RT for CRM?

RT Users
1

Hello,

In one of the chapters of the fine RT Essentials book*, there’s mention
of RT in a CRM-type context. We’re currently using RT for customer
support and I hear rumblings of a CRM project in the next few months.
This got me wondering: what would be missing in RT for it to act as a
"Customer Tracker" as well as a request tracker?

A CRM-enabled RT would introduce the concept of “Account” management
which would allow to link tickets to Accounts and link users to Accounts
(which would be contacts). The account contains the usual company info
(address, industry, etc).

I believe the rest of the CRM features (activities, leads,
opportunities, etc.) could be managed through ticket queues and custom
fields. A nice bonus, though, would be to have the classic “full
customer view” screen where you can see the contact info and a summary
of all his open tickets.

What do you guys think? Any success stories or caveats of using RT to do
CRM?

Regards,

Jonathan Kelly
*(every time you use RT while not owning this book God kills a kitten).

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This e-mail message is confidential, may be privileged and is intended for the exclusive use of the addressee. Any other person is strictly prohibited from disclosing, distributing or reproducing it. If the addressee cannot be reached or is unknown to you, please inform us immediately by telephone at 1-800-461-3377 and delete this e-mail message and destroy all copies. Thank you.

2

In one of the chapters of the fine RT Essentials book*, there’s mention
of RT in a CRM-type context. We’re currently using RT for customer
support and I hear rumblings of a CRM project in the next few months.
This got me wondering: what would be missing in RT for it to act as a
“Customer Tracker” as well as a request tracker?

A CRM-enabled RT would introduce the concept of “Account” management
which would allow to link tickets to Accounts and link users to Accounts
(which would be contacts). The account contains the usual company info
(address, industry, etc).

I believe the rest of the CRM features (activities, leads,
opportunities, etc.) could be managed through ticket queues and custom
fields. A nice bonus, though, would be to have the classic “full
customer view” screen where you can see the contact info and a summary
of all his open tickets.

What do you guys think? Any success stories or caveats of using RT to do
CRM?

I think I’d love to see RT go that direction, since, being in the
consulting business, that’s the sort of thing I need, and I have to
sort of kludge it into RT3 with custom fields, and the like, as it
sits.

One potential, but fundamental, problem I see with that is that to do
CRM (my idea of) right, you need to be able to track all calls,
whether there is a customer yet for the person calling, and whether
they are attached to (or result in) a ticket being opened or not.

I don’t see a good way to do that, given RT’s current architecture.

And it would be a pretty low-level change to the way RT thinks.

I’ll be interested to see what kind of responses you get to this.

Cheers,
– jra
Jay R. Ashworth jra@baylink.com
Designer Baylink RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates The Things I Think '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA http://baylink.pitas.com +1 727 647 1274

"NPR has a lot in common with Nascar... we both turn to the left."
	- Peter Sagal, on Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me!
3

-----Original Message-----
From: Jonathan Kelly [mailto:j.kelly@julien.ca]
Sent: Wednesday, October 05, 2005 11:35 AM
To: rt-users@lists.bestpractical.com
Subject: [rt-users] RT for CRM?

Hello,

In one of the chapters of the fine RT Essentials book*,
there’s mention
of RT in a CRM-type context. We’re currently using RT for customer
support and I hear rumblings of a CRM project in the next few months.
This got me wondering: what would be missing in RT for it to act as a
“Customer Tracker” as well as a request tracker?

A CRM-enabled RT would introduce the concept of “Account” management
which would allow to link tickets to Accounts and link users
to Accounts
(which would be contacts). The account contains the usual company info
(address, industry, etc).

I believe the rest of the CRM features (activities, leads,
opportunities, etc.) could be managed through ticket queues and custom
fields. A nice bonus, though, would be to have the classic “full
customer view” screen where you can see the contact info and a summary
of all his open tickets.

What do you guys think? Any success stories or caveats of
using RT to do
CRM?

I work for an ISP and we use RT to track our trouble tickets, but we also use AT (Asset Tracker) to keep track of our customers. We have an Asset Type of Customers that is used to keep track of each customer/site we cover. Under the Asset Type, we have an Asset that has a list of custom fields (Address, phone number, fax, etc) that we use to keep that info handy and you can create a ticket on an asset so if you look up an asset, you can see what tickets are opened on it. Also, each ticket is linked to the Asset so you can go back and see if any other issues are pending or do whatever else you might need to do. I’d be happy to give you some other ideas that we have in place if you are interested.

Regards,

Jonathan Kelly

*(every time you use RT while not owning this book God kills
a kitten).

Ce courrier électronique est confidentiel, peut être protégé
par le secret professionnel et est à l’usage exclusif du
destinataire ci-dessus. Toute autre personne est par les
présentes avisée qu’il lui est strictement interdit de le
diffuser, le distribuer ou le reproduire. Si le destinataire
ne peut être joint ou vous est inconnu, veuillez nous en
informer sur-le-champ par téléphone au 1-800-461-3377 et
détruire ce message et toute copie de celui-ci. Merci.

This e-mail message is confidential, may be privileged and is
intended for the exclusive use of the addressee. Any other
person is strictly prohibited from disclosing, distributing
or reproducing it. If the addressee cannot be reached or is
unknown to you, please inform us immediately by telephone at
1-800-461-3377 and delete this e-mail message and destroy all
copies. Thank you.

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