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Contact management applications such as Act and Goldmine are stand alone but can also be considered to be a subset of customer relationship management ( CRM ) software. There is also a close relationship with salesforce automation software like salesforce.com.</p>
At the software level users are looking to join information about customer contacts and activities with information about the financial relationship between the companies eg Have they paid their bills?? Have they reached their credit limit?? Is this why the order that placed last week has not been delivered ??
A recent development has been the integration of telephony systems with contact management and CRM systems.
Computer-Telephony Integration ( CTI ) has been going on in call-centres for some years. CTI enables call-centre agents to view client files when they call in based upon recognizing the telephone number. Information is "popped onto the screen" (screenpop ) about the caller.
Such systems have been relatively expensive and complicated but it is now possible to link telephone systems and software applications, using standards based interfaces, more easily and at much lower cost. This brings this functionality within the reach of the SME.<br> <br> Modern telephone systems are "software driven". They provide the functionality of the old voice systems but also allow for connection to data networks, the Internet and to software applications.
Q - How can contact management help me?
When a client telephones a company that has an integrated telephone and contact management system the clients number will be recognized by the system and it will launch various applications including the contact management application and the financial application. Whoever answered the call can now respond by saying "Hello Mr X how are you today". Open on the persons computer will be the contact and financial information. Now the call will more productive and informed. When the customer asks about the progress of his order the response might be "I can see that you placed an order for xyz on the xxx date, but your credit limit has been exceeded so it has not been shipped".
Contact management applications such as Act and Goldmine are stand alone but can also be considered to be a subset of customer relationship management ( CRM ) software. There is also a close relationship with salesforce automation software like salesforce.com.            |
