, and others were among the first ones to make a bet on customer training. It helped them to stand out and develop a strong brand repute.  Let’s see their examples of interacting and educating their customers. Skillshop by Google What is this? Google offers multiple professional tools and solutions that can be hard to master from the start. Skillshop, or Academy for Ads, is a one-stop-shop training center created by Google. What is it for? Its purpose is to grow customers’ knowledge and professional value with flexible, on-demand training on Google Ads services. How does it work? When you sign up, you get access to the library of free online courses by Google. You can complete these courses at your own pace. The courses are offered in two formats: Online “Follow” guides The step-by-step instructions based on text, animations, and videos guide learners through tasks. There are also links that take you to your AdWords account, prompting you to apply what you’ve seen to complete some tasks. YouTube-hosted videos High-quality and short videos that are generally 2-6 minutes long making them easy to watch. The videos run smoothly both on the PC and mobile phones. skillshop.withgoogle.com HubSpot Academy What is this? HubSpot Academy is a training platform created by HubSpot. The company specializes in inbound marketing and provides web-based marketing tools. What is it for? To educate users on the HubSpot software, the company created HubSpot Academy. Using free learning resources, the users can learn to market, sell, and grow an inbound business. How does it work? HubSpot Academy customers can use three learning avenues: Videos.  High-quality videos are logically grouped by topics. When you choose one, you can see links to other relevant resources. The video player had a convenient slower/faster feature. 2. Projects. Projects are sequences with 10-12 steps. They help learners set up their HubSpot platform. The learning content also includes text, animations, pro-tips, and videos. Certification. To get certified, you pass an online test. When you pass, you get a personalized e-badge. Then you can use these badges to display on your social media, websites, email signatures, etc. academy.hubspot.com Trailhead by Salesforce What is this? Trailhead is a series of online tutorials by Salesforce. The company makes cloud-based software focused on customer service, marketing automation, analytics, and more.  What is it for? To show the maximum value of their products, Salesforce created Trailhead. The purpose is to help customers to sell, service, and market smarter. How does it work? Trailhead offers certifications, virtual and live events, and free training.  To start learning, you can choose one of the three learning modes: Modules. Modules introduce you to specific topics in bite-sized units. Learn what a feature is, when it's helpful, and how to use it. Then test yourself with interactive challenges.  Projects. Projects give you hands-on practice with Salesforce technologies via step-by-step instructions. You'll gain new skills — and confidence — faster than you thought possible. Videos. Watch live and on-demand videos from experts on today’s most in-demand skills. trailhead.salesforce.com Let's create the best LMS for customer training that is simple to use, fun to learn, and easy to like! We will help you build or customize an LMS, add all the necessary features that meet your business needs keeping the cost low. Start building smarter business!

At elearning software development company Belitsoft, we know how to integrate CRM and LMS, create a new LMS with CRM integration, or add CRM to your learning platform. We are open to hear your needs and help you implement them. Let’s discuss your challenge now! 5 CRM and LMS Integration Use Cases The key benefit of CRM and LMS integration is that customer’s actions documented in one system can initiate actions in the other system. These actions are called “triggers”.  Let’s take 5 use cases to see how this integration works and what marketing and sales tasks it resolves. 1. Sales Prospect Learning When a prospect subscribes to your blog, watches a demo, downloads a whitepaper, or registers for a webinar, CRM tracks these activities. Every link your sales prospects click and every page they visit on your website are also tracked. Then, all these triggers are shared with your LMS.  Having all this information, your marketing team can engage prospects by driving timely training recommendations, managing the timing and tone of targeted messages for cross-selling and up-selling communication.  Also, your sales team can identify which accounts have been inactive for a long time, and make a proactive effort to reach out to such customers. hubspot.com 2. Customer Learning CRM stores information about your customers, including what and when they bought, why, and how many times they interacted with your support team.  When all these triggers go to the LMS, they allow to create personalized customer training recommendations and intelligently build customers’ learning paths. Well-trained customers tend to buy more, write to support less, and stay loyal to your product longer. The sooner your customers find value from using your product or service, the more likely they’ll invest in your brand again.  Phil Nanus, Vice President of Customer Success Research for TSIA, says: “The goal of customer success is to enable effective adoption of technology and services, which can lead to contract renewal and more revenue from existing customers through up-sell and cross-sell.” CRM and LMS integration for customer learning also reduces support costs. Your profit margin decreases with every support message or phone call from a customer.  Providing customers with relevant learning content minimizes the number of basic inquiries.  The integrated LMS serves as a self-service tool with video manuals, step-by-step guides, etc that resolve customers’ questions in the moment of need. learninglight.com 3. Partner Certification With LMS–CRM integration, you can create channel certification programs for partners’ training and entitlements. Such programs favor a well-organized tiered channel relationship structure.  For example, some of your partners complete training. They achieve a certified partner designation. And their commission rate automatically increases from 10% up to 20%. pega.com 4. Sales Staff Learning All sales teams use a CRM for account management. It makes the system ideal for onboarding and ongoing product training. Thanks to LMS and CRM software integration, your employees can practice their professional skills directly in the CRM they use for work. For that, a new tab is added inside the CRM. It displays a personalized training plan and the course content.  Your employees will learn on a regular basis, and you can assess onboarding training outcomes, ongoing training performance, and course completion. trailhead.salesforce.com 5. Talent Nurturing via Talent CRM Let’s mention another, not typical but innovative application of CRM and LMS integration where CRM stands for Candidates Relationship Management. Such a CRM is usually called a Talent CRM. A Talent CRM helps HR professionals reach out, build and nurture relationships with potential job candidates. Potential candidates apply for the training course or event through the LMS. Their data go to the CRM where the L&D team can enroll a trainee into the course. The company’s instructors then track the learning progress. After the trainees complete the course, the data about their skills and course completion transfers to the CRM. As a result, the HR department gets a pool of candidates.  When the company needs to fill the required positions, they are aware of the availability of the necessary professionals and can hire the right person fast.  Such an approach to talent management allows companies to avoid the talent shortage. avanture.net How to Integrate CRM and LMS? CRM and LMS integration is performed with the help of API. This is a set of protocols, standards, and tools that let different platforms communicate and share data. Once the LMS administrator installs the API, you can decide which fields and data from your LMS to push to CRM.  The fields and data that can be transferred to CRM can include actual and completed courses, scores, and certificates along with all contact details. How can organizations start with LMS+CRM-driven customer training? Here are the top recommendations: Start with a small training course Building a massive training curriculum with dozens of courses is a risky methodology. Take an agile approach and just get started. Then get feedback from the first customers to adjust the training process if needed. It’s like building an MVP - the method that’s proved its efficiency. Choose a solid LMS Choosing the right LMS will help you provide a quality learning experience. Your purpose is to provide a quality learning experience. The best option will be a customizable LMS that will grow with you for the next few years covering the growing needs of your education services. Create a custom LMS from scratch with in-built CRM integration Apart from using a ready-made LMS and customizing it for your needs, you can opt for a custom LMS development featuring all the integrations you need for business (CRM, HRIS, ERP, etc). Focus on key data You should understand what data you’ll measure to assess the ROI of your customer training. Make sure at the starting point that the system gathers the key data you need. The core features for smooth CRM and LMS integration Auto-enrollment Users can be automatically enrolled to LMS from CRM based on contact or user profile fields to reduce manual assignments and possible errors. The process may look the following way. In the templates module of your CRM, create an email template with a link to the training platform with log-in instructions. Use a single unlimited use access code (enrollment key) and rotate it periodically. Then you need to create a workflow rule in the CRM with a trigger based on an opportunity stage. Usually, the change of case status serves as a trigger. You can also set up the workflow action to trigger after a certain number of hours/days after the case status changes. The customer receives the message with instructions and can start using the training course through the LMS right away. Single-Sign-On This is an authentication method that permits to securely log into both CRM and LMS with one click. No need for a set of additional login credentials to improve the user experience while providing extra security. User data synchronization It implies the ability to automatically sync learners with their account in CRM using a unique identifier (email, name, address, birth date, ID, social security number, etc).  As a result, you can view all user learning records directly in the CRM. Usually, it's an extra tab with access to the learning course information. It permits launching and assigning courses, viewing material, etc without leaving the CRM. Training recommendation Training recommendation engine analyzes input data that may include user metadata (age, gender, or membership); user interactions (views, likes, or signups); item metadata (description of purchases, their category). Based on such triggers taken directly from the CRM, customers get relevant recommendations for courses. Course analytics in CRM LMS can automatically transfer data about the training process directly to the CRM. These data usually involve: Trainee first name, last name, and email address; Course titles and links; Enrollment and completion statuses; Certifications; Promotion or access codes used (can help track performance by channel); Subscriptions; Date and time of registration. Why can't CRM work without LMS anymore? The original purpose of a CRM where you store all of your customer and partner data is to manage and track this information, including: New customer acquisition rate; Repeat purchases and renewals; Complementary and cross-product purchases; Support call or trouble ticket volumes; Customer satisfaction scores. But all these powerful capabilities of a CRM don’t directly lead to an increase in sales. As you’ve seen, you can resolve this issue with the custom CRM development featuring LMS integration for the training of employees, partners, franchisees, distributors, and most importantly, your customers. Customer education is another great business benefit from such an integration. It’s not focused on connecting directly with customers before, during, and after a sale with the purpose to improve customer experience. It involves easy product onboarding and feature adoption, ongoing engagement, and overall customer success. Educated customers are the most loyal and profitable customers. To confirm, let’s look at the research led by the Technology Services Industry Association (TSIA). At least 64% of customers use products more after they participate in training ( eLearning, virtual instructor-led, classroom, or on-site).  The LMS capabilities together with the CRM functionality give great strategic benefits for a company from the point of view of sales, brand awareness, and human resources. We can do CRM and LMS integration for your business fast and accurately. Contact us for more details!