There are several ways that follow-up activities may be created:
As a pre-programmed function that occurs within Vision. For example, if you enter orders for new customers, follow-up activities could automatically be added to your follow-up queue to remind you to call them a few days later to make sure they received their orders and they were happy with the service. This type of follow-up is based on best business practices and is a type of customer relationship management (CRM) event. CRM events are activated from the Event screen on the CRM Management tab.
As a marketing campaign, such as Fall02. Marketing campaigns can be set up to target specific customers. For example, you might want to create follow-up activities for your sales staff, directing them to contact all customers that have purchased toner cartridges but not paper. Marketing campaigns can also be activated from the Event screen on the CRM Management tab.
For an unresolved order processing issue, such as a credit hold, a price hold, an operator hold, or an open quote. If you enter a quote, for example, Vision will create a follow-up activity for you to you to remind you to check back with the customer later to convert the quote into a standard order.
You can create a follow-up activity and route it to yourself and other users. This follow-up can be any type of message or reminder that may or may not be associated with a customer. For example, upon learning that a key customer is about to be purchased by another customer, a CSR may create a follow-up activity to alert the account sales representative and to post the note into the customer's Recent Transactions log. Or a sales person might create a follow-up activity for a CSR after a sales call, requesting follow-up on a particular credit return problem. The Recent Transaction log shows a history of all interaction with customers, and this log is centrally visible to everyone in the organization.