Part 2 of our ongoing series CRM Terms to Know is designed to help you get up to speed fast on the terms you'll be encountering in the world of Customer Relationship Management systems. Keep this glossary handy so you can reference it as needed!
Find terms A-E here
F:
Front Office: A term used to describe customer facing activities supported by systems such as customer relationship management, sales order entry, sales force automation, call centre, help-desk and so on
Fulfillment: The business process that takes orders from customers and delivers the goods or services on the promised date. Some products, such as software, graphic art, music and written documents can be immediately delivered electronically. Traditional goods and services have to be delivered physically, either by internal resources or a third party.
H:
Help-desk: A specialized call centre that provides assistance on the use of the organisation’s products and services. It does not handle sales or billing inquiries.
Hyper Threading Technology: Technology that improves processor performance under certain workloads by providing useful work for execution units that would otherwise be idle.
HTML (Hypertext Markup Language): The coding language used to create hypertext documents for the World Wide Web. In HTML, a block of text can be surrounded with tags that indicate how it should appear, for example, in bold face or italics. Also, in HTML a word, a block of text, or an image can be linked to another file on the web. HTML files are viewed with a World Wide Web browser.
I:
Integration: The process of bringing together information from different sources. This may involve transactions with the same customer from different transaction processing systems, either because of different geographical locations or because different product groups have different systems; for example an insurance company which has separate departments, each with its own system, which sell life assurance, pensions, health, domestic and car insurance
to the same customer.
Internet Protocol (IP): A protocol that allows a packet of data to cross multiple networks.
Interactive Voice Response (IVR): A software application that accepts a combination of voice telephone input and touch-tone keypad selection and provides appropriate responses in the form of voice, fax, call back, email and other media.
J:
Java: An object oriented application development language originally written for consumer devices by Sun Microsystems. It is platform independent and allows the creation of Java applets, which can be stored on websites and downloaded to PCs or other network access devices.
K:
Knowledge Management: The systematic management of the knowledge processes by which knowledge is created, identified, gathered, shared and applied.
L:
Lifetime Value Of Customers: Represents the ongoing income generated from a customer over the long term, less the costs of fulfillment including not the cost of sale, subsequent maintenance, support, warranties, returns and so on.
M:
Mashup: A website or application that combines content from more than one source into an integrated experience.
Metadata: Data that is used to describe other data. Data definitions are sometimes referred to as metadata. Examples of metadata include schema, table, index, view and column definitions.
Mobile Commerce: The ability to conduct commerce, using a mobile device e.g. a mobile phone, a PDA, a smart phone while on the move.
Multi-Tenant: A service which allows completely independent and separate consumers to use the service as if the service is an instance for their use only, despite the fact that they are sharing the service with many other consumers.
N:
Network Computing: A computing architecture in which all programs and data are stored on the server and downloaded across the network into the client computer memory when needed. It has a low cost of ownership because the programs and data are managed centrally from the network.
What CRM terms do you find most confusing? Oasis Solutions Group provides a wide range of CRM solutions, training, support and services. Do you have questions about CRM software or need help with your current Customer Relationship Management system? Contact us for help!
Look for CRM Terms to Know Part 3 next week!
