CRM packages – providing a total solution?

While there are many ‘off the shelf’ CRM packages which will all perform well, we at BMS feel that they do not provide a total solution, as they do not integrate with the back-office system – in this case MillMaster.

As part of the new MillMaster browser user interface project, we first focused on providing additional benefit in the form of a ‘Single Customer View’, where a user is able to select an existing customer account, and from within one option, view a number of different areas of information for that account including:

From this initial design, we have embarked upon the development of a MillMaster CRM solution. Working on the principle of initially concentrating on what we know best, we are working from the bottom upwards, and are near to completing phase one of the project, which will provide a browser interface to MillMaster customer and prospect data. The next phase of the project is to extend this onward to provide true CRM functionality.

The initial phase provides the user with a summary screen, which displays the last ten

customers and prospects accessed. From here the user is able to either select an account from the list, search an alternative account, or add a new prospect record.

Whilst within a customer account, access to MillMaster data is provided through tabbed options, and is presented in multi-panel displays, enabling a large amount of different data to be presented to the user. In addition to the classic MillMaster data, a wealth of user-defined enterprise related details can be stored against both customers and prospects. This enables information such as farm details, acreage, stock types and herd sizes, potential product sales and where sourced from competitors, to be held against an account, and used when analysing potential new campaigns.

The next stages of the project will introduce more generic CRM functionality, such as:

• Integration with standard office packages, such as Word, Excel and email.
• Storage of communications against customers and prospects, including mechanisms to attach documents.
  
• Creation of appointments.
• Task and diary management, with calendars and alerts.
• Customer call patterns and call-list generation.
• Generation of campaigns, using enterprise details to analyse and categorise customers.
• Integration of CRM campaigns with MillMaster Sales Order Processing, to allow a sales order to be allocated to a campaign, with tools to monitor progress.
• Data export features.
• Integration with external third party databases.
• Telephony integration.
• E-mail / SMS alerts on specific actions – i.e. track customers and notify when orders are placed for certain customers.
• Off-line data accessibility.