Forums - Thread Details
  • Replies 8 replies
  • Subscribers 322 subscribers
  • Views 2525 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Forum Actions
Related

B2C / B2B with Sugar (Accounts ? Contacts ? Both ?)

Frédéric Rinaldi

Hello guys,

I want to know how you handle, with Sugar, your customers that have a B2C AND B2B business.

At first, we decided to use the ACCOUNT's module to handle the customer (could be a B2B so core fields or B2C so additionnal fields for first name last name etc.) ; that way, we stay easy with core features like opportunities or cases management that are linked to the account etc.

Of course, we faced minor limitations (for instance with the outlook core plugin).

But today, with the Sugar Market solution, the contact becomes a key module and the synchronization processes are centered on this module (and the Leads one).

So on one hand, Account is the central part for Sugar and, on the other hand Contact is the central part for Sugar Market (or other Marketing automation solution).

How do you handle that ?

You duplicate the info (for the B2C) and create an Account AND a Contact ?

You use the Contact for B2C and Account/Contact for B2B so you have to customize you CRM to manage both for Cases, Opportunities etc.?

You "trick" the marketing automation tool by override the core api to query the "correct" module according to your business model ? Other way I don't think about ?

Any feedback is welcome.

Fred

Parents

  • I think the standard naming convention for most CRM systems doesn't help and can be misleading.

    Tip; rename Accounts module to Organisations or Companies.

    Example; how many 'Accounts' in the CRM are actually customers and therefore have an account with a unique account reference number derived from your Finance/Billing system?
    Not all, correct?

    Therefore we call this module for what it actually contains, Companies, and adopt the 'Type' field or something similar to identify if they are a Customer, Prospect, Supplier etc.....

    Same can be done for Contacts in a B2C or even B2C2B scenarios. In some cases, customer rename this module as well and call it 'People'.
    Regardless, you can adopt the same dropdown or similar to identify if they are a Customer. No need to duplicate data and also create the same person as an Account, especially if the module is no longer called 'Accounts' right? ;-)

    I do realise that some scenarios may want to use both for individuals, i.e. a Bank. In those cases, the Account name would be the unique Bank Account reference number, which would then allow multiple related Contacts for joint accounts by related people or business bank accounts.

    Hope those ideas are helpful?

    .

    CRM Business Consultant

Reply

  • I think the standard naming convention for most CRM systems doesn't help and can be misleading.

    Tip; rename Accounts module to Organisations or Companies.

    Example; how many 'Accounts' in the CRM are actually customers and therefore have an account with a unique account reference number derived from your Finance/Billing system?
    Not all, correct?

    Therefore we call this module for what it actually contains, Companies, and adopt the 'Type' field or something similar to identify if they are a Customer, Prospect, Supplier etc.....

    Same can be done for Contacts in a B2C or even B2C2B scenarios. In some cases, customer rename this module as well and call it 'People'.
    Regardless, you can adopt the same dropdown or similar to identify if they are a Customer. No need to duplicate data and also create the same person as an Account, especially if the module is no longer called 'Accounts' right? ;-)

    I do realise that some scenarios may want to use both for individuals, i.e. a Bank. In those cases, the Account name would be the unique Bank Account reference number, which would then allow multiple related Contacts for joint accounts by related people or business bank accounts.

    Hope those ideas are helpful?

    .

    CRM Business Consultant

Children
No Data