Purpose
Provide comprehensive CRM domain knowledge for analyzing requirements in customer relationship management systems across sales, marketing, and service functions.
CRM Core Modules
1. Sales Module
Lead Management:
- Lead capture (web forms, imports, manual entry)
- Lead scoring and grading
- Lead assignment (round-robin, territory-based)
- Lead qualification (MQL → SQL)
- Lead nurturing campaigns
- Lead conversion to opportunity
Opportunity Management:
- Opportunity creation and tracking
- Sales stages (Prospecting → Qualification → Proposal → Negotiation → Closed Won/Lost)
- Probability weighting
- Expected close date
- Opportunity amount
- Competitor tracking
- Win/loss analysis
Account & Contact Management:
- Account hierarchy (parent-child relationships)
- Contact roles (decision maker, influencer, user)
- Account teams
- Contact history and interactions
- 360-degree customer view
Sales Pipeline:
- Visual pipeline (kanban view)
- Pipeline stages
- Stage conversion rates
- Pipeline velocity
- Weighted pipeline value
- Forecast accuracy
Quote & Proposal:
- Quote generation
- Product catalog integration
- Pricing rules (discounts, bundles)
- Quote approval workflows
- E-signature integration
- Quote-to-cash process
Key Metrics:
- Lead conversion rate: (SQLs / Total Leads) × 100
- Opportunity win rate: (Closed Won / Total Opportunities) × 100
- Average deal size: Total Revenue / Number of Deals
- Sales cycle length: Average days from opportunity creation to close
- Pipeline coverage: Pipeline Value / Quota
2. Marketing Module
Campaign Management:
- Campaign planning and execution
- Multi-channel campaigns (email, social, events, webinars)
- Campaign budgets and ROI tracking
- A/B testing
- Campaign performance analytics
Marketing Automation:
- Email marketing workflows
- Drip campaigns
- Trigger-based emails (behavior, time, score)
- Landing pages
- Forms and lead capture
- Progressive profiling
Lead Nurturing:
- Nurture streams
- Content mapping to buyer journey
- Lead scoring adjustments
- Engagement tracking
- Automated follow-ups
Segmentation:
- Demographic segmentation
- Behavioral segmentation
- Firmographic segmentation (B2B)
- Dynamic lists
- Static lists
Key Metrics:
- Email open rate: (Emails Opened / Emails Sent) × 100
- Click-through rate: (Clicks / Emails Sent) × 100
- Conversion rate: (Conversions / Visitors) × 100
- Cost per lead: Marketing Spend / Leads Generated
- Marketing ROI: (Revenue - Marketing Cost) / Marketing Cost × 100
3. Customer Service Module
Case Management:
- Case creation (email, phone, chat, portal)
- Case assignment and routing
- Case prioritization (severity, SLA)
- Case escalation rules
- Case resolution and closure
- Case history
Knowledge Base:
- Article creation and management
- Article categories and tags
- Search functionality
- Article ratings and feedback
- Internal vs. customer-facing articles
Service Level Agreements (SLA):
- Response time SLA
- Resolution time SLA
- SLA tracking and alerts
- SLA breach notifications
- SLA reporting
Omnichannel Support:
- Email support
- Phone integration (CTI)
- Live chat
- Social media support
- Self-service portal
- Mobile app support
Key Metrics:
- First response time: Time to first agent response
- Average resolution time: Average time to close case
- Customer satisfaction (CSAT): Survey score after resolution
- First contact resolution: Cases resolved on first contact
- SLA compliance: (Cases Meeting SLA / Total Cases) × 100
CRM Data Model
Core Entities
Lead:
- Lead source (web, referral, event, cold call)
- Lead status (new, contacted, qualified, unqualified)
- Lead score (0-100)
- Company information
- Contact information
- Lead owner
Account:
- Account name
- Industry
- Company size (employees, revenue)
- Account type (prospect, customer, partner)
- Parent account (for hierarchies)
- Account owner
- Account team
Contact:
- Name, title, email, phone
- Account relationship
- Contact role (decision maker, influencer)
- Reporting structure
- Preferred communication method
- Contact owner
Opportunity:
- Opportunity name
- Account and primary contact
- Amount
- Close date
- Stage
- Probability
- Competitors
- Opportunity owner
Activity:
- Task (to-do item)
- Event (meeting, call)
- Note
- Activity date and time
- Related to (lead, contact, opportunity, account)
Common CRM Requirements
Lead Scoring Example
Demographic Scoring:
- Job Title: C-Level (20), VP/Director (15), Manager (10), IC (5)
- Company Size: Enterprise 1000+ (15), Mid-market 100-999 (10), SMB (5)
- Industry: Target industries (5), Others (0)
Behavioral Scoring:
- Pricing page visit (15)
- Whitepaper download (10)
- Webinar attendance (15)
- Demo request (25)
- Email open (2)
- Email click (5)
Negative Scoring:
- Personal email (-10)
- Competitor (-50)
- Student (-15)
- No activity 90 days (-20)
Thresholds:
- MQL: 60 points
- SQL: 75 points
Sales Process Stages
1. Prospecting (10% probability)
2. Qualification (20%)
3. Needs Analysis (40%)
4. Proposal (60%)
5. Negotiation (80%)
6. Closed Won (100%) / Closed Lost (0%)
Integration Requirements
Marketing Automation (HubSpot, Marketo, Pardot):
- Bi-directional lead sync
- Campaign member sync
- Lead scoring sync
- Form submission capture
Email (Gmail, Outlook):
- Email tracking
- Calendar sync
- Contact sync
- Email templates
Phone (RingCentral, Aircall):
- Click-to-dial
- Call logging
- Call recording
- Screen pop on incoming calls
E-signature (DocuSign, Adobe Sign):
- Send documents for signature
- Track signature status
- Store signed documents
Accounting (QuickBooks, Xero):
- Customer sync
- Invoice sync
- Payment tracking
CRM Best Practices
Data Quality
- Mandatory fields for key data
- Validation rules (email format, phone format)
- Duplicate detection and prevention
- Data enrichment (Clearbit, ZoomInfo)
- Regular data cleanup
User Adoption
- Intuitive UI/UX
- Mobile access
- Minimal data entry (automation)
- Integration with daily tools (email, calendar)
- Training and support
Process Automation
- Lead assignment automation
- Email alerts and notifications
- Workflow automation
- Approval processes
- Scheduled reports
Questions for Stakeholders
Sales Process:
- What are your sales stages?
- What's your average sales cycle?
- How do you qualify leads?
- What's your territory structure?
Lead Management:
- What are your lead sources?
- How do you score leads?
- What defines MQL vs. SQL?
- How are leads assigned?
Integration:
- What marketing automation tool?
- What email system?
- What phone system?
- What other systems to integrate?
Reporting:
- What KPIs do you track?
- Who needs dashboards?
- What reports are critical?
References
- Salesforce Trailhead
- HubSpot Academy
- CRM Best Practices Guides