Just need to get something clear.
A GUI for employees managing a large scale of data, like facebook-users or whatever. Is that a form of CRM, or is CRM only business-facing?
In that case, what is that software category named?
CRM is a concept that describes Customer Relationship Management. So it can be used to describe any process that tracks an interaction with a person. Most typically between a company and a customer.
A classic example is that of a bank. You ring the bank on Monday and ask about a loan. They send you information in the post. You ring the bank on Friday. They should know that they spoke to you on Monday about loans and sent you a letter.
This may or may not use some software, although its unlikely they could just be writing everything down.
Wiki has quite a nice description:
Customer relationship management (CRM) is an approach to managing a company’s interaction with current and future customers. It often involves using technology to organize, automate, and synchronize sales, marketing, customer service, and technical support.
So that's the concept, in terms of the implementation there are a number of solutions and products which have varying architectures and are presented in different ways to both the company and customer.
For example;
Microsoft CRM, has a web page but typically this is only accessible
by business users. The customers interact with the company, and the
company interacts with Microsoft CRM.
However the lines can get a little blurred, for example its not unusual for companies to build self-service portals which integrate into Microsoft CRM. In this way customers are directly interacting with Microsoft CRM.
In terms of your points:
A GUI for employees managing a large scale of data, like facebook-users or whatever. Is that a form of CRM
I would say yes. However it could also cross into sentiment analysis, and data mining.
is CRM only business-facing?
As described above, CRM is a concept. Its implementation is often business facing only, but not always.
Related
I'm just wondering if anyone can provide me with some information into how e-commerce websites automatically calculate the postage and shipping costs for items ordered on-line?
Do these websites use plug-ins/web services to dynamically request this information from the postage/shipping provider? Or do developers manually retrieve the postage costs from the associated shipping provider and then develop their own approximate postage/shipping cost calculation algorithm (in agreement with the e-commerce business of course)? Or are there any alternative approaches used?
Any help is much appreciated. Thanks.
EDIT: I have done some basic research on the topic. I've seen some plug-ins for WordPress but each plug-in was limited to specific postage/shipping companies only.
Do these websites use plug-ins/web services to dynamically request
this information from the postage/shipping provider?
Yes, this is certainly an option. In my experience, the APIs provided by UPS and FedEx are decent and work for the UK market.
Or do developers manually retrieve the postage costs from the
associated shipping provider and then develop their own approximate
postage/shipping cost calculation algorithm?
I would not recommend this - a maintenance headache for one reason - and have never seen it done.
Or are there any alternative approaches used?
Sometimes, fixed shipping-costs can be used - for example, when delivery is to a single country or products weights are relatively static. No API call is needed in these scenarios.
Based on my research, I've found that there doesn't seem to be a single standardised way of calculating shipping/postage costs on e-commerce websites. Some companies provide plugins for WordPress, etcetera, to assist in this process, while others companies provide API's.
Primarily, I'm interested in using a UK based shipping/postage provider.
The Royal Mail is the largest postal provider in the UK and it provides an API for a number of tasks; however no official API appears to be available for cost calculation. I did however manage to find an unofficial Royal Mail cost calculation API. It can be found at the following link.
In our organization we have to implement different Business Process Flows for the different sales people on the Opportunity. I have created the different Business Processes. I am aware that I can switch the Business Processes on the form.
My question then: is it possible to set a different default Business Process for different users? For example: some sales people specialize mostly in quoting customers for training while other sell products. Hence there is a different Business Process for Goods than for Services.
Yes it is possible. It works similar as with forms, you can assign Business Process Flow to appropriate roles. See MSDN (here) for little bit more details.
Here you can find description with visualization.
I use Skyscanner a lot myself, and one thing I don't like is the fact that I get redirected when I want to book. I want to know what the obstacles are in having a solution where you can book your flights without being redirected and without necessarily being a reseller/travel agent.
The objective is to make comparison shopping seamless.
I understand low-budget carriers prefer booking only on their site, but perhaps their strategy can be integrated within the comparison site.
I also understand that carriers would want customer analytics, but this can be made fully available to them.
What are the reasons for example KLM, Airfrance etc might NOT want to make comparison shopping seamless?
I have been a main developer for one of such website which uses such APIs. I would list many reasons but also it is a good practice not to do so.
Just some reasons off the top of my head.
1) It is not the purpose of such websites. They just join an affiliate program to redirect users and get some small fees for purchases. They would keep their system as simple as possible.
2) Airline and other provider like hotels have their own policy on fees, refund, purchase, loyalty points etc. As a third party, you can not implement such a thing for each provider. If you dont implement, then you would use API, right? They wouldn't expose such inner workings of their system to third parties, payment involves PCI compliance, customer confidentiality etc.
3) Such services involve certain confidentiality and privacy. Somebody's passport, staying at a particular hotel or flying on a particular plane is sensitive information and should not be available to third parties.
Just imagine how many third parties their API are available. No trusted company would allow this to happen.
4) Even if they allow, no third party can really ensure security of such sensitive information. If a breach of security happens, thousands of airline data etc. would be affected.
5) Each of airline and hotels might be subject to different jurisdictions in terms of data protection etc. It is technically impossible to combine them.
many many other reasons..... There are also many issues in handling payment, accounting etc.
We currently use MelissaData to scrub our addresses. We have been pretty unhappy with the product and the support in general (considering how expensive they are). Can anyone recommend a good replacement? We want a product that we can download the database and don't want to use any web service type of calls to do the address scrubbing.
In order to have a complete address database, you will need to get it from the source, which in the United States is the US Postal Service. Once you have their data, you will need to parse it into a format that is usable. This is not a simple task since the USPS stores the data in their own proprietary format and the documentation is often "less than helpful". It literally can take years to refine your algorithms to handle all of the wacko edge cases that street addresses have. However, that would allow you to keep the data local instead of calling a webservice. You will need to license from the USPS their ZIP+4 data, and then be prepared to integrate new date each month as it is released. If you are going to scrub your addresses for mailing with the intention of obtaining mailing discounts, you will also need to go through the process of becoming CASS-Certified by the USPS. (This is not a task for the faint of heart, and not a quick process--As I mentioned earlier, it can take years to perfect.)
If your core operations are address verification, it is probably worth it go down that road since the time you spend developing your custom application will support your business. However, if you are not in the address verification business and would prefer to do other things rather than jumping through USPS certification and maintenance hoops, I recommend finding an address verification provider whose workflow will integrate nicely with your requirements. This will allow you to focus on what you do best instead of trying to reinvent the wheel.
In the interest of full disclosure, I am the founder of SmartyStreets. We provide street address verification.
A good replacement is CODE1 from the postal division of the USPS.
CODE1 will have to be installed on the SQL server - something that has to be considered when using this.
Also, to update the db it needs to run a DTSx package nightly, weekly or quarterly depending on how often you wish to update the addresses.
I would recommend trying ZP4 from www.SemaphoreCorp.com. The product and web site have an older look to them, but they've been doing this for years, and it's only $99 for a disc. No, I don't work for them or get any compensation, but I work for GreatData.com (we sell primarily 5-digit ZIP Code products) and have recommended them to lots of clients over the years and haven't heard any complaints.
There are a number of free finance tracking sites out there like mint.com, wesabe.com etc.. .
I've tried all of them and all seem to miss the mark in one way or another. I'm interested in creating my own website, or possibly just a stand alone windows program for tracking my finances in ASP.NET or C#.NET.
I'm assuming the answer is no, but is there any way that a personal developer can download transactions from financial websites like these? I know once you login to most financial sites you can download a CSV or Quicken file. Yet I really like how I can log-in to my Mint.com account and update all my accounts with one click.
Popular applications (like Quicken) and most major US banks support Open Financial Exchange (OFX). If a bank can connect to Quicken, it probably supports OFX (though not guaranteed).
I doubt very many banks have public APIs for this. More likely than not, you will need to send HTTPS requests to the various banking websites, and you will probably have to have custom code for each bank that you wish to support, tailored to the structure of their websites and their form elements.