Manufacturing Companies need to relate to their 2 main customers:
Corporate Customers, such as distributors, wholesalers, big chains of supermarkets and Individual Customers, end consumers.

For this purpose, Manufacturing Companies have different channels to contact or communicate with all their customers: telephone, sales force, on-line, etc.

The application of CRM strategies in these companies is determined by their relationship with their different customers in the distribution chain.

B to B Relationship: (Corporate Customers): distributors, wholesalers, chains of supermarkets, retailers, etc. with whom the company has a direct relationship.

B to C Relationship: (Individual Customers): End Consumer with whom the company has a direct relationship through its Corporate Customers (chains of supermarkets, retailers, etc).

Today CRM solutions highest demand for the manufacturing industry is in the B to B area (with the distributors).

End Consumers usually contact the company through a toll free 0800/0810 line for queries and claims. Most part of the relationship takes place through mass media advertising or direct marketing promotions.

Relationship with Companies (B to B)

The most widespread applications in this area are:

• Order Taking: over the phone through a call center or through the interaction of a sales representative visiting Customers and entering their order in a laptop or palm.
  
  
• Telephone Promotions: to promote and eventually take an order with special discounts.
  
  
• Management of Queries and Claims: Usually related to delayed or wrong deliveries, billing problems, etc.
  
  
• Collections Follow Up: usually over the phone, to deal with delays in the payment of invoices.
  

TELESOFT e-CRM has the functionalities and the technology required to provide solutions in the different areas where CRM can be implemented in Massive Consumption Companies.

It is important to highlight the degree of integration required by CRM applications in this kind of companies, particularly in terms of Pricing, Credits, Invoices, Stock, etc, for instance to validate an order on-line against these systems.

TELESOFT e-CRM provides these required integrations through standard integration components or components specially designed for the applications to be integrated based on COM, DCOM, XML technology, among others.

Relationship with End Consumers

Manufacturing Companies such as Massive Consumption Companies usually have a free toll 0800/0810 Help Desk for Customers where calls are recorded, queries on the products are answered and returns are made.

Some companies use the Call Center to implement promotion procedures, prizes, etc.

Another CRM application related to End Consumers is Market Research. This research can be conducted by telephone surveys or sending survey takers to strategic points or outlets.

Main functionalities:

TELESOFT e-CRM, with its products TELESOFT Sales, TELESOFT Customer Care, TELESOFT Market Research, TELESOFT Workflow and TELESOFT Collections, provides the functionality required by Massive Consumption Companies both for Corporate Customers or End Consumers.

• Management of promotion campaigns
  
  
• Order taking
  
  
• Response to queries, claims and/or returns processing and referral, with Standard resolution times and workflow included
  
  
• Customer Care
  
  
• Collections
  
  
• Market research
  

• Contact Center
  
  
• Web access
  
  
• Applications in mobile devices.