Many companies go through a natural evolution as they incorporate their contact management solutions throughout the organization. Indeed, one distinction between a narrowly-defined contact management solution and a more comprehensive customer relationship management (CRM) approach is the extent to which every aspect of the customer relationship can be managed via the same system.

The first step to integrating a contact management solution more actively throughout an organization is through salesforce automation (SFA). An SFA program represents the beginning of the transition from the phase where activity drives the system--a sales person makes a contact and then reports it--to a phase where the system helps drive activity--prompting sales contacts and guiding sales protocols. This principle of using the CRM system to help drive activity can move beyond SFA to other aspects of the organization as well, including marketing/eCommerce, operations, and accounting.

CRM and Marketing/eCommerce
Marketing and sales should be closely coordinated, so using CRM as a marketing resource should be a natural extension of SFA. Customer information can be used to analyze buying habits and prompt targeted follow-up mailers and special offers.

Increasingly, marketing activity should be centered on eCommerce. A CRM system can help stimulate eCommerce activity by targeting and delivering e-mail campaigns with highly-customized content, as well as sending messages to prompt customer visits to the company Web site.