Lotus Notes is a widely used application in BPOs across the world. It can be used for various purposes in an environment like a BPO where information sharing is very critical and contributes to the quick processing.

Lotus Notes applications are used by most of the BPOs primarily because it can be programmed to the specific requirements of the organization. In a BPO information gathering is very critical as it is only with this information further processing is to be done. Collecting appropriate information should be made very easy for the end users. Multiple users accessing this data can be controlled easily using lotus Notes. This makes it a powerful solution for the BPO industry.

It can also be used as a mailing solution which can improve the communication among the employees.

Lotus Notes is an ideal platform for creating a Leave Management System. It is so because a LMS is essentially a workflow application. For instance when an employee creates a new leave application, it is forwarded to the concerned sanctioning authority based on the employee’s profile. The sanctioning authority processes the application and a reply has to be sent to the employee and the application has to be documented for future use. This kind of a transaction where a series of process are involved is ideal for the use of Lotus Notes. Documentation and recovery of such records is easily possible using Lotus Notes.

Leave management systems is an innovative tool to assist the HR function in tracking the leave records of its employees. It is a very use tool especially when the number of employees in the organization is more. Once an account has been created for each employee in this system, it can be used to provide information on the total number of leaves available for each employee for the year, number of leaves taken by them so far, etc.
From the employees perspective it can help them in applying leaves online without the hassle of writing a letter or sending an e-mail. The leave application can be processed by the appropriate sanctioning authority immediately online without any delay.Another advantage of LMS is that it can help us have a record and trace information about leaves taken a long time back also which may not be easy in a conventional management system.

A good CRM program can improve customer service by facilitating communication in several ways; some of them as listed in wikipedia are as follows.

• Provide product information, product use information, and technical assistance on web sites that are accessible 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
• Identify how each individual customer defines quality, and then design a service strategy for each customer based on these individual requirements and expectations.
• Provide a fast mechanism for managing and scheduling follow-up sales calls to assess post-purchase cognitive dissonance, repurchase probabilities, repurchase times, and repurchase frequencies.
• Provide a mechanism to track all points of contact between a customer and the company, and do it in an integrated way so that all sources and types of contact are included, and all users of the system see the same view of the customer (reduces confusion).
• Help to identify potential problems quickly, before they occur.
• Provide a user-friendly mechanism for registering customer complaints (complaints that are not registered with the company cannot be resolved, and are a major source of customer dissatisfaction).
• Provide a fast mechanism for handling problems and complaints (complaints that are resolved quickly can increase customer satisfaction).
• Provide a fast mechanism for correcting service deficiencies (correct the problem before other customers experience the same dissatisfaction).
• Use internet cookies to track customer interests and personalize product offerings accordingly.

Analytical CRM helps us to analyze the gathered data into useful information. Some of the typical information that be derived are the different segments of customers, identifying high value customers, collecting personalized information.

Personalized information can be of great use when you to sell customized products. Availability of the preference of each individual customer can be helpful under these circumstances. Analytical CRM tools will help gather such information from the large amount of data collected in the operational CRM techniques.

Some of the advantages of collecting such information using analytical CRM are

Cross-sell, up-sell more products to the customers thereby increasing revenue.

Providing timely and regular information to customers.

Avoid sending messages,mailers and flyers to those customers who do not want it.

CRM can be classified further into

Operational crm
Analytical CRM
Collaborative CRM

What is Operational CRM?
Operational CRM supports the front desk executives of the customer service, sales and marketing functions.It is helpful in collecting informastion fromn the customers/clients and forwarding to the concerned team to who process the issue.

The advantages of using an operational CRM are
* Delivers personalized and efficient marketing, sales, and service through multi-channel collaboration
* Enables a 360-degree view of your customer while you are interacting with them
* Sales people and service engineers can access complete history of all customer interaction with your company, regardless of the touch point.
Some of the typical operational CRMs are

Sales force automation (SFA).
Customer Support/service applications.
Enterprise marketing automation (EMA).

A CRM will not improve the performance of an enterprise just by installing a software. To ensure that the CRM becomes successful in an organization the management has to show a lot of commitment and make investment consistently in it over a period of time. The management should formulate a clear business process, train and educate the employees on the significance of understanding the customer, ensure co-ordination among the sales, marketing and the customer service departments of the organization.

Choosing the appropriate software and the IT support for it is very critical for the success of the CRM; however the use of software alone does not guarantee the success of a CRM. It is the combination of the software, the process and the employees which contributes to the success.

Customer Relationship Management(CRM) is a practice in an organisation which helps to collect information about customers from various sources and using it for managing customer relationship better.It helps the organisation to understand the customers requirement when carried out succesfully.The use of softwares in CRM has made it really easier to analyse the data and derive critical information out of them.
According to wikipedia, “CRM includes the methodologies, strategies, software, and web-based capabilities that help an enterprise organize and manage customer relationships. It is the collection and distribution of all data to all areas of the business. The general purpose of CRM is to enable organizations to better manage their customers through the introduction of reliable systems, processes and procedures for interacting with those customers”.

sales force automation is the process by which all day to day transactions and events in the sales department are automated. It includes the automation of all the activities like daily reports of invidual sales executives, order tracking, sharing information among all sales executives,inventory control and monitoring, sales forecast, etc.This will be very helpful for organisations that are geographically spread across the length and breadth of a country or even across different countries.A centralized control is easily possible when the sales activities are automated as access to data becomes easier and quicker.

If you have a well defined sales process, automating it becomes very productive as it can help avoiding unnecessary delay in getting each process done manually.For instance, if a sales executive located in a remote place sends a proposal to be approved by his sales manager by post or courier it will take atleast 3 to 4 days to get it done.This can be avoided if the salesman uses a system and an appropriate software which could alert the manager immediately when a request has been sent to him.The manager can reply to it immediately and the whole activity can be completed in minutes.
There are a numerous instances like this where unnecessary delays could be avoided and help the sales people close the orders immedaitely.It can also help you track the employees performace in a more organised way.

Lotus Notes can be a very useful platform on which these softwares can be built.It can help you develop an application exactly in the way you want instead of purchasing a conventional Sales Fore Automation software which may not suit your requirement.

As already told in the earlier posts Lotus Notes can be used used both for mails as well as for applications that would help the organisation function effectively.The applications can either be custom built or generic products available readily.Products such as HRMS and CRM are developed by several software companies.You have to be very careful in choosing the application products as they may or may not suit the specific requirements of your
organisation.Keeping this in mind the best alternative would be going for a custom built
application which will suit all your requirements.Choose the right partner who can provide you the perfect combination of cost-effectiveness and Quality.For more information on sme services refer small business services.

What are the applications that can be developed using Lotus Notes/Domino?

Lotus Notes suits most the applications which involve workflow,although it can support other kinds of applications as well.Some of the typical applications for which Lotus Notes is employed are

Sales Force Automation
Customer Relationship Management
Expense Tracking
Leave Application
HR Management System
Payroll Management
Performance Approval System
Purchase Approval System
Enquiry Tracking

Let us see what these applications are and how it can help your organisation in the coming posts.