Process management solutions working together — A perspective

Process management solutions working together — A perspective

Overview

Process management solutions in Zoho CRM could be broadly categorized under two divisions — Business Process Management and Customer Experience Management. While BPM solves the need for streamlining internal processes, CEM addresses the seamless orchestration of engagement actions along a customer's purchasing journey.

In Zoho CRM, you can streamline internal processes using Blueprint, Approval/Review Processes (BPM).
You can use Journey Builder, Path Finder and Cadences Studio to orchestrate personalized engagement actions to streamline customer experiences. (CEM) 
Visit this guide to learn more about the differences & similarities between business processes and customer experience. 

Scenario

Here is a simple example in which we will put all of these key features in context. Let's consider that Zylker Travels is using Zoho CRM to streamline their travel management needs. Here is a quick example sequence of how they can use all of the above-mentioned functionalities together, in their implementation based on their needs.


1. Adding a lead to CRM
A lead record is added to CRM via Wizards. Having the fields organized screen-by-screen helps the salesperson have a better context while filling up the data.

 
2. Streamlined lead nurturing
Once the lead is added, they enter a follow-up series orchestrated by Cadences Studio. The purpose here is to engage the prospect via emails and calls and make sure that they do not stay stagnant in the lead nurturing phase.
  1. When the customer opens a welcome email, Zylker sends a destination survey. 
  2. If she has opened an email and hasn't responded for 2 days, then a follow up email or a call is scheduled to find out more about her needs.

This way, a series of actions can be orchestrated based on the actions or outcomes of the previous engagement attempt, and a sales cadence is formed. Let's say the prospect replies to an email called "Next Steps"— then she is said to have successfully exited the Cadence flow and is ready for further engagement.

3. Personalized engagement and journey optimization 
The action of responding to the email called "Next Step" gets the prospect to enter a Journey Builder called Customer Journey Optimization. Upon responding to this email, the customer is further engaged and automatically converted to a contact. Upon conversion, a Trip booking is automatically created against the customer. When an email is received from the customer at any point along the lines of issue escalation, the feedback and handholding is streamlined and a Case is automatically raised in Journey Builder for the customer.

This way, using a series of signals/triggers, the customer receives the right hand-holding across trip creation and case escalation. 

In this step, note that when the customer expresses interest, the lead conversion is automated via the Journey Builder and the trip thus automatically created could enter a Blueprint of its own. This Blueprint is a set of steps and process guidelines internally for the travel agents. Similarly, an issue raised by a customer could automatically create a Case record via the Journey Builder. However, how the case is handled internally is defined by the Blueprint. This way, the customer remains to be engaged via the Journey Builder, and at the right points, internal Blueprints can also be processed and the two can co-exist. 


4. Blueprints for Trip Management 
When a trip is created for the customer via the Journey Builder, the creation of the trip propels the customer forward in a Trip Management Blueprint where the sales rep goes on to take care of internal processes to try and negotiate with the customer and complete the trip. The documents needed, internal discussions, and logistics, etc., are all carried out as per the company's processes in the Blueprint.


After the trip has been successfully completed, the customer gets out of the Trip management Blueprint, but remains engaged via Journey Builder for subsequent feedback and advocacy via relevant emails and calls.

5. On-demand console for data update and respective alerts.
After 3 months, the customer calls a sales rep and while on the phone wants to update the details of a new trip— such as the dates and co-traveler details, and also update communication details. So, the sales rep will need to update the details of a deal, account and contact. They can get this done via an on-demand console that is built using Kiosk Studio. Within a Kiosk, they can fetch all trips associated to the customer in one click, select the trip in question, update schedule and other fields across modules and interact with the console. Once the details are updated, the Kiosk makes sure to route the details in the respective modules.


 In the context of this example, we used a Kiosk for the requirement of data update. Kiosks can also be used during record creation, retrieval and update among many other scenarios. Learn more>> 

Key Takeaways: 
  1. Journey Builder is an end-to-end solution that spans across a customer's lifecycle starting from lead creation, conversion to retention and advocacy. It is a backend system that performs customized engagement actions based on configured triggers, such as sending a survey upon clicking a previous email and converting a lead upon receiving a survey response. A Journey Builder flow runs in the background no matter whether Blueprints, Kiosks and other flows have been configured, without interrupting their flows. 
  2. Cadences studio is a subset of the Journey Builder which is an out-of-the-box solution for follow up streamlining. If your need is only to streamline follow up actions you can use Cadences instead of an elaborate journey builder. This is ideal for lead nurturing as the system can take care of personalized and streamlined engagement for a large volume of leads. 
  3. Blueprint and approval/review processes are for internal process streamlining. 
  4. Kiosk is an on-demand customized console inside which you can perform data addition, update, retrieval and other actions. 



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