what is the use of having different
modules in crm
can't i run everything on one module
okay if you are new to crm it's probably
very natural to have this question
if you log in and see so many tabs you
get this question
am i supposed to use all of these tabs
what is the use of these
tabs or modules as we call it in crm
is it is it enough if you just use one
module okay so
fair enough valid question now look at
this spreadsheet
what is the use of columns in a
spreadsheet
why do you have these columns because
it's an easy way to organize data right
so here if you want to know the email
address of one of these people
let's say william donald if you want to
know the email address of william donald
all you have to do is navigate to the
email address column
and then there you have it now it's a
very similar reason
why you have modules in crm okay it's an
easy way to organize and sort data we
have different types of modules
default modules in crm those are leads
accounts contacts deals activities
reports dashboards
social projects and so on we have a
bunch of them
and it's definitely not mandatory for
you to use all modules
there is no restriction per se it's not
like will not allow you to use the
account if you don't use every module
but
if you use every module for what they
are meant for
then your business operations become a
lot more easy
you know we have found people using
or running their operations just on the
leads module it gets a lot messy because
you will have to create a lot of fields
you don't know what's going on say six
months down the line you are
facing messy data so you don't want that
scenario that is why you need to
understand the purpose of every module
and use it for what
it's meant for that way you will keep
your data clean organized
you will be able to find what you need
easily because
crm is designed in a certain way you
need to understand what that weighs
so that your operations are smooth you
know if
you don't use it the way it is meant for
then one fine day you're bound to end up
with a lot of
messed up data so uh in this video
we'll probably not get into the usage or
purpose of every module
we'll only quickly talk about four to
five basic
default modules in crm those are leads
accounts contacts deals and activities
these are called the sales force
automation modules or the sfa modules
these are designed along the lines of
your sales cycle
let's say you organize a trade show in
your business
in hopes of generating new business 50
people visit your stall
so these 50 people are likely to do
business with
you right you don't know for sure but
there are possibilities you
have to follow up with them to know
further so you take down the list of
these 50 people and start calling them
up
following up with them and then make a
short list of customers who are
interested in your business
and then you further follow up with them
and some of them
in the end might say out of 50 maybe 20
uh would be qualified people who are
genuinely
interested in your business and out of
those 20 maybe only 10
finally will become your customers and
have you know purchase from you
so this whole process that
goes in right from customer acquisition
to
following up engagement conversion and
retention
this whole cycle is called the sales
cycle and
a crm is designed for you to implement
the sales cycle efficiently
we have automation possibilities
customization
third party integration process
streamlining possibilities
all of this to make this sales cycle
more efficient so
that said you have to start you have to
start somewhere right
to execute your sales cycle and here in
zoho crm you start with
these sales force automation modules so
everything that you do
from here on somehow will be associated
to your leads
accounts contacts or deals and their
activities
so what are these five modules what are
they meant for
as you work on these five modules i'm
sure
you know you'll get a hang of them and
that will in turn
result in your learning about the other
related modules so in this video we'll
stick to these five modules
so here in this example i have a lead
called william donald
okay so let's say i have obtained leads
that is your raw prospects leads from
various sources
i have say twitter website visit cold
call and so on
these values can also be customized so
in let's say
william donald is interested in my
business now
this is the time for me to convert this
person into a contact
so what do i mean by this so we talked
about shortlisting customers right
people who are raw unqualified prospects
and once you talk to them you
you'll know if they are interested in
your business or not and
if they are interested that's the point
you'll qualify them or
convert them into a customer or a
contact
in crm lingo so in zoho crm we call
these people contacts contacts are
nothing but a list of
your existing customers or people who
are genuinely interested in your
business
okay now if when you donald probably
if he had said sorry no don't contact me
further you'd probably
just keep him as a lead and you know try
and contact him
later to just test your luck or you will
delete him from your system because he
has clearly said no
but in this case in our case william
donald has said yes i am interested in
finding out more about you and at this
point i am going to convert
william donald so i opened william
donald's record
and i convert this person so you
automatically see a convert button
this is built into crm okay so there are
many
built-in functionalities that's why we
are saying that crm is designed
for you to implement your sales cycle so
in this case we are converting william
donald
uh and upon conversion i find that
the system says upon converting the lead
william donald
a new account called xyz will be created
and a new contact called william donald
will be created
okay so i say convert now
what we have learned is that a deal upon
conversion
becomes a split into a contact and an
account
so what are contacts and accounts
contacts are like we said
a list of your existing customers or
people who are genuinely
interested in your business so once you
have converted
they no longer exist in the leads module
they are converted or they are shifted
to the contacts module
okay now if you go to william donald you
find that he's a contact and not a lead
anymore
and this contact if you look at it
you have something called the account
name and account name is nothing but the
company that the lead belonged to
earlier
so if you go to xyz you see that william
donald is your contact person
so this means that xyz is the company
that you're doing business with
and your contact person in xyz
that's what that's all this means okay
and
on further follow-up you find that you
know
william donald and xyz they are
interested in your
business further and this is when you
will
associate what we call a deal a deal is
nothing but a business opportunity
that you generate from a customer
so in this case let's say xyz corp
is talking to you and is interested in
generating a new business deal
so all you have to do is go to the deals
list
and create a new deal deal
with x y so you can call it
whatever you wish to and
let's save this
now under xyz you understand
that xyz is a company that you are doing
business with
your contact person in xyz is william
donald and you have one business deal
with xyz
what if they come back to you you don't
have to create
new records or new instances of xyz just
because
xyz is coming back to you three times it
doesn't mean that you have to create
this record three times
right that will only generate duplicates
instead what you should do
is go to the deals related list
add a new d call it may be deal
2 with x
y z okay
save right
now you have two business deals
associated with
xyz so our lesson from this
is uh a lead upon conversion becomes a
contact and an account
contact is nothing but it becomes a
customer and then account is
the company that this lead belong to so
you have a list of your customers and
the organizations that they belong to
these two are interrelated
accounts and contacts are interrelated
and then you have
uh deals which are nothing but business
opportunities
that you have with multiple customers
and you only associate multiple business
deals with your
contacts or accounts okay so leads
become contacts and accounts and then
you associate
deals with your contacts and accounts
so here i have a quick illustration
depicting this
relationship how leads are split to
contacts and accounts
and how deals are associated now
finally we'll talk about activities
activities are nothing but
tasks events or calls in zoho crm these
are
activities three types of activities so
you can associate a follow-up task with
a sales rep or any of your team members
you can create a meeting or a schedule
schedule a call or log a call
so these are a bunch of so with respect
to
any sales process there will always be
follow-up activities
and here is where you record all of them
why is this useful
because let's say for example you
schedule a call
with a contact let's say william donald
maybe it is for the next day at around
11 11 a.m
okay uh
so reminder 10 minutes before okay call
scheduled with william donald
save so crm will now you have a new
activity here which is a call schedule
with william donald
and crm will remind you maybe about 10
minutes before
you are supposed to go on the call
similarly you can associate
events that is meetings and even tasks
to any contact lead or a deal
or a vendor so your
activities module will tell you what are
all the list of activities you have with
all of your audiences that is your
customers your vendors
or you know with in relation to the
deals so
this is your master list of follow-up
activities and you can always associate
it with
um now for example we have
a call scheduled with william donald if
you want to
contextually see what are the activities
specifically for william donald you can
go and see open activities called
scheduled with william
right so it's all tied together that's
this is why we say that
crm is meant for sales follow-up
or it is designed for you to implement
your sales cycle efficiently
so now we understood what are leads
accounts contacts deals and activities
and once you start adding in a bunch of
leads
try to convert them and you know create
contacts and accounts add activities to
them
then you will get a hang of how crm
works and from there
you will definitely understand why we
have these different modules because
it is designed for you to implement your
sales process
it is designed along the lines of your
sales cycle
so i hope this was helpful and
i hope this answers the question what
are these modules and what
it's meant for and whether it's
mandatory to use all these modules like
we see
it's really not mandatory for you to use
all these modules but if you use it the
way they are meant for
then you will start to gain that's all
about it so if you have any further
questions on this subject
please feel free to get back to us by
commenting below
and i hope this video
was useful thank you