Step 1: Create the App

First of all, you must create the application. Sign in to CRM.COM using your user credentials and navigate to Settings > Platform > Contact-Facing Essentials > Apps . Select Create App.

• Name - Provide the app name, which will appear on the welcome screen (a.k.a Landing Page).

• App Type - Select one of the two app types below:

  • Contact App - A consumer-facing app that allows a business's contacts to register and have self-service access to the entire feature set of CRM.COM such as access to personal and financial information, manage their CRM.COM Wallet, view your product catalogue, offers and promotions and place their orders and much more!

  • Contact Portal - A web-based portal offering the same features and user experience as the Contact App.

• Click Save.

Now that the app has been created, you’ll need to configure the app settings in the next step.

Step 2: Setup the App

Setting up your App involves:

• Branding your business app by specifying colours, uploading images and setting its look and feel.

• Enabling the CRM.COM features that you want your contacts to use for self-card purposes.

Appearance

When an app is created, default colour settings are applied, but you can customise them with your own business branding colours and images.

Colours

• Background Colour / Background Image - Used in the app’s screen a contact lands on once they launch the app. Set either a colour or an image. If both are provided, the background image will be used.

• Colour Scheme - These are your app’s branding colours, used throughout the app

  • Primary Colour - This colour is used to highlight selectable icons or text buttons and for the selected option and action buttons.

  • Secondary Colours - This colour is used for available options but not the selected option.

Creatives

• App logo - Upload your business logo. It will be used in the following ways:

  • Displayed on the Home screen to represent your business.

  • Shown on the Wallet screen to indicate business-related balances (Business Pocket and Commerce Pocket).

  • Used in place of a product image (if the product doesn’t have one).

• Carousel - This is particularly beneficial for highlighting your business in a visually appealing manner on the Home screen of the app. Optionally upload one of more images.

Features

About

This section contains the legal details related to the app, where businesses can define their Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy. If provided, users must accept both when registering via the app or portal.

Completing this section is optional but recommended, we offer a free template in case your business doesn't already have its own policies. Should you use the template, be sure to review all content thoroughly and replace the placeholder with your business name where indicated.

Modules

Take some time to review and enable the options and features that you will provide to your contacts through your app. Keep in mind that some options can't be disabled and will, therefore, appear in the app.

Keep in mind that in order to properly set up your app’s features, you must first configure certain features within CRM.COM. Here’s a list of required set up tasks that should be completed before proceeding to enable features in your app.

• Payment Gateways - If you will accept payments or allow your contacts to Top-up their CRM.COM Wallet through the app, then enable a Payment Gateway in Platform > Integrations > Payment Gateways. There you can enable the CRM.COM Wallet Gateway or any other local or global Payment Gateway service. Find out more about payment gateways here.

• Order Queues - This is for businesses that want to enable e-Ordering flows from the app. A default Order Queue is pre-configured for your business, but you can configure additional queues to handle the different supply methods by navigating to Settings > Commerce > Orders > Queues. Find out more about order queues here.

Step 3: CRM.COM Setup

Contact Authentication

Navigate to Settings > Contacts & CRM > Contacts > Contact Authentication & Identities and choose how your contacts will register and sign in to the app (i.e. how they will identify themselves). You can set up the same authentication method for more than one app, for example select email/OTP for both your mobile app and web portal.

Optionally, you can set the accepted country calling codes, which are necessary if you choose the Phone/OTP authentication method and when contacts want to link their CRM.COM Wallet with their phone number.

Product Catalogue

If you plan to showcase your product offerings in the app, make sure to complete the product set up in the back-end.

Within the app products are displayed:

• To promote your offerings and promotions, such as a SKU-based reward offer and

• During the ordering flow (if enabled in app’s settings). In this case, products are displayed in a hierarchical structure to facilitate contacts in their ordering process. If you will support such a flow then you have two options:

  • Set up Product Categories in the back-end and assign to products OR

  • Set up an Order Catalogue and categories your product offerings in this catalogue.

Note that if an Order Catalogue is configured, then it has priority over the categorisation based on Product Categories.

Set Up Products

Improve your product's traceability and contact experience in the app by utilising the following key information:

• Descriptive name and description

• Pricing information (if applicable)

• Categories

• Images

Product Images

For each product you can upload:

• An individual image that is going to be the product’s primary image in the app and

• A set of images that can be displayed in a carousel if you want to present your product’s detailed features and characteristics

You can also upload an image for each product category. This is a useful feature if you don’t have an image for each one of your products.

In the app a product’s image is shown based on the following priorities:

• the product’s primary image or (if there’s no product image) then

• the product’s category image or

• your business logo if none of the above are uploaded.

See the Product Catalogue manual for more information about products, categories and the AI tool.

Order Catalogue

Configure an Order Catalogue to display products using your preferred categorisation. If an Order Catalogue is not set up, assign Product Categories to display products in a categorised manner. When setting up an Order Catalogue:

• Assign a descriptive name

• Upload an image so as to promote its products

• Give the catalogue categories descriptive names to make it easier to your contacts to find what they want to order.

Business Network

If your business is collaborating with other businesses (either within your internal Business Network structure or via B2B collaborations) or if your business has its own venues, then keep these partner’s and the locations up to date with some key information that includes:

• Address information with a latitude/longitude so that they can be pinpointed on a map. This information can be used by contacts to locate the venue, and to promote these partners' offers and promotions.

• Phone number so your contacts can get in touch

• Their opening hours so as to facilitate the ordering flow (if used)

• Images that help contacts to identify the merchants

• he merchant’s Industry and Sub-industry. This information can be utilised to filter these merchants' reward offers within the app

Reward Offers

Set up your Reward Offers in the backend to award your contacts but pay attention on setting up the following key information:

• Descriptive name and descriptions (Short and Long description) for each offer

• Your offer’s Terms & Conditions

• Mark an offer as a Featured one so as to show first in the list of offers

• Add Tags to your offers so as to allow easier filtering in the app

• Upload an image to promote it among other offers. If no image is provided, then your business logo will be used.

Reward Offers Tiers

Assign a reward tier to your contacts based on their awards over a period of time. Within the app, your contacts will be able to view their tier level and what is required in order to maintain it or upgrade into the next tier. In Settings > Rewards > Tiering make sure you:

• A name for each tier

• A colour and

• An image that will be used to clearly display the tier in the app.

Promotions

Set up your Promotions in the backend to give discounts to your contacts for their orders. When setting them up in the back-end, consider the following key information:

• Descriptive name and descriptions (Short and Long description) for each offer. Make sure that these descriptions clearly describe how contacts can benefit from the promotion.

• Add Tags to your Promotions so as to allow easier filtering in the app

• Upload an image to promote it among other promotions. If no image is provided, then your business logo will be used.

Order Queues

Set up your Reward Offers in the backend to award your contacts but pay attention on setting up the following key information:

• Descriptive name and descriptions (Short and Long description) for each offer

• Your offer’s Terms & Conditions

• Mark an offer as a Featured one so as to show first in the list of offers

• Add Tags to your offers so as to allow easier filtering in the app

• Upload an image to promote it among other offers. If no image is provided, then your business logo will be used.