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Contact Centric CRM Vs. Account or Customer Centric CRM: Which way to go?

Most of the early CRMs were contact centric by design, but many that came out in the last decade allow you to tailor the software to your needs. Apptivo allows you to implement either style of CRM, depending on your business requirements.

A Contact Record forms the center of the universe in Contact Centric CRM, which is shown in blue on the left side of the figure above. Where as, in the case of Customer Centric CRM that is shown the right side in green, a Customer Record forms the center of the universe.

Contact Centric CRM in Apptivo

When your business relies a lot on individuals or businesses where there is not much of a difference between an individual and the business they are part of a contact oriented system..

Apptivo’s Contacts app acts as the heart of your organization in this setup. You can record leads and opportunities against each contact and track them through their lifecycle.

You can identify the Customer record associated with this Contact.

Apart from leads and opportunities, you can also track your activities, notes and any documents associated with each contact record as well.

Customer/Account Centric CRM in Apptivo

Lets say you are dealing with several decision makers, influencers, and stakeholders, from a single company. A Customer Centric CRM might be more appropriate in this case. You may have your sales reps changing territories and key contacts with each customer might change over time as well, but it is important to keep your customer record updated with the current contacts, leads and opportunities.

In such a scenario, Apptivo allows you to implement a Customer Centric CRM where you can track the Contacts, Leads and Opportunities associated with the Customer.

You can also identify the type of Contact – as to whether they are an Influencer, Decision Maker, Billing, Shipping, etc.

Is a hybrid approach possible?

Absolutely. Since you can link every relevant information to both Contacts and Customers, Apptivo allows you to implement a hybrid approach if you desire. Although, it should be warned that implementing a hybrid between contact centric CRM and a customer centered system can be confusing, especially if you have staff which are new to the concept of customer relationship management software.

How can I set up Apptivo properly for my business?

We have created a quick little video which walks through the first steps you’ll take when reigstering for Apptivo. It will quickly show you the process of performing the basic configuration steps, and proper upload procedures if you are migrating data from an existing system. The video lasts about 7 minutes, but it should get you up and running.