Many companies are trying to improve their daily operations with environmentally friendly strategies and green products. Reducing paper usage, cutting back on energy consumption, and allowing employees to work remotely or telecommute are all ways to do that—and each of these can be achieved by migrating your software and data storage to a cloud-, or Internet-, based system.

Non-profit organizations are using cloud computing to preserve their income from donations. United Way and Goodwill use cloud data storage to save money on equipment and personnel. This allows them to use more donated money for their good charitable goals on the ground.

Here are five ways your organization can save money, save the planet and improve efficiency with cloud computing:

1. In the office—or out—using mobile devices instead of desktop computers saves energy and cuts costs. Laptops, netbooks and smartphones use less energy, are more useful for those on the go, and still can connect to the Internet easily. They encourage use of CRM applications in all departments; this, in turn, also saves the company time, money and personnel costs. This is a major green benefit from cloud computing.
2. Outsourcing to the cloud is a great cost-cutter, because the pay-as-you-go model allows you to choose only the applications you need, instead of having to pay for the entire suite of software. You can also eliminate IT personnel, because upgrade and maintenance worries are shouldered by your cloud computing vendor.
3. The company does not need to invest in a lot of expensive equipment they will not fully utilize, such as servers or multiple copies of software for the office. This means less waste to end up in landfills. Nor do they need to purchase upgrades; cloud computing platforms are always up-to-date, and updates are implemented automatically, with no downtime.
4. Cloud computing offers companies the best way to communicate with sales representatives, partners, managers and customers. They can use email, mobile devices, social media, video conferencing, web conferences or chat rooms for communications to all. No one needs to travel to business meetings from long distances to collaborate, which reduces pollution in the environment from transportation vehicles—and reduces time spent traveling that could be better spent working.
5. Online collaboration and the use of applications that run in the cloud eliminates the need to send multiple copies of documents via mail or courier. This reduces paper and other materials, as well as emissions. It also reduces confusion, because there is only ever one version of a document to contend with. Anyone who needs to can access previous versions or edits, but there’s very little need to print anything.

Many people already use cloud computing for their email, website development, and online bill paying. On the enterprise level, cloud computing saves energy, time and money for companies—and all of these savings translate into environmentally friendly business practices.

The Internet has spoiled us rotten. It used to be that we had to physically travel, wait days for a letter to arrive, or hold lengthy phone conversations to be able to collaborate with colleagues who were located in a different city. Now we can chat online in real time, send documents via email, and even share videos and PowerPoint presentations. We can video conference. The next step? Being able to work on a document or spreadsheet at the same time.

Cloud computing applications allow several users to view and edit the same materials at the same time. This means that for every file folder full of revisions that used to be necessary, we now have just one document—it’s always up-to-date, automatically saved and accessible 24/7. Yet these collaboration tools also allows us to view revisions when necessary. It’s the best of both worlds.

These benefits particularly extend to the areas of customer relations management (CRM), and sales force automation. Cloud computing also allows users in diverse locations to access the same information and applications. All it requires is Internet access and log-in credentials. This can even include mobile devices like smartphones and PDAs. So salespeople can submit customer or order information, which can be reviewed instantaneously by their managers. The warehouse receives an automatically generated ticket. Even the marketing department can view the data, and have it compiled into reports, in order to assess their latest campaign’s effectiveness.

This has huge implications for businesses, and cloud computing applications can be put to excellent use in developing sales force automation and improving CRM. The benefits extend from macro level to the micro, providing information that optimizes both large-scale planning and the daily, in-the-trenches data the sales force needs to keep up. Moreover, this architecture is flexible. This means that if the demand increases in terms of what’s being asked of the servers, the supply can also increase to meet that demand.

Practical Application

Let’s take a look at the Dr. Pepper/Snapple group, which was using Excel alone, with team members keying in data manually. This cumbersome process made for five- to six-week gaps when trying to generate reports and evaluate data. The problem, of course, was that they couldn’t afford to wait five or six weeks. They needed a system that would allow them to access information much faster across every channel of the enterprise.

The cloud computing solution they chose helped prevent duplication of efforts and provided detailed metrics to optimize sales goals throughout the organization. The best part: all the information could be accessed from a common dashboard throughout the organization.

The new suite of applications also made the record-keeping much less time intensive. This redirected their work force towards maximizing sales and greater productivity.

How did the numbers pan out? Dr. Pepper/Snapple saw a 56 percent return on investment annually.

These same benefits easily extend to the tasks involved with CRM, keeping existing customers happy with consistent, reliable service and solutions. Real-time online collaboration means that agents are almost literally on the same page, preventing mismanagement and inconsistencies. When necessary, agents and managers can view the same customer information, and make notes, at the same time.

It might seem ironic, but the ability to collaborate online in this manner can actually improve the customer relationship, because it not only streamlines all aspects of communications and order fulfillment, but it also frees up sales reps and others to actually spend more quality one-on-one time with clients. Online collaboration and cloud computing are technological innovations that also enhance our offline lives.

Blogs were a bit of a self-indulgent fad not that long ago. You signed up with a service like Blogger or TypePad, and started writing about whatever you wanted to: your kids, your pet salamander, your volunteer work at the soup kitchen, your low-carb recipes. It was a nice way to share information with your friends, but a lot of people thought that blogs were a flash in the pan.

And then businesses got involved.

So what can your business gain from starting a blog? Well, you can offer your customers a behind-the-scenes look at how things work. You can give them a place to interact with you and join the conversation through the comments section. You can help build excitement about new products or services that are being developed or launched. And you can demonstrate a transparency that may just result in increased customer trust and loyalty.

I know these are rather intangible things, so let me give you an example of corporate blogging in action. The business solutions provider IBM decided to hand the blogging reins over to its employees. That’s right—they are letting their employees blog about whatever they want. Naturally, a lot of these folks are passionate about their work, so they blog about technology, business, economics, consulting. Others blog about their families, GLBT issues, history, travel, politics, skiing, photography and literature. Some blogs are funny, others rambling, still others maintain a professional voice. All of the bloggers will tell you that their opinions are not representative of IBM; these snapshots of the people who work there, however, do allow the blogs’ readers to connect directly with IBM employees and become invested in their lives. It also allows a little window onto the culture of the company and its day-to-day operation.

Practical Application

Another approach is the top-down blog. John Mackey, the CEO of natural and organic foods retailer Whole Foods, has his own blog—and has since September 2005. He uses the blog as a platform from which to speak about social responsibility, trust, health care reform, capitalism, and of course the ongoing activities of the company. Late in 2009, he blogged about stepping down from his position as Chairman of the Board at Whole Foods, although he has maintained his CEO-ship. A quick skim of the comments to this post reveals a polarization that is characteristic of consumers’ responses to this controversial company. The first comment lauds Mackey; the second lambasts him, and the conversation continues. What’s remarkable about this blog—no matter where you may stand on the love/hate divide when it comes to shopping Whole Foods—is the transparency it offers, and the fact that it respects all views. This allows consumers to voice their opinion, to speak directly to the higher-ups at a major grocery chain—you can rest assured that all of these comments are being read by someone at Whole Foods, if not by Mackey himself—and to really feel that they are being heard.

There are a lot of reasons to get involved in social media for your business, and blogging may be a good way to start. Give your customer a glimpse behind the scenes, share some things about your business in an informal, conversational setting, and see what happens. You might just find that opening your blog to the public eye will also lead customers through your doors.

Believe it or not, cell phones have been around for over 20 years. Of course, the first cell phones offered only 30 minutes of talk time before they needed to be recharged, weighed two pounds, and cost almost $4K.

Phones today, of course, are wafer-thin, can take pictures and video, and in some cases don’t even have buttons to push. They fold, swing, slide, play music and come with “apps.” Perhaps most importantly, at least in terms of the business world, is the fact that they can access the Internet—which, with the advent of enterprise cloud computing systems, means that if you have a smartphone you can do business almost anywhere.

Cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) systems are simply a way to capture, store, track and analyze all the information related to customers, product and sales. They encompass contact management systems, sales force automation systems, and knowledge management systems. Because a CRM system operates offsite, an employee doesn’t have to log in to his work computer—which in turn is connected to a network of servers and may also run licensed software—to access information. Any Internet-capable device can offer that worker the same real-time, up-to-the minute data stream, which he or she can edit and share as easily as making a phone call.

No one understands the power of a mobile-compatible sales force automation solution more than Phoenix Technologies, a device-enabling software company. With 66 percent of the company’s business occurring internationally, and sales reps constantly traveling, they needed a way to access and share data that wasn’t tied to their onsite servers, or their clunky legacy Lotus Notes system of record keeping—which was suffering from performance, syncing and integrity issues.

Phoenix’s new CRM system offers real-time customer data access and sharing across all channels—sales, marketing, customer service and tech support, and engineering. The fact that it runs in the cloud means that it can be accessed from anywhere.

Senior management can now view a 360-degree customer profile, Web leads are automatically captured and routed, deals can be approved more quickly and the sales cycle is visible to all those involved. This means that Phoenix enjoys accelerated processes, greater customer satisfaction and improved sales revenue.

In addition to providing improved customer service directly, there are indirect benefits that allow you to help your customers by helping your employees. When they have the tools to access data or file their reports more quickly—even automatically, in some cases—they’re more likely to complete these administrative tasks, rather than sitting on them. Everything just moves more swiftly and expediently when your business can use mobile technologies for customer relationship management.

Intuitive dashboards and customizable interfaces make the experience even easier and more enjoyable for sales reps, call center agents and everyone else. This leads to a quicker rollout period and a high adoption rate.

Face it, the world has gone mobile. This includes your customers, and it should include you and your employees as well. In this age of instant communication, people are no longer willing to wait two or three days for a response. If you can’t keep up, and provide responsive service, there’s a very good chance your company will be left in the dust.

Businesses seeking solutions to improve sales, marketing or support should consider customer relationship management software with customizable applications. Customizable applications allow businesses to mold the software around its own business needs, rather than the customer relationship management (CRM) system vendor providing a standard solution for every existing customer. Many CRM software vendors provide customizations that are simple and fast., and most applications can be customized by utilizing point-and-click wizards within the software platform.

CRM software provides point-and-click application customization as a convenience. Interfaces may be designed to meet the specific business needs of a customer. For instance, some companies require satellite video to locate potential customers for their business. When a potential customer is located, the data is cross-referenced with the address and contact information. Other companies may have no need for satellite video to locate customers, and this particular feature would be unnecessary. Companies select applications that increase productivity in their work environments.

When businesses upgrade their applications, the customized portions will automatically upgrade as well. Therefore, employees do not waste time recreating a customized application each time an upgrade occurs. This increases productivity and alleviates the frustration often associated with applications and upgrades.

Point-and-click application customization makes it easy for every employee to work smart—instead of having to be trained in a specific software program, and adapt their own way of engaging with material to the way that material is presented, they can adapt their interface. Employee morale and productivity  improve when they are able to make adjustments to suit their own work styles.

Savvy employees may also customize applications with code. Many developers may use special programming languages in order to create more software functionality. Open ended development environments allow these types of changes using toolkits.

For example, a company involved in control systems development may need applications that support strong analysis and graphing. With new point-and-click applications, these types of complex applications may be accessed easily. In the past, complex commands and syntax were needed in order to access these types of applications. Now, a novice can access them with no problem. Several financial companies have utilized point-and-click applications for financial modeling, designing, and other quantitative analysis. Many sophisticated mathematical and other applications are now available in this intuitive, clickable format.

Practical Application

Haagen-Dazs Shoppe Company integrated a CRM system into their current work flow. The system replaced their current spread sheets with new applications that were customizable by each employee. The company integrated applications that would allow them to locate real estate leads, manage ads, track inspections, monitor training attendance and streamline store openings. Each of the applications is specific to the needs of Haagen-Dazs. Not only that, but the system was rolled out to all employees in less than six months, since it required little training beyond the hands-on customization. The system was easily accessible to its remote workers worldwide because it operated in the “cloud,” or over the Internet, rather than being housed onsite and accessed through company-issued hardware. Now, any authorized employee can log into the the CRM system, see their personalized interface, and begin working.

After introducing the CRM software, Haagen-Dazs has gained an approximate 15 additional franchise leads per month. The company is also able to analyze data more efficiently and access data from virtually any location—and, perhaps most importantly, has seen an increase in employee satisfaction because of the new system.

Businesses can customize applications and resume business faster with point-and-click applications. The less time spent customizing, the less downtime the company will experience. That, of course, is good for the company’s bottom line.

Sprint is the third largest wireless telecommunications network in the United States. With millions of customers, it has a customer service department that receives a high number of calls every day. Phone inquiries ranges from new subscribers and to those who wish to upgrade their service they receive, to people with complaints about their bills or technical problems with their wireless phones.

When call center agents are outnumbered by the volume of calls they receive each day, a large volume of unanswered inquiries, dropped calls and frustrated customers on hold is the undesirable result. With cloud-based customer service solutions, however, these bugaboos can be eliminated and a better, more streamlined approach to customer service can be implemented.

Call centers can serve as a company’s garbage disposal unit—experts estimate that less than five percent of all call inquiries are positive remarks on the company’s services. The other 95 percent are either inquiries from newbies, or complaints from long term customers. One of the most common complaints is about the long wait callers have to endure while waiting to speak to a live representative. More often than not, their time on hold is longer than the time they spend speaking to that rep once they’re connected.

Sometimes, issues take longer to be resolved because the employee on the other side has no previous information regarding the concern of the customer. This further increases customer frustration, and instead of becoming agents of customer service, call centers agents are often transformed into a customers’ worst nightmare.

Sprint has used a number of techniques to diffuse the potential nightmares, including a responsive customer service agent who uses Twitter to help route issues, troubleshoot, and answer common questions from users. The company Web site is also a great source of information for customers with problems or questions. At sprint.com, visitors can not only shop, pay their bill online and research new plans; they can also visit the forums, read blogs or use the live-chat service.

Live chat allows any Web site visitor to interact with both sales and customer service agents online. By immediately responding to customers’ frustrations via the web, Sprint is able to maintain their most trusted customers, and further attract potential new customers. The thought that help is always on its way whenever a customer attempts to contact Sprint makes their customers feel more comfortable and assured.

Efficient customer service software applications like live chat windows have increased online sales of Sprint products and services, reduced shopping cart abandonment, and impressed their customers even more. The simplicity offered by a cloud-based customer service applications has made customers’ online experience more convenient.

Sprint customers report that they enjoy the ability to find answers to their problems on the Web site, or through Twitter, rather than wasting their precious minutes on hold. In addition, continuous adjustments with the current CRM applications used by Sprint’s call centers, make the resolution of customer issues over the phone even speedier. By providing the call center agents with relevant customer and product information quickly and methodically, these cloud computing applications serve to eliminate wasted time. This is annoying to customers who simply call to follow-up on a simple request.

With the birth of new customer service applications like live chat windows, and cloud computing CRM platforms, teams can focus on providing superior customer service. Constant observation and analysis of questions posted by clients via the live chat window allow Sprint to prepare effective responses to common inquiries, saving a lot of manpower and decreasing the volume of frustrated phone callers.

I have a joke for you.

Q: How many salespeople does it take to manage a sales pipeline?
A: Only one, if you have a cloud-based customer relationship management system.

OK, OK, it was a pretty lousy joke. But you must admit that the “punchline,” if you can even call it that, is nevertheless impressive.

Cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) software integrates the use of several applications to make the sales process more streamlined and efficient. For instance, opportunity analysis, sales invoices, sales analysis, and sales forecasting may each be integrated into CRM software to provide a more efficient sales process. Each salesperson has instant access to the application, whether in the office or out on the road. Increased productivity frees time for the salesperson to actually focus on strategies, and connect with customers, to close the deal.

CRM software allows salespeople to analyze data captured in order to identify key opportunities and generate leads. When managers are aware of the potential needs of a customer, they can address these needs before the customer pursues a competitor’s product. Analysis also helps the sales person remain competitive. Many CRM software solutions also integrate competitor analysis into the software, in order to assist sales people with this task. Identifying major competitors and key customers will assist managers in allocating the resources available.

Sales are easily tracked through CRM software. From sales data, managers can determine top performers, profit makers, future product demand and key customers. If the manager knows this information, he or she can assign top performers to major accounts or more equitably managed resources. This will assist the company with customer retention and increase sales volume. Anticipating customers’ orders will ensure the product or resources are available, thus building the company’s credibility and customer loyalty over time. Tracking each aspect of the sales process is essential to maintaining a productive, profitable and viable company.

Thanks to CRM software, some companies have cited as much as a 20-hour per week reduction in the amount of work that must be manually produced. That reduction provides salespeople with at least two more days of face time with the customer. Alternatively, this time could be spent strategizing about how to best approach a client to close a deal. Collaboration occurs easily through CRM software, because each salesperson has access. Seasoned sales people can share ideas and strategies with their colleagues in order to become more effective as a team. As the team becomes more effective, profits will increase as well.

Managers no longer have to constantly ask their sales people about the status of the deal. Sales people can update the CRM applications while they are on location. Managers can log into the system and view the progress of the sale in real time.

Virgin Money–a financial division of the corporate giant–recently adopted CRM software to improve their sales process. At a glance, managers can determine their sales, quotas, deals, and other pertinent sales information. Each salesperson has access from any place in the world. Sales teams may easily add new users, products and locations as they organization expands. The company has saved significant amounts of money through sales automation.

Social media is the hot new way to market and promote your business, but make no mistake—it’s not just a fad. If you haven’t gotten on board with Twitter, Foursquare, Facebook and other platforms for social customer relationship management, take a look at these success stories.

Blendtec is a small blender company with a pretty small marketing and advertising budget. Yet one thing Blendtec did have was an innovative idea that stemmed from a simple question: Will it blend? They made a series of videos in which the company’s founder, Tom Dickson, takes various consumer items—an iPhone, a Rubik’s Cube, marbles and a disposable lighter, among other things—and feeds them into the company’s Total Blender. The videos went viral on the video-sharing site YouTube, resulting in an explosion of sales within the company’s retail division. In face, they’ve seen a 700 percent increase in sales—with an initial investment of just $50. That’s some serious ROI, my friends.

Baby products manufacturer Graco, on the other hand, used the photo-sharing site Flickr, as well as a blog, to improve their sales by creating an online community of parents and babies. They encouraged their customers to submit via Flickr pictures of their babies, with a Graco product, they purchased. Showing real people using a product isn’t a new approach, but doing so online is an innovative way to get the message out. Graco even sponsored local events, then posted those pictures to the Flickr account as well, further positioning itself as a company that values family, parenthood and community.

Comcast found a different approach. Taking into consideration how social networking has revolutionized the American lifestyle, they created @comcastcares, a Twitter account which caters to the needs of their clients and offers instant responses to any concerns they may have. Frank Eliason is the man behind the tweets, and he may well be the most famous customer service rep in the world. He responds directly to consumers who express dissatisfaction with Comcast on Twitter, and actively tries to resolve issues, whether they are related to customer service, billing or technical issues. Says Eliason, who uses his own picture as an avatar to give his tweets a personal touch, “Now when [people] think Comcast, they think Frank.”

Accounting and tax software company Intuit takes the power of social media in yet another direction. They have an online community, where anyone can ask questions and get answers from real people, as well as a tax wiki called TaxAlmanac. A wiki is an online, interactive encyclopedia or knowledge base that anyone can edit. Its content is offered for free use on websites or in business documents, as long as proper credit is given, and it’s valuable as a resource where anyone can learn about tax issues or law, accounting, small business financial topics, and current judicial events.

There are hundreds of other businesses—ranging from freelance writers who work out of their basement, to multinational giants such as Coke and McDonalds—that have learned how to use social networking to grow their profits and improve customer relationships. While traditional businesses may tread water temporarily, pretty soon they’re going to have to learn how to swim in the water of social media. If they don’t, they might just sink.

Remember back in the day, when the hottest thing to do online was to get yourself a Geocities page and trick it out with animation and counters and luridly technicolor fonts? We’ve sure come a long way in the years since then. The Internet is no longer a toy—or at least not exclusively. It’s also a crucial business tool that has grown so sophisticated it is now possible to run entire businesses completely online.

This networking capability has become known as cloud computing. The cloud is so named because the diagrams of computer networks often remind casual onlookers of clouds floating in the sky. Whether you call it the cloud, the Internet, the Web or “teh interwebs,” it’s revolutionized the way that companies conduct business and interact with customers.

There are several success stories of major companies like Dell, Dolby, Google, and other large companies that have dramatically increased their revenue streams through customer relationship management. Consumer relationship management, or CRM, is a shorthand term for all of a company’s interactions with its customer base. With cloud computing, CRM changed from handling offline customer data processing and sales lead tracking, to customizing online buying platforms that supported an individual customer’s preferences.

Practical Application

Global Futures & Forex, a worldwide foreign exchange provider, needed to centralize their system to help run their business more efficiently. In addition, company data needed to be accessible from a single location worldwide, and the company wanted to disseminate key information to customers via web portals.

Through cloud computing, the company was able to streamline its entire information database by using a single Web site as a worldwide reference point. This allowed them to diversify their services by centralizing the input and output of critical information. In addition, the cloud enabled them to fully customize their interfaces, which made them more user-friendly. The cloud also allows Global Futures & Forex to develop new trading platforms and deploy them in half the time without outsourcing, saving them both time and money. Now they provide several different services to their clients, all through the cloud.

Cloud computing not only makes social networking possible, but also makes it a viable marketing tool through customer relationship management. A good CRM app will help aggregate the information received from social networks and integrate it into the marketing approach, customer service response, sales initiatives and other aspects of doing business. As some companies are finding out the hard way, ignoring the growing communities of “followers” and “fans” is a surefire way to get left behind. CRM tools can help you make the most of these popular platforms.

Yet perhaps the most important—and game-changing—aspect of cloud-based apps is the fact that they can be accessed from anywhere, using any device that has an Internet connection. Use your iPad, iPhone, BlackBerry or other smartphone, or your laptop or Netbook. There’s no longer any need to sit chained to a desk inside an office. Cloud-based apps allow employees to much freer and more flexible than traditional server-based models. This benefits salespeople who travel, help desk employees who can be located globally, and employees who want to telecommute. Since the cloud is everywhere, you can do business anywhere—except maybe in Geocities. But then, who wants to go back there, anyway?

The recent economic crisis has businesses scrambling to come up with creative ways to remain competitive during the recent economic downturn. Many are turning to customer relationship management (CRM) applications run in the cloud in order to give their company an edge over competitors.

No doubt about it—it’s a customer’s market. In this type of market, customers have a myriad of choices. Each company that offers a service or a product is marketing it aggressively, trying to capture the elusive customer, while most customers are budgeting and spending as little as possible. More often than not, it’s not even the product itself that attracts or retains customers, but some other aspect: brand loyalty, effective marketing, superior customer service, or even the old standby of a money-back guarantee.

Companies must appeal to the customer’s needs in order to encourage shopping. Companies who frequently surveyed or engaged customers through blogs or other social networking tools found that customers were more receptive to their products. Personalized service is a primary way to appeal to customers; CRM applications allows companies to keep track of customer preferences and treat them accordingly.

Branding is an important aspect of customer service, and each company should strive to provide an ideal customer experience. No company wants the reputation of being slow, inattentive, inefficient or misinformed. Therefore, companies are seeking new ways to deploy experts in customer service to provide seamless communication and deliver informed answers.

Additionally, businesses are exploring new social networking tools, such as Facebook and Twitter, to improve wait times. There is nothing worse than having a problem, then having to wait 30 minutes or more for someone to address the issue. Customers who do not desire to wait on the phone can initiate an online chat, send an email, or even issue a complaint via Twitter. Many customer service departments have integrated Twitter into their customer service solutions. Therefore, customers may receive a response instantaneously or within several minutes.

Data analysis is very important in determining key accounts, top performers, best sellers, and other important metrics. Each of these reports may be generated easily through customized CRM software. Managers who review this type of data can determine which accounts to pursue to earn the most profits, and which sales people to assign. Top performing sales people can be assigned to the most lucrative accounts to increase the likelihood of the sale being won. Data analysis also allows managers to anticipate a customer’s needs prior to a visit to ask for a sale. When sales people appear informed about the customer’s business, they are more likely to purchase. Both the customer and the sales person benefit from data analysis.

Disney’s Go.com focuses on leisure, recreation, and entertainment. Go.com migrated from editorial content to a search and directory portal. The company was challenged with rebranding itself and driving additional traffic to the site. They decided to change the content of the newsletters to a witty and fun style to capture the attention of the audience. This strategy kept people on the site once they arrived to it from a search engine. Furthermore, they could post messages on the message board in order to provide feedback about improvement to the site.

Many times, customer relationship management is run through the cloud, so that applications can be continually updated, accessed by any authorized user with an Internet connection, and automatically generate reports. This system of capturing data and performing workflows can represent a time- and cost-savings over server-based structures. It’s a great way to integrate a social media campaign into the more traditional CRM practices.