I would like to propose that the existing CRM be finetuned a bit.
The CRM would be perfect if we could have the following:
Linking of the FOLLOW UP doctype with the CUSTOMER doctype
Linking of the FOLLOW UP doctype with the Receivable Voucher doctype
Now I have seen that the follow up doctype is a beautiful thing and a SIMPLE CRM is already existing in the ERP. We can make this system a more robust one by doing the following changes (btw I would have tried to the below mentioned changes but the admins have taken the rights away from saas users):
The follow up doctype should have the following
A created by column which should be not editable (to see who created a line item)
There should be a way to avoid people deleting the line items (basically I don’t want every one to come and delete line items, we could probably use a submit button with every line item, I think that would not be possible)
The followed up by column should be able to get the list of employees as well.
What I think would be achieved by doing the above:
Adding the follow up to customers would mean that any person calling a customer for order can punch in the data.
Adding the table to invoices can be useful for tracking the accounting people calling customers for payments or C-Forms (specific to India)
Later on we could base the system to generate reminders and also assign a particular job to an employee or user to follow up like a call or an email for which the ERP would remind the users at the specified time
We could also make the reminders to be repeating like I could set a reminder to call a customer every month for a repeat order or something like this.
I know the priorities of the development team at the moment are more on the development of the web store but I also feel that a strong CRM could help this product pitch up against the best CRMs available in the market as I have seen that a CRM integrated into the ERP is a much better option than a standalone CRM.
I hope some heed is given to this suggestion of the long list we as users always manage to come up with even after so many improvements
Thanks again for your great suggestions and for the details :)
Did you check that each transaction also has "Comments" on the right sidebar. Could this be used for the purpose? We routinely use it in-house to add transaction specific issues.
Maybe we could make the "comments" more main-stream (in the larger area) and drop the follow-up all to-gether.
best,
Rushabh
On 02-Mar-2012, at 8:28 PM, Aditya Duggal wrote:
I would like to propose that the existing CRM be finetuned a bit.
The CRM would be perfect if we could have the following:
Linking of the FOLLOW UP doctype with the CUSTOMER doctype
Linking of the FOLLOW UP doctype with the Receivable Voucher doctype
Now I have seen that the follow up doctype is a beautiful thing and a SIMPLE CRM is already existing in the ERP. We can make this system a more robust one by doing the following changes (btw I would have tried to the below mentioned changes but the admins have taken the rights away from saas users):
The follow up doctype should have the following
A created by column which should be not editable (to see who created a line item)
There should be a way to avoid people deleting the line items (basically I don't want every one to come and delete line items, we could probably use a submit button with every line item, I think that would not be possible)
The followed up by column should be able to get the list of employees as well.
What I think would be achieved by doing the above:
Adding the follow up to customers would mean that any person calling a customer for order can punch in the data.
Adding the table to invoices can be useful for tracking the accounting people calling customers for payments or C-Forms (specific to India)
Later on we could base the system to generate reminders and also assign a particular job to an employee or user to follow up like a call or an email for which the ERP would remind the users at the specified time
We could also make the reminders to be repeating like I could set a reminder to call a customer every month for a repeat order or something like this.
I know the priorities of the development team at the moment are more on the development of the web store but I also feel that a strong CRM could help this product pitch up against the best CRMs available in the market as I have seen that a CRM integrated into the ERP is a much better option than a standalone CRM.
I hope some heed is given to this suggestion of the long list we as users always manage to come up with even after so many improvements ;)
After the recent updates, I think the erpnext system should now be in a position to implement a good working CRM (Customer Relationship Management) System. Now what is present in CRM of ERPNext:
Leads can be generated.
Leads can be converted to Customers
Opportunities can be booked for Leads and Customers
Quotations Can be Sent to Leads and Customers.
Communications can be made for all customers and leads.
Now the above things are a good start for a good CRM but still the CRM of erpnext is lacking a lot as the data entry on communications form are very non-intuitive (meaning the person needs to be tech savvy to understand the barrage of fields in the communication form).
Now the CRM of ERPNext is a very basic version of a CRM to say the least since it is not able to answer the following questions:
Does your Sales Team ….
miss a Sales Follow-up? (Communications can easily track when was the meeting held but it does not do much about the follow up which is Most important. Consider me as a forgetful person and today I speak with a customer(who is not buying since long) or a lead then he asks me to call up in 3 days then the erpnext system fails) (This I think is the most important thing for a good system, a good system would be the one which would force the owner or the person to do a follow up or atleast tell the the system to SHUT UP and stop reminding about the same).
loose focus on Old Enquiries? (Similarly an enquiry is created but it remains as open and it does not talk about the follow up)
not able to back-track Old Quotations sent to the customer? (Similarly quotes are made and most of the quotations are in not in ORDER CONFIRMED status then the system is static about these questions.
Similarly there are other things as well which are missing but I think the above 2 points would be great addition to have a good CRM.
Let me know if any of the above things are in pipeline or can we get someone to do it on your behalf
On Monday, March 5, 2012 10:38:05 AM UTC+5:30, Rushabh Mehta wrote:
Aditya,
Thanks again for your great suggestions and for the details :)
Did you check that each transaction also has "Comments" on the right sidebar. Could this be used for the purpose? We routinely use it in-house to add transaction specific issues.
Maybe we could make the "comments" more main-stream (in the larger area) and drop the follow-up all to-gether.
best,
Rushabh
On 02-Mar-2012, at 8:28 PM, Aditya Duggal wrote:
I would like to propose that the existing CRM be finetuned a bit.
The CRM would be perfect if we could have the following:
Linking of the FOLLOW UP doctype with the CUSTOMER doctype
Linking of the FOLLOW UP doctype with the Receivable Voucher doctype
Now I have seen that the follow up doctype is a beautiful thing and a SIMPLE CRM is already existing in the ERP. We can make this system a more robust one by doing the following changes (btw I would have tried to the below mentioned changes but the admins have taken the rights away from saas users):
The follow up doctype should have the following
A created by column which should be not editable (to see who created a line item)
There should be a way to avoid people deleting the line items (basically I don't want every one to come and delete line items, we could probably use a submit button with every line item, I think that would not be possible)
The followed up by column should be able to get the list of employees as well.
What I think would be achieved by doing the above:
Adding the follow up to customers would mean that any person calling a customer for order can punch in the data.
Adding the table to invoices can be useful for tracking the accounting people calling customers for payments or C-Forms (specific to India)
Later on we could base the system to generate reminders and also assign a particular job to an employee or user to follow up like a call or an email for which the ERP would remind the users at the specified time
We could also make the reminders to be repeating like I could set a reminder to call a customer every month for a repeat order or something like this.
I know the priorities of the development team at the moment are more on the development of the web store but I also feel that a strong CRM could help this product pitch up against the best CRMs available in the market as I have seen that a CRM integrated into the ERP is a much better option than a standalone CRM.
I hope some heed is given to this suggestion of the long list we as users always manage to come up with even after so many improvements ;)
Cheers,
Aditya
–
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "ERPNext User's Forum" group.
Best way is to create separate issues on GitHub for these requirements. Please consider adding as much info you can against each issue so that it will help us in development.
Regarding timelines --- I think we will need a new strategy now that we are getting many feature requests.
How about crowd-funding (like Kickstarter or Indiegogo)? Users can pledge an amount against a list of possible features and based on maximum pledges we will build the feature. Users only have to pay if we complete the features?
After the recent updates, I think the erpnext system should now be in a position to implement a good working CRM (Customer Relationship Management) System. Now what is present in CRM of ERPNext:
Leads can be generated.
Leads can be converted to Customers
Opportunities can be booked for Leads and Customers
Quotations Can be Sent to Leads and Customers.
Communications can be made for all customers and leads.
Now the above things are a good start for a good CRM but still the CRM of erpnext is lacking a lot as the data entry on communications form are very non-intuitive (meaning the person needs to be tech savvy to understand the barrage of fields in the communication form).
Now the CRM of ERPNext is a very basic version of a CRM to say the least since it is not able to answer the following questions:
Does your Sales Team ….
miss a Sales Follow-up? (Communications can easily track when was the meeting held but it does not do much about the follow up which is Most important. Consider me as a forgetful person and today I speak with a customer(who is not buying since long) or a lead then he asks me to call up in 3 days then the erpnext system fails) (This I think is the most important thing for a good system, a good system would be the one which would force the owner or the person to do a follow up or atleast tell the the system to SHUT UP and stop reminding about the same).
loose focus on Old Enquiries? (Similarly an enquiry is created but it remains as open and it does not talk about the follow up)
not able to back-track Old Quotations sent to the customer? (Similarly quotes are made and most of the quotations are in not in ORDER CONFIRMED status then the system is static about these questions.
Similarly there are other things as well which are missing but I think the above 2 points would be great addition to have a good CRM.
Let me know if any of the above things are in pipeline or can we get someone to do it on your behalf
On Monday, March 5, 2012 10:38:05 AM UTC+5:30, Rushabh Mehta wrote:
Aditya,
Thanks again for your great suggestions and for the details :)
Did you check that each transaction also has "Comments" on the right sidebar. Could this be used for the purpose? We routinely use it in-house to add transaction specific issues.
Maybe we could make the "comments" more main-stream (in the larger area) and drop the follow-up all to-gether.
best,
Rushabh
On 02-Mar-2012, at 8:28 PM, Aditya Duggal wrote:
I would like to propose that the existing CRM be finetuned a bit.
The CRM would be perfect if we could have the following:
Linking of the FOLLOW UP doctype with the CUSTOMER doctype
Linking of the FOLLOW UP doctype with the Receivable Voucher doctype
Now I have seen that the follow up doctype is a beautiful thing and a SIMPLE CRM is already existing in the ERP. We can make this system a more robust one by doing the following changes (btw I would have tried to the below mentioned changes but the admins have taken the rights away from saas users):
The follow up doctype should have the following
A created by column which should be not editable (to see who created a line item)
There should be a way to avoid people deleting the line items (basically I don't want every one to come and delete line items, we could probably use a submit button with every line item, I think that would not be possible)
The followed up by column should be able to get the list of employees as well.
What I think would be achieved by doing the above:
Adding the follow up to customers would mean that any person calling a customer for order can punch in the data.
Adding the table to invoices can be useful for tracking the accounting people calling customers for payments or C-Forms (specific to India)
Later on we could base the system to generate reminders and also assign a particular job to an employee or user to follow up like a call or an email for which the ERP would remind the users at the specified time
We could also make the reminders to be repeating like I could set a reminder to call a customer every month for a repeat order or something like this.
I know the priorities of the development team at the moment are more on the development of the web store but I also feel that a strong CRM could help this product pitch up against the best CRMs available in the market as I have seen that a CRM integrated into the ERP is a much better option than a standalone CRM.
I hope some heed is given to this suggestion of the long list we as users always manage to come up with even after so many improvements ;)
Cheers,
Aditya
–
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups “ERPNext User’s Forum” group.
I also agree with the topic of this post. Followups in CRM is not very intuitive. Comment is useful, but to handle many opportunities at at time, it’s very difficult to organize. I think of one very simple way doing this.
Provide a view sorted by “Next Contact Date” date. User will be able to initiate followups with each opportunity in sequence and keep on updating “Next Contact Date” after each followup.
If Value field for opportunity is also given, this will further help in prioritizing for important opportunity.
I am sure above simple thing can improve followups to a major extent.
Followup should be very simple and intuitive. If any need is required for bench-marking, I can share my credentials for Zoho/odoo.
To show “Next Contact Date” in Lead List view columns,
Customize Form > Lead and check “In List View” of “contact_date”
also remove “In List View” of any other field because of the column limitation.
Sort Field and Sort Order can also be set in Customize Form.
