CRM overview
What CRM is for, who uses it, the key terms, and how it connects to Sales, Contacts and Marketing.
What CRM is for
CRM is where sales work starts. It holds everything you know about a possible sale, from the first enquiry to a signed deal, so that nothing depends on one person's memory or inbox. It answers four questions: who is interested, what are they worth, what happens next, and who is responsible.
Who uses it
- Sales representatives capture leads, qualify them, plan activities and close deals.
- Team managers assign and reassign work, review forecasts, reopen closed deals and see their team's figures.
- Administrators set up pipelines, stages, teams, scoring and the other masters, and create customers from leads.
- Sales leadership reads the dashboard, the forecast and the analytics.
Key ideas
- Lead. A first enquiry that has not been checked yet. A lead has no customer and no quotation.
- Opportunity. A lead that someone has qualified: the customer need and an expected close date are recorded. Opportunities move through the pipeline and can be quoted. Lead and opportunity are the same record at two points of its life, and the reference (for example CRM-000012) never changes.
- Pipeline and stages. A pipeline is an ordered list of stages such as New, Qualified, Proposal and Negotiation. Each stage has a starting probability. A stage can demand certain fields before a deal may enter it.
- Deal. Either a lead or an opportunity, when the difference does not matter.
- Won, lost, disqualified. A lead is disqualified; an opportunity is won or lost. Closing needs a reason. A manager can reopen a closed deal. The earlier history is kept.
- Teams and scope. Team membership decides which deals you can see. A representative sees and changes the deals of their own teams, as owner. A Read only member sees but cannot change.
- Activities. Calls, e-mails, meetings and tasks planned against a deal. They are reminders. CRM does not send e-mails or place calls.
- Score. Points that show how complete and promising a lead is, from rules the administrator sets. The explanation is shown on the deal.
- Forecast. A period's open pipeline, weighted by probability. Representatives submit a locked forecast, and managers can adjust it.
How CRM connects to other modules
| Module | What happens |
|---|---|
| Contacts | A deal is linked to a customer. A lead never creates a second contact for someone who already exists. |
| Sales | CRM creates draft quotations for an opportunity. Prices come from Sales, not from CRM. When Sales confirms the quotation, the deal shows that it became an order. |
| Marketing | Consent is read from and recorded in Marketing's consent register. Campaign responses arrive from Marketing and are handed to sales. |
| Calendar and mail | Authorised connectors log e-mails, meetings and calls on the matching deal. |
Important:
A won deal is not revenue. CRM never posts an invoice or any accounting entry. Revenue is recognised only when Sales invoices the order and Finance posts the invoice.
Where to start
Read Getting started to set CRM up, then follow the order the work happens in: capture a lead, qualify it, move it through the pipeline, quote it and close it.