Although customer relationship management (CRM) is about much more than just software, the emphasis on CRM in sales and marketing came about as technology developed fast enough to allow sophisticated and automated management of customer processes.
This includes processes such as identifying a target market, selecting prospects within that market, turning prospects into customers and then managing the customer relationship to ensure best value (for example, repeat business, brand loyalty, etc.). Software exists to support all these functions and automate marketing touches.
Many CRM software packages focus on the sales process including tracking prospects and sales steps such as qualifying leads and making appointments, as well as the communication processes such as targeted email messages, letters and phone calls. Sugar CRM is an open source solution with many of the features you would expect from any CRM software system.
Sugar CRM can provide support to organisations in three main areas of operation.
Sales Force Automation
Sugar provides a number of features to aid the sales process. At the most basic level, sales opportunities can be tracked as well as contacts and accounts set up and managed. The software also allows an organisation’s sales process to be automated – whether that’s the names of the sales teams or quotation numbers and prices.
Marketing Automation
Sugar CRM also provides features to support marketing campaigns, from inception to delivery, including email marketing and tracking.
Customer Support
Sugar CRM also provides support for managing inbound emails and other communication and allows problems to be managed. Problems can be tracked and full reporting is available.
Sugar CRM Reporting
The reporting capabilities of Sugar CRM are extensive and fully customizable.
Sugar CRM Installation Options
There are three ways of installing Sugar CRM:
- Allow the Sugar organisation (SugarCRM Inc) to host the Sugar CRM solution (Sugar on Demand)
- Install Sugar CRM as stand-alone software on any pc (Sugar Cube)
- Install Sugar CRM on an organisation’s servers (Sugar On-Site)
There is extensive information on the Sugar CRM website and in particular a set of white papers to help potential users evaluate the offering.
Sugar CRM provides a solution that can be used instantly and intuitively. There are tutorials and videos available to help with all aspects, as well as a support community of users and developers. The user interface can be easily customized to suit any organisation without the need for programming skills, however, if more detailed change is needed then organisations can also amend the underlying source code or ask the support community to provide additional help.
The Sugar Community Edition is free and can be installed in many environments. Some website hosting providers also include it in their service.
Dawn Brewer - I have a portfolio career - as a writer, management consultant, instructor and coach - after twenty years in the corporate world. My ...
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