CRM - Changes and New Features
Account, Opportunities, Leads and Contacts
The aim of the Zoey 2023 CRM project is to match a true CRM data model and provide the strongest CRM offering inside of a B2B Ecommerce platform.
Accounts
Accounts is now the home-base/dashboard for your sales accounts. Access quick sales metrics from the dashboard or deep-dive into their sales history in the Sales tab. Manage contacts, Ship To Locations, Billing Addresses, Notes and more.
Opportunities & Leads
Opportunities and Leads provides a space for managing incoming account requests or outbound sales leads. Our Status bar allows you to track your progress toward qualifying and winning a new account. The Dashboard also puts the new Notes feature up-front so you have quick access to any details captured during sales calls, meetings or emails. Opportunities and Leads can be marked as Disqualified/Lost, or Won - at which point you are prompted to "Convert to Account". All the sales data will then be available on the Account and you can choose to allow the account to log-in to their customer portal.
Contacts
Zoey has forever had "Customers", then we added "Accounts" to meet the needs of a B2B business. The 2023 CRM now renames Customers to the more appropriate Contacts. Still available individually, Contacts will have a new fresh interface which is more focused on their connection to an Account.
CONTACTS (CUSTOMERS) WITHOUT AN ACCOUNT BEING PHASED OUT
Many early Zoey users have Customers that do not belong to any Accounts. In October 2023 we will be implementing a change that will automatically generate an Account for any orphaned Contact and no longer allow stand-alone contacts. We are giving ample notice and will be emailing our customers to review their Contacts in Zoey and clean-up/delete unnecessary data prior to the automatic creation of Accounts.
Significant Changes
Central Management of Account Contacts
The old CRM had "Account Owners" and "Location Contacts". This structure is being simplified to just "Contacts" but will still provide the flexibility and range needed to configure the access/roles and permissions.
It starts with Main Contacts and Additional Contacts which are managed in one simple table (see below)
- Main Contacts have access to all locations, but can be assigned different Main Contact Roles such as "Manager", "Billing" etc...
- Additional Contacts can have specific "Allowed Locations" and even different Roles per-Location such as "Buyer" or "Buyer (Requires Approval)" etc...
Account Customer Group will Override the Contact Customer Group
As part of phasing out the stand-alone contacts (see above) the April CRM release will make the Customer Group assigned to the Account override any customer group assigned to the Contact. In the October roll-out, contacts will no longer have Customer Group assignments.
Contacts on Multiple Accounts can now "Switch" Accounts when writing Orders
Since the Customer Group of the Account will override the contact, we needed to add a way for your contacts that belong to multiple accounts - which may have different prices/access to products - to view the correct information. The Account Switcher will appear for those customers at the top of every page of the customer portal (see below).
Ship To and Locations being merged, and Bill To being split out
Your Account's Locations ARE their Ship To Addresses, and an Account's Bill To is mostly used irrespective of the Ship To on an Order.
The Zoey CRM data structure now enforces that model. Adding a Location is adding a Shipping Address. In certain circumstances a location (like when covering a territory) may have multiple Ship Tos, so that's still allowed, but the structure prevents one Ship To to be assigned to multiple Locations.
Bill To has also been broken out into it's own place. By default a Bill To will be used for all locations, but you can still specify allowed locations if your account needs multiple billing addresses.
AUTOMATIC ADDRESS DATA MIGRATION
Considering the old CRM Data allowed one address to be both a Bill To and Ship To, the first 2023 release of the new CRM will automatically migrate your addresses to the new format. This means if an address was a Billing & Shipping address, it will become 2 addresses, (1 Bill To, 1 Ship To). If for any reason a Ship To address was assigned to multiple locations, it will become multiple addresses, each assigned to it's own location.
CSV Import Changes
OLD CSV TEMPLATES WILL NOT WORK
Due to the data-model changes, the existing Accounts Import CSV template will throw errors if imported into the new 2023 CRM. Click HERE to review the exact changes.
We're making the bulk import and management of your Accounts and Contacts easier than ever before. The most significant changes are the Roles for Contacts and splitting the Bill To addresses to their own columns. We are also changing to a "Vertical" import structure, meaning multiple rows for multiple Locations/Ship To Addresses rather than multiple column sets.
We are also allowing import of Addresses and Contacts within an account!
Customer Account Request/Registration
Registration
The old workflow for Account Request/Registration is built on top of the Contact. A visitor fills out a form that creates a contact. If you approve the contact, you have a choice to create an Account.
The NEW workflow will provide the options to:
- Immediately Create an Account & Contact - Allowing login
- Create an Opportunity or Lead that can be Approved by marking as Won and converting to an Account
In the second option above, the Account Request will come into your Opportunities List (see below) where you can view, manage, or in Bulk disqualify/win and convert to an Account.
Note: We will be providing instructions for switching your registration form to create Opportunities rather than Contacts. This is because you may have Customer Attributes that you will want to create as Account Attributes (see below).
Account Attributes
To support the new registration workflow, the Zoey 2023 CRM has added "Account Attributes" that can be for internal information or presented on the Account Registration/Request form for the customer to fill out. Account attributes will allow you to store Account-level data that was previously only available on the Contact record such as Tax ID Number, Resale Certificates, Tax Exempt Certificates and other essential Sales/Business details.
Note: Custom Customer attributes will NOT be automatically migrated to Account Attributes. We will be providing instructions for this.
Other New Features
New Default Main Contact Roles & Additional Contact Roles
Main Contact Roles can be assigned to your Account Main Contacts who have access to all Locations, Orders, Quotes and Drafts created by any other contact on the Account.
| Main Contact Role | Description |
|---|---|
| Manager | Can add/invite new contacts, Can add/edit Locations/Addresses Can Approve Orders from Additional Contacts Gets ALL emails from all contacts activity |
| Billing | Gets all Billing/Invoice emails Does NOT get New Sales Order/New Shipment Emails |
| Shipping | Gets all Shipment/Tracking Emails Does NOT get New Sales Order/New Bill/Invoice Emails |
Additional Contact Roles can be assigned to the contact or paired with the contact's assigned locations.
| Additional Contact Role | Description |
|---|---|
| Buyer | Can submit Orders or Quotes without approval Only sees their own Orders, Quotes and Drafts * Gets all emails for their own Orders, Quotes and Drafts (New Order, Shipment/Tracking, Bill/Invoice) |
| Buyer Requires Approval | Can submit Orders for approval by their Manager Only sees their own Orders, Quotes and Drafts * Gets all emails for their own Orders, Quotes and Drafts (New Order, Shipment/Tracking, Bill/Invoice) |
Sales Tab
The Sales Tab within the Account Dashboard gives a full/detailed picture of the Account's Sales History. Directly from this tab, you can Ship, Invoice, View and manage Orders, Quotes, Drafts, Ordered Items and My Catalog (wishlist) items.
Notes
The new Notes feature allows you to post multiple notes on your Accounts, Opportunities and Leads. Notes are searchable and can be tagged to specific Locations. Notes can be edited or deleted. Any change to notes will be logged in the new Activity Tab (see below).
Cards On Account
Credit Cards through Authorize.net, Stripe and Braintree can now be saved on the Account and used by all contacts when placing orders. This way each contact does not need to enter the company credit card when submitting pre-pay Orders.
Updated Emails
The emails being sent to your customers are getting a face-lift. If you have customized your emails, you will need to "revert to original template" to take advantage of the new layout. This is to ensure we're not changing anything you have and need to communicate with your customers.
Activity Tab (Audit Log)
Keep tabs on your team and customers. The Activity tab shows any update or change made to the Account including (but not limited to) notes, status changes, attribute updates, terms/store credit updates, address changes etc...
Admin/App Permissions
New permissions will allow you to choose which of your team members (sales reps, admins, etc...) have permissions to Create, Edit and/or Delete Accounts, Opportunities, Leads and Contacts.
iOS CRM UPDATE
The iOS app will also be updated to match the above changes, notably the ability to create and manage Accounts, Opportunities and Leads. More info on iOS coming soon.
Updated 3 months ago