CRM Best Practice - Notes/Tasks

[Displaycentreuk]

We are using our own CRM which has the ability to create notes or tasks relating to accounts, contacts, enquiries, quotes, orders etc. We can see that the potential of this partcular bit of CRM functionality is huge BUT its use is constrained by our ability to envisage how to present this information back to users in an intuitive way.

For example, we have:
a) Notes at Account level which give top level information (eg Spoke to Fred and he told me that the company is exapnding its product list into retail)
b) Tasks at Account level (eg Sales team to find Account's buyer for xyz by date)
c) Notes at Contact level (eg Spoke to Fred and he is handing over to John on date)
d) Tasks at Contact Level (eg Sales team to call on date to welcome John and introduce us)
e) Notes at Quote level (eg Spoke to Fred and he told me that Quote XYZ is pending final approval)
f) Tasks at Quote level (eg Sales team to speak to Fred about Quote XYZ on date to check for final approval
g) etc etc

Having done many hours of research on line and looked at quite a few CRM demo videos, I have not been able to find a really neat way to distill long lists of notes/tasks down into a simple and intuitive view that makes sense to the sales team. On the other hand, this issue would seem, to me, to be a very common 'constraint' and others must of mastered it?

Would be extremely grateful for some pointers from those how have experience in using (or managing) large CRMs.

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

Why have you setup a CRM without knowing how you will use it or what it does?

Depending on what package you are using, you could get someone to code it to do exactly what you want/need.

 

[pentel]

We use "less annoying crm" (LACRM) as it really is less annoying.

We have it set so that we have companies. Within that company we can see all the notes ever entered by anyone at any level. We can set a lead for the company. This would be your "(eg Spoke to Fred and he told me that the company is expanding its product list into retail)" You can set a task for that lead. When you open the lead you can see the lead history and add to it. You can also set a task associated to that lead.

Under each company we have contacts. You can add notes and tasks related to that contact.

In each contact we have leads and tasks the tasks can relate to the contact or the lead.

When looking at the company level you can view all the tasks and what they are for.

We spent ages finding something that worked well for us without being too complicated. We find LACRM to be really good.

https://account.lessannoyingcrm.com/invite/66D90 will give you a 60 day trial instead of the normal 30 days.

The support is brilliant too!

I have no link to the company, just a very happy user,