Software for Customer Resource Management (CRM) in manufacturing industry helps a business to efficiently and cost-effectively use the data gathered about current, past and potential customers. The software can be as simple as contact management or as complex as data mining algorithms of customer buying habits and demographics. Just as when shopping for any technology, you want to buy the best you can afford but no more than you can handle. Most importantly, your business should present to the customer a comprehensive and unified customer service experience.

Consider the needs of the following aspects of your organization's customer interactions, all of which will have a direct or indirect impact on your customer relationship, thus sales.

1. Customer Facing Operations (CFO)--This is the part of your business that directly interfaces with customers. The interactions come in many forms, such as email, telephone and face-to-face.

2. Internal Collaborative Functional Operations (ICFO)--These people and processes support the CFO through IT, planning and manufacturing.

3. External Collaboration Functions (ECF)--These functions interact with your companies vendors and distributors. Smooth relationships here translate directly into a better customer experience.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Buy the right operational CRM for manufacturing software

Operational CRM software is your front office support. It manages your direct customer activity. Such business processes include marketing, sales and service. Beyond merely recording customer contact information, operational manufacturing customer relationship management software can track call histories, make automated phone calls and provide a comprehensive view of how each customer has interacted with your company, whether via phone or email.

I recommend: ACT! purports to be the top-selling contact and customer manager. The application integrate its data with Microsoft's Word, Outlook and Excel. Another popular option is Amdocs. This software connects support and service personnel with a unified contact center.

Streamline your sales force with sales force automation (SFA) CRM for manufacturing

Manufacturing CRM solutions need to include SFA. A sales force that pesters customers with sales pitches for unwanted products is likely to turn off those customers even when they are ready to buy. Moreover, inefficient calls waste the valuable and limited resource of your salespeople's time.

I recommend: The Goldmine family of products by FrontRange Solutions USA Inc. swaps data easily with Microsoft and Intuit (e.g., Quickbooks) products. Their website provides a handy comparison chart to help you choose the correct product. Microsoft Dynamics CRM by Microsoft Corporation also provides a sophisticated manufacturing CRM software package designed to improve the efficiency of your sales and marketing campaigns.

Understand your trove of customer data with analytical CRM in manufacturing industry software

Manufacturing CRM applications would not be complete without a means to make sense of the considerable data that your company can gather about all its contacts. Using manufacturing CRM systems to connect customers with geographical areas, age groups, purchasing habits and more gives your company a better picture of who is using your products and services.

I recommend: SuiteAnalytics from NetSuite Inc. (part of the NetSuite CRM+ package) provides useful reporting and analytical tools to individual users and executives. Surado Solutions, Inc.'s CRM Automated Reporting Module comes with over 180 pre-built reports and tools to allow your employees to monitor their own real-time performance.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  Ideally, you want to buy a suite of manufacturing CRM software to ensure they work together smoothly. If your budget doesn't allow this, talk with a CRM software salesperson to discuss scalability--the ability of their software to grow with your business.