InformationWeek.com

Welcome Guest. | Log In| Register | Membership Benefits

April 17, 2000

Printer ready

What To Look For When Shopping For A CRM Suite

By Saroja Girishankar

he ability to automate and seamlessly tie core business applications with customer service over voice, E-mail, the Web, and wireless devices is key to customer-relationship management. So are pricing, standards-based solutions, and software that application service providers can easily deploy to provide services.

The following checklist can help businesses considering CRM products:

Does the CRM product offer a comprehensive solution for Internet commerce?
Do the products address customers, partners, and resellers?
Does the software consolidate customer information from multiple communications channels, including E-mail, call centers, wireless devices, and the Internet?
Can the CRM software interoperate with E-commerce and transactional software t
provide end-to-end order and customer tracking?
Does the vendor have a full software suite that offers seamless functionality using the Extensible Markup Language and other standards-based object models?
Does the vendor have the resources and staffing skills to integrate acquired software quickly with its own offerings?
Can your company get a hosted version of the CRM suite from your vendor, or does the vendor have partnerships with ASPs for subscription-based service?

Return to main story, "Customer Service For Business Partners."

Illustration by John Dykes

Back to This Week's Issue
Send Us Your Feedback
Top of the Page