Customer relationship management

Customer relationship management (CRM) is the tool class for records of the people and organizations that the organization works with outside itself: customers, prospects, partners, suppliers, and other contacts. An example of a product in this class is HubSpot.

Role in TFW

The CRM is the source of truth for:

• The identity and contact details of external people (contacts) and organizations (companies).
• The relationships between them, for example which contacts work for which company.
• The products that each topic offers, and the deals that include them.
• The stage, value, and expected date of each deal.
• The record that a contact happened: the date, the participants, the channel, and a short summary of a call, meeting, or message.

The CRM is not the source of truth for accountable work, files, durable explanations, or correspondence. Delivery work that results from a deal is an action record in task management, under the same topic code, and the action record and the deal link to each other. Contracts, proposals, and signed copies are files in document storage. The process for handling a customer, and the reasons for a decision about one, are pages in the knowledge base. The original message is kept in email. If the CRM logs a copy of an email automatically, the message in the email surface is still the original.

How TFW maps to a CRM

The CRM follows the same topic pattern as every other tool class: each topic has at most one CRM surface, and the surface is marked with the topic code. The organization has one CRM account, and that account holds the surfaces of all topics. A real person or company is one record in that account, even when several topics work with it.

The topic code is recorded in a topic code field on products and on line items. Products and line items are records, not surfaces, so their names do not need to contain the topic code. The field is the topic marker. Deals, contacts, and companies get their topics from the line items they are associated with.

One topic’s surface

The example topic Example Co Operations (topic code EXOP) has a CRM surface if it manages relationships with external parties.

• Container. The organization’s CRM account. Records are owned by the organization, not by the personal account of a participant.
• Products. Each product belongs to exactly one topic. It is named with the venture name and the offer, for example Example Co - Advisory. Each product has a topic code field from a fixed list of values. Each value is a topic code from the registry, for example EXOP, with the topic code and the canonical name as its label, for example EXOP Example Co Operations.
• Line items. A deal includes products through line items. Each line item carries the same topic code as its product.
• Deals. The topics of a deal are the topic codes of its line items. A deal with line items of two topics belongs to both. A deal with no line items has no topic.
• Pipelines. Pipelines follow the sales process. One pipeline can hold deals of several topics. The topic of a deal is recorded on its line items, not by the pipeline.
• Segments. Saved lists of deals, contacts, or companies for a topic filter on the topic code of the associated line items. For contacts and companies, the filter goes through their deals to the deals’ line items. Segment names start with the topic code, for example EXOP Deals or EXOP Contacts with deals.
• Contacts and companies. They are shared across topics. A contact is associated with a topic through its deals and their line items, not through a field on the contact.
• Link to task management. An integration between the CRM and the task management tool links each deal to the action records of its delivery work, in both directions. The action records are in the project of the same topic.
• Purpose record. The Space Purpose and Usage page of the topic links to the topic’s segments.
• Permissions. Access follows the topic’s access groups where the product supports access by topic. Where it does not, the difference is a recorded exception to the access boundary.
• Maintainer. One named maintainer keeps the topic’s products, its topic code value, its segments, and its permissions correct.

Rules

• Keep one CRM account for the organization and one record for each real person and each real organization. Do not create a second record for the same contact for another topic.
• Search before you create. Search by email address for a contact and by web domain for a company.
• Use only topic codes from the registry as values of the topic code field. Add a new value only when a topic is added to the registry.
• Give every product exactly one topic code, and every line item the topic code of its product.
• Give every deal at least one line item. A deal with no line items is a gap to repair.
• Organize pipelines by sales process. Do not create a pipeline for each topic.
• Filter segments on the topic code field. Do not filter on the text of product names or line item names; names change.
• Record the outcome of a contact in the CRM, and record the work that results from it as an action record in task management, under the same topic code, linked to the deal. Do not copy the deal’s details into the action record. Do not use the CRM’s own task list as a second list of accountable work.
• Use associations instead of copied details. Associate contacts with companies, and deals with their contacts and companies.
• Treat personal data according to the organization’s privacy, consent, and retention rules. Store only the fields that the organization needs.
• Store no credentials, keys, or tokens in CRM fields or notes.

Common mistakes

• One account per topic. Separate CRM accounts create duplicate records of the same contact and different histories for the same company.
• Duplicate records. A contact who exists twice has a split history. Merge the records.
• A topic code in the record name. A company named EXOP - Example Supplier cannot be used by a second topic. The topic comes from the deal’s line items.
• A topic field on contacts. A field on the contact that lists topics goes out of date as deals change. The deal’s line items already record the topic.
• A pipeline per topic. Pipelines named with topic codes split one sales process into many copies.
• Segments filtered on names. A segment that matches the text Example Co in product names loses records when a product is renamed. Filter on the topic code.
• Line items without the topic code. A line item that did not receive the topic code of its product is missing from the topic’s segments. Set it from the product.
• Deals with no line items. A deal with no line items has no topic and does not appear in any topic’s segments.
• Decisions only in a note. A note on a deal is not where a decision is kept. Record the decision in task management and link to it from the deal.
• Records in a personal inbox only. A relationship that exists only in one participant’s mailbox is lost when that person leaves. Log the contact in the CRM.

Tools

• HubSpot: How to set up and maintain a topic's customer relationship management surface in HubSpot: one account for all topics, a topic code property on products and line items, deals that get their topics from their line items, and segments that filter on the topic code.

Other products in this class follow the same rules.