Introduction
This document gives an overview of how the CRM.COM platform powers the membership economy and ultimately helps proud brands evolve from tactical transactions to strategic memberships.
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CRM platform is ideal for any modern brand: from a micro-business with 100 customers to a major brand with 2 million customers; from a simple flat termed subscription model to a complex triple play termed and usage model; to an innovative new-gen model of say meals on subscription.
CRM.COM powers 100% of the technology (i.e., native cloud, first APIs, micro-services) and business models model required to run your organization as a membership community, providing four products that can be setup and used as a stepped journey:
Identity Management: Onboard and manage your customers, provide omni-channel self service access, capture purchases with a versatile wallet spend model, segment into micro-personas
Commerce Wallet & and Digital Promotions: Promotion and reward offers targeting customer segments and a commerce wallet keeping a commerce and open balance and all customer payment methods
Subscriptions and Commerce: An advanced product catalogue and versatile ordering and a powerful subscription platform supporting from the simple termed service to XaaS to advanced usage based for IoT and triple play.
Business Community: Enrich Communities: Setup your business Network. Enhance your brand and enrich the services offered with B2B community services and products. B2B Commerce Pool with spending across the network and B2B promotions-based aggregation to collaborate with any organizationSetup joined promotions with your partners and aggregate services and products.
CRM.COM Platform - The big picture
The purpose of this paragraph is to describe the structure of the CRM.COM
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Below you can find a summary table with the main components of the CRM.COM platform together a brief description of their purpose/functionality.
The intention platform, regarding the 4 Products and the core S/W components.
Finally, every integral/key user will have a clear understanding of CRM.COM SaaS
CRM.COM 4 Products and Key Features/process covered
In the table below we can see a summary of the CRM.COM Platform products structure with some information about the main features and supported processes.
The purpose of this table is to make it clear for each integrator/key user what the main components structure of the platform are and ultimately 4 products is and finally to have an idea of their main functionsfeatures
Item
Description
contact
Contact is the core entity of CRM.COM Platform and represents a physical person or a company with which a business interacts. Contact includes information such as emails, phones, addresses, demographic data, Financial, Subscription data and marketing settings.
segmentation
Segmentation allows businesses to create groups of contacts based on specific criteria. These criteria can be static (eg demographics) or conditional (eg ownership of a service). As a result, customer segments or personas can be targeted with more personalized way (i.e.,Pricing, Communication Plans) with obviously better success rates. Segments can also be created by importing list of contacts from Analytics tools like Mixpanel or marketing tools like Mailchimp
communications
Communication is the interaction between contacts and businesses using different channels. CRM.COM Platform supports Email, SMS, notifications. The communication is triggered by either due to a system one-time event or a system scheduled event or directly from the user.
Communications plan facilitate this communication to engage contacts with the businesses. They are scheduled to run either once or repeatedly, they have a start date/time, end date/time, and a repeating time interval. For each plan, the recipients are defined using the predefined customer segments.
account
Account is a ledger of financial transactions carried out between a company and its contact / customers (i.e., invoices, payments). Account keeps the running balance of a contact / customer and an manage debit and credit transactions posted against. Account created upon contact creation
account financial transactions
Invoice : a financial doc issued for services /goods bought by account owner (items, prices)
Credit note : financial doc issued to adjust/fix the items/prices of a specific invoice (issued against invoice)
Payment : financial doc issued to settle an outstanding amount of a specific invoice (issued against invoice)
Refund : financial document issued by a business to a customer in order to fully or partially refund a specific customer’s payment (issued against payment)
Payout : financial document issued by a business to a customer in order to return back money directly to the customer’s funding source (i.e., bank account or card). (issued against no any financial doc).
contact registry
Contact registry is a directory of Contacts who are registered in CRM.COM, platform (i.e., name, email address, phone, language).
The Contact Registry can be enabled and maintained either at the Service Owner level or at the Business level. In the first case Businesses cannot register/create their own Contacts, but they must sign-up a contact to their business by using Service Owner Contact Registry. In the second case Businesses can register Contacts of their own.
wallet
The CRM.COM support an EMI grade wallet, which is created upon contact creation and maintains multi-currency balances for a contact. Wallet is a mini ledger that can easily be topped up by credit events or by awarding through a reward offer. CRM.COM wallet have two type of balances. Open balance, with no spending conditions, fed by wallet journal transactions and Commerce balance with spending conditions, fed by rewards. CRM.COM wallet store money that can be used to fund various transactions for a specific business or CRM.COM Partners Ecosystem.
wallet payment method
CRM.COM wallet can have its own payment methods that show how the wallet is funded whenever required. Multiple payment methods, of type card can be added but the first added is also the primary one by default.
payment methods
A payment method shows a contact 's preferred source for paying off physical goods and services purchased from the business such as Cash, Cards, Account Debit (SEPA direct debit) or any kind of Wallets such as Google Pay. The CRM Wallet is also considered as a contact Payment method.
Payment methods are classified into online and offline ones. Online payment methods indicate that money will be collected through a Payment Gateway Service. Cards, Account Debits and Wallets are examples of online payment methods. On the other hand, offline payment methods indicate that the business collects the money manually like payments using Cash or Cheques.
A contact might have multiple online payment methods. Similar to contact payment methods, payment methods can be configured for Business, Merchant/Service provider.
CRM Wallet is considered, by default, as one of the contact’s payment methods. The CRM Wallet is the primary contact payment method in case the contact have non define any other
events
Events are actions resulting from a CRM.COM log entry which has been triggered by a system user, a system process, a Contact or an external system, and successfully processed by CRM.COM.
Events can be consumed by various CRM.COM processes/services like segmentation/awards reports/insights, webhooks.
passes
A pass credits a customer’s wallet (open/commerce balance) or provides a discount on a product or service being purchased. A pass has an expiration date and spend conditions may apply. There are three types of passes:
Promotion pass is created by a purchase event (contact) and provide an instant discount (amount or percentage). Used mainly in promotional actions.
Gift pass can be either electronic or printed and usually redeemed by a registered contact during a purchasing action(conditional spending). Printed are pre-generated and electronic are on demand.
Top-up passes can be also printed or digital and their scope is to top-up a contact’s wallet with a specific amount of money.
pass plan
Pass Plan is the configuration framework mandate the the behavior (i.e., printed, electronic) and characteristics (i.e., number, value) of the passes.. A Pass Plan, control and generate one or more passes.
product catalogue
A product catalog includes a list of physical goods and services that a business is selling, together their basic characteristics, pricing information and promotions. All the products of the catalogue can be sold through an order or an invoice. The product catalog also includes business rules and restrictions (i.e., discounted prices, rental prices, bundles structure)
A product catalogue support multiple prices based on specific platform business rules (i.e., country of operation, currency)
orders
Order is the process of fulfilling, a platform contact (consumer) request to purchase goods or services from a Business. From the supply side the Businesses use orders to serve the Contact’s request (i.e., order to fulfill, order to subscribe) and receive payment for the order.
CRM.COM platform support a very flexible, multi-domain and end-to-end order process (i.e., initiate, process, charging/invoicing, delivering/provisioning).
CRM.COM platform support all possible ways of physical products/services supply:
Delivery : when the contact create an order set a delivery address (according platform businesses structure)
Pick-up : The contact designates the business locations from which the ordered items will be collected
Direct Sale : This supply method is applicable only for digital services
The supply method is important since it could affect pricing, applicable taxes, and promotions.
An intelligent Quotation platform feature can give an accurate estimation of the cost of an order. The Quotation is automatically generated during the ordering process, so that Contacts can be informed of the order cost, when a payment is due, and how much they will have to pay at the time of ordering. During the ordering process, the quoted amount is automatically adjusted according to the selected items and quantities for ordering.
rewards
Rewards are the mechanism by which the CRM.COM platform credit transaction balance into customer wallets immediately after customer interaction.
Reward schemes targets specific market groups(i.e., students, service subscribers) and through specific group of reward offers provides awards targeted against the contact transaction / behavior, such as purchases, referrals, service upgrade and profile completeness. Each reward offer, through a set or rules, defines an objective that contacts should succeed in order to earn an award in the form of cashback (conditional or not). The award can be subsequently redeemed (instantly or deferred) into an open balance.
The purpose of rewards is to create incentives, based on the organization's strategy and consumer profile, to attract new customers and minimize churn within the organization's customer base.
Very similar to rewards are the Promotional offers. These are structured similarly to Reward Offers, but are independent of Reward Schemes. Offers are valid for all contacts limited by customer segmentation only(if applicable) and provide instant discount on basket purchased.
subscriptions
Subscription is the outcome of an ordering process and define a collection of services a Contact subscribes to. Apart from the services provided, the subscription also outlines how, and when the Contact will be billed, as well as the payment terms.
A Subscription groups together services per billing cycle and its state depends on its services' states (active, inactive, churned). Each contact/subscriber can have many subscriptions but only one per billing cycle (services billed at the same time interval).
CRM.COM TMForum enterprise grade Subscription module, support for a diverse services range, from triple play (voice, data, video) to digital services to usage products (Energy, IoT, FMCG, Horeca).
Subscription module cover a broad area of business models. Can easily support models like Termed (i.e., one time, period), Usage (real time charging, allowance based) or Hybrid.
Additional services such as trial management, automatic renewal or expiration, add a service, cancel subscription, change service, stop subscription, continue subscription, change terms,
make the subscription service more flexible for the businesses and convenient for the contacts/user
billing
Billing is the CRM.COM Process responsible for billing subscriptions for their billing cycle on a pre-bill or post-bill basis.
More specific CRM.COM billing :
Managing recurring billing for multiple cycles and complex invoicing of high volume subscribers
Support multiple billing models driven by the subscription’s billing terms (subscription driven), or by payments made by the contacts (payments driven)
Support Usage billing service
Managing subscription service's billing cycles on pre-bill or post-bill basis
Support automated billing payment collections during the billing run
inventory
An inventory represents a storage place for traceable and non traceable products. These products can be retrieved and transferred to contacts or merchants/service providers; increasing or decreasing the inventory stock. These stockable products can be sold or rented to contacts/customers, as well as to be returned back to the inventory owner/business. A single business, can hold only one warehouse with stockable products.
Apps and Portals
Apps & Portals is a CRM.COM modern approach helping businesses use a super flexible and non-code tool to build their App/Portal channels and prospect contacts to easily self-onboard to a business and monitor their transactions.
More specific CRM.COM Apps & Portals supports 5 main operations areas :
Registration/Authentication/Get more info (i.e., email, password, mobile, CIM)
Home page (i.e., wallet details, active subscriptions, top offers)
Offers list (i.e., offer details, location proxy)
Payments
Profile (i.e., contact details, account details, transactions, subscriptions, notifications)
Google maps integration (i.e., merchant offer/location/directions)
mobile pass
Mobile Pass Cards are all the the non payment associated cards, such as coupons, loyalty cards, subscription cards, rewards. These mobile pass cards will be set up by the CRM.com user and shall be linked to contacts that ‘enroll’ into this card scheme.
landing page
A Landing Page is a stand-alone web page that a Contact, a system user or ‘external’ 'lands' on, typically after navigating to a link for registration or buying a pass (e-gift) purposes. Landing Pages in CRM.COM can be accessed via scanning a QR code or simply navigating to its associated URL address.
Analytics
CRM.COM Analytics consists of two main functions
Insights : by using platform events (i.e., new subscription) and the flexible platform insight editor users can build add-hoc online metrics to better understand contacts behavior and business performance (i.e., new subscriptions per customer segment)
Reports : CRM.COM offers a collection of predefined reporting templates (selection criteria, column, groups), to help system users analyze and understand the performance of their business network.
Reports can be run ad hoc or scheduled to run at a predetermined time and then emailed to the sign-in system user.
Users have access to different report template depending on their position (access rights) in the platform's business community structure (SO, Business, Merchant, Venue).
leads
Leads are the prospective customers of a business. When a lead is created, it is assigned to a structured process / queue. The defined stages of this queue well define the process of approaching a new lead and ultimately qualifying it as a win or a loss.
activities
Activity is a task that can be scheduled to take place for a Contact, a Lead, a Service Request or an Order as part of a business flow
service requests
Membership Product | Key features and process coverage |
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Identity Management |
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Commerce Wallet and Digital Promotions |
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Subscriptions & Commerce |
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Business Communities |
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CRM.COM Platform basic components
Below you can find a summary table with the main components of the CRM.COM platform together a brief description of their purpose/functionality.
The intention of this table is to make it clear for each integrator/key user what the main components of the platform are and ultimately to have an idea of their main functions
Item | Description |
Contacts | Contact is the central process of the software, representing the customer of the business. Contacts can be created in 3 ways:
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Customer Events |
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Apps & Portals | Apps & Portals is a utility of CRM.COM that allow a key user to configure with no code the business front end tools: Native APP and Portal. These front end tools allow the customers of the business, the contacts, to carry out numerous self service processes such as registering, ordering or buying a subscription. |
Communications | Communications is simply a record of a communication with a contact. It can be manually generated by a user, an API, or system generated, either via a Communication Plan or an event based communication. System generated communications are multi-channel, currently supporting Email, SMS, and in-app Push Notifications. |
Service Requests | It is a request ticket for service by a contact to the business. Service request can be submitted by a back-office user or directly by a contact via self service APIs (e.g., CRM.COM app or portal). A service request always belongs to a Queue. A Queue is a CRM.COM user defined grouping method that is used to group similar service requests (e.g., reward or billing requests) |
Analytics for Identity management product | CRM.COM Analytics provide an in-depth analysis of a business’s data aiming in:
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Activities | An Activity is a task that can be scheduled to take place for a Contact and can optionally refer to a Lead, Service Request or Order. |
Leads | Leads denote prospective business by a contact. A lead belongs to a queue, which usually represents a Sales Force Automation model with predefined stages. A lead always ends up being won or lost. |
Wallet |
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Passes | A pass is a process that unlocks a gift, top-up or promotion for a contact. When a pass is redeemed (unlocked) it will either credit money into the contact wallet or activate an instant discount because of an associated offer. A pass can be either printed or electronic format (distribution methods). |
Accounts | An account is a ledger of financial transactions carried out between the Business and its contacts or the Business and its merchants/service providers. Account basic features are : id, classification, credit term (credit limit, payment terms), currency, primary, state. |
Payment Methods | Payment methods are the acceptable means by which a business can collect money from its contacts, to pay for products or services purchased from the business. |
Rewards & Digital Offers | Rewards within CRM.COM apply digital offers against a customer event or a CRM.COM initiated process such as subscription maturity. Rewards award contacts a commerce credit in the CRM.COM wallet. A key process of Rewards is the Redeem, which evaluates the purchase event against the existing commerce balance and converts it to open balance. |
Product Catalogue | The product catalogue consists of the list of products that a business is selling, their prices, as well as promotions applied on purchasing these products. A key attribute of a product is the organization that owns the product and can be the business or a merchant / service provider. The organization that owns the product will also manage it and price it. |
Order Management | Orders placed by contacts (B2C/B2B contacts) to purchase physical goods and services offered by the business or the business’s merchants in its business network An Order is fulfilled by either the business or one of the merchants/venues (Delivery, Pick Up, Direct Sale) An Order follows a Queue that defines its :
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Subscriptions & Usage | A subscription is a collection of services a Contact subscribes to, billed for on a recurring basis. Apart from the services provided, the subscription also outlines how, and when the Contact will be billed, as well as the payment terms. In general a subscription’s main characteristics are: State, Billing day, Payment method. A usage service is any service consumed and has to be billed based on the volume consumed like data, phone calls, fuel, electricity. A usage service has a measurement unit used in measuring the consumed volume and a price per measurement unit. A usage service can only be consumed when a contact subscribes to either a termed service or a one-time service. |
Inventory (including devices) |
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Business Network & B2B | Business Network is the CRM.COM organization topology, with Platform Owner, Service Owner, Transaction Processor, Business, Merchants, Venues and B2B connections. B2B connections are the Organizations of the business that are B2B Merchants or B2B Peers. |
Security & Foundation | Security allows the setup of policies governing access and actions permissions to CRM.COM system features, ranging from creating API keys for client-external applications, to setting-up user roles and inviting users. Security settings covers all organizations of the CRM.COM Business Network structure (e.g., Cloud Operator, Business, Merchant/Service Provider). Foundation cover other global functionalities of CRM.COM Platform like: Automations, Custom fields & forms, Time travel, Approvals, Events & Logs. |
Settlements | The process where awards and spend are settled between organizations. Award settlement involves debiting the organization that provided the award; either when awarded or when redeemed. Spend settlement involves crediting the organization that the wallet open balance was used. |
OTT Subscription & Billing basic stream
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