Some basic concepts to help you get started with your new CRM
Introduction
The CRM helps you manage all your customer related data in one place. In order to do that effectively it’s important that you understand some of the fundamentals of how the CRM organises your data.
How the CRM manages your data
One of the basic concepts that you’ll need to understand to effectively use the CRM is how various bits of information are “Stored” and “linked” to each other within the CRM. There are two terms you’ll need to familiarise yourself with:
- Modules
- Records
The CRM is made up of a number of different “Modules” such as Leads, Companies, People, Potentials, Invoices etc. Each contain one or more “Records”.
Records in one module can be “Related” or “linked” to records in another module. In Fig. 1 below you can see an example of how “Records” in various “Modules” can be related.
In the example below we have three “Contact” records from the “People” module related to one “Company” record in the Companies Module.
Each of the “Contact” records has a number of emails (from the email module), “Proposals” (from the potential module) and “Documents” (from the Documents modules) related to it. When browsing a contact record in the CRM you are able to see all the data related to that record in one place.
