Introduction
This document
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provides an overview of how the CRM.COM platform powers the
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customer economy, enabling businesses to transition from standard transactions to personalised offerings and B2B communities.
In the
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following sections, we outline the product structure and the primary components of the CRM.COM Platform
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The diagrams at the end of the document show how the four CRM.COM platform products were used to develop three typical services. Here its obvious how the platform uses various platform features to implement specific services.
These charts are a clear representation of the CRM.COM Membership Economy approach.
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, accompanied by brief descriptions. The strategic combination of these components empowers users to independently deploy the full spectrum of services offered by the CRM.COM platform.
Intended for integrators and key users, this document offers insights into the CRM.COM platform's capabilities across the core functional areas of its four products, tailored to various vertical industries.
CRM.COM Product Positioning
CRM.COM is a
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Our business model is based on Business Communities and helps them create positive network effects
With our platform offerings we help proud brands better engage with their customers and move their relationships from one-way and point-to-point transactions to multi-party transactions within our network of business communities
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.
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complete solution that caters to all your needs as a customer focused organisation that aims to increase repeat monetisation. It offers four distinct products, which can be configured as part of an integrated journey:
Identity Management:
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Efficiently onboard and manage your customers
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. Provide seamless omnichannel self-service access. Utilise a flexible wallet spend model to capture purchases and segment your customer base into micro-personas.
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Commerce Wallet and
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Digital Promotions: Create and manage promotional and reward offers
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tailored to specific customer segments
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. The commerce wallet
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maintains commerce and open
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balances and
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supports various customer payment methods.
Subscriptions and Commerce:
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Leverage an advanced product catalogue
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, versatile ordering mechanisms and a
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robust subscription platform
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. CRM.COM handles from straightforward termed services to XaaS (Anything as a Service) and intricate usage-based triple play and IoT scenarios, including triple-play services.
Business Communities: Establish your business network to enhance your brand and expand your service offerings. Engage with B2B community services and products
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, fostering collaborations and synergies. Jointly create promotions with your partners and aggregate a wider array of services and products.
CRM.COM
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provides an end-to-end solution for running your customer economy effectively and efficiently, with the flexibility to configure these products to meet your unique needs.
CRM.COM Platform
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- The Big Picture
Here, we outline the components of the CRM.COM platform
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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
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Item
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Description
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contact
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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.
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segmentation
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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
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communications
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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.
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account
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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
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account financial transactions
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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).
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contact registry
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Contact registry is a directory of Contacts who are registered in CRM.COM, platform (i.e., name, email address, phone, language etc.).
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.
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wallet
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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.
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wallet payment method
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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.
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payment methods
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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
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events
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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.
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passes
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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.
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pass plan
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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.
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product catalogue
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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)
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orders
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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.
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rewards
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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.
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subscriptions
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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
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billing
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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
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inventory
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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.
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Apps and Portals
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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)
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mobile pass
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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.
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landing page
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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.
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Analytics
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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).
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leads
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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.
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activities
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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
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service requests
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Service Requests are customer requests submitted either by a back-end user using CRM.COM, or a Contact via a self-service platform / front-end application (e.g. an app or portal). It's compulsory to provide a predefined Queue (structured process) for the Service Request
e-Ordering and Rewards
The following flow represents an end-to-end process where a single organization/business uses a Finance & Rewards product to reward an online ordering process.
This stream is mainly focused on the Horeca/Retail Industry.
Within this stream we can find many innovative CRM.COM services (eg portal, mobile). This makes the user experience more engaging and at the same time minimizes time to market for organizations involved in the process.
CRM.COM wallet and ready integrations with business terminals make the cash out/redemption process even more flexible
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OTT Subscription & Billing
These streams are clearly focused on OTT organizations (i.e. media) without devices associated with services and the CRM.COM Subscriptions & Commerce product.
Businesses use CRM.COM's user interface processes to help users place an order and sign up for business offers.
CRM.COM billing helps businesses better manage monetization of their offerings. Other additional services, such as segmentation and communication automation, make the relevant flow more efficient.
The Service provisioning components helps businesses better control their offerings, avoid lost revenue, and deliver a great customer experience at the same time.
Ready made integrations with various payment processors help businesses provide a seamless payment experience
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Purchasing, Rewards Scheme and Cashback
The flow below presents a std rewards solution as it has been developed for a major Greek payment processor, focused on the Horeca/Retail industry and supported by the CRM.COM Financials & Rewards product.
This solution provides cashback to the consumer account based on purchase events that occur at business terminals and offers provided by business rewards programs.
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and its four products, their corresponding features and processes and the essential software components that play a pivotal role.
4 Products and Key Features/processes covered
The following table presents how the CRM.COM Platform deploys the customer economy concept through its product journey and supported functionality (e.g. processes and components).
Membership Product | Key features and process coverage | Components/Modules |
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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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Platform core components
In the following table, you can find all the main components of the CRM.COM platform, along with a brief description of their purpose/functionality.
The purpose of this table is to make it clear for each integrator/key user what the main components of the platform are and ultimately have an idea of their primary 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 allows a key user to configure the business front-end tools with no code: 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 | Communication with your contacts with easy to built personalised html templates. It can be generated by 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 requests 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, usually representing 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 in 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, and 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 Rewards process is the Redeem, which evaluates the purchase event against the existing commerce balance and converts it to an open balance. |
Product Catalogue | The product catalogue consists of the list of products a business sells, their prices, and promotions applied to purchasing these products. A key product attribute is the organisation that owns the Product, which can be the Business or a merchant/service provider. The organisation 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 regularly. Apart from the services provided, the subscription outlines how and when the Contact will be billed and the payment terms. Generally, a subscription's main characteristics are State, Billing day, and Payment method. A usage service is any service consumed and has to be billed based on the volume consumed, like data, phone calls, fuel, and electricity. A usage service has a measurement unit for measuring the consumed volume and a price per measurement unit. A usage service can only be consumed when a contact subscribes to a termed or one-time service. |
Inventory (including devices) |
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Business Network & B2B | Business Network is the CRM.COM organisation 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 setting 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 cover all organisations of the CRM.COM Business Network structure (e.g., Cloud Operator, Business, Merchant/Service Provider). The foundation covers other global functionalities of the CRM.COM Platform like automation, Custom fields & forms, Time travel, Approvals, Events & Logs. |
Settlements | The process where awards and spending are settled between businesses |
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A detailed list of business features by Product and associated Component is provided HERE. Referred to as Components master data and updated on 15 April 2023. The next update is scheduled for July 2023. |
CRM.COM Platform Core Flows
See how the four products of the CRM.COM platform are applied in distinct services.
CRM.COM Platform Processes
Understand the platform's capabilities and workflows to effectively implement CRM.COM solutions and meet specific business requirements.
CRM.COM Platform Technology Architecture
Find out what the CRM.COM platform is comprised of