There can be so much going on in the world today that it’s sometimes hard to keep track. So imagine how difficult it would be to track what’s going on throughout the galaxy. That’s the problem Admiral Ackbar was having until he began using CRM.me and its flexible Account to Contact Affiliations feature.
See how Account to Contact Affiliations can help you get a better hold on who is doing what outside of your organization.
Most of the time, like the Admiral, you will be dealing with Contacts who are associated to one Account at a time. For example Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia and Han Solo all work for the Rebel Alliance. This simple one to many relationship is common in CRM systems, including CRM.me. It represents a Contacts “primary” Account. Typically these Contacts would be direct employees of this Account.
But what do you do if an individual Contact is associated to more than one Account?
Galactic Problem
Despite being a General in the Rebel Alliance, Han Solo also does some smuggling on the side for the Jabba the Hutt Trading to earn a few extra credits. Admiral Ackbar wanted to show this relationship in his Galactic CRM.
Traditional CRMs would require that he create a duplicate Contact record for Han Solo and relate it to Jabba the Hutt Trading. Fortunately for the Admiral, Zurmo allows for secondary affiliations between a Contact and multiple Accounts.
By adding the “Account Affiliations” portlet to the Contact layout, he was able to create and view relationships that Han Solo has with other Account records in his CRM.
The Account Affiliations portlet on the Contact record will display all affiliated Accounts for the Contact. A check-box indicates the Contact’s Primary Account. The reverse can also be seen on the Account record by adding the Contact Affiliations portlet.
Even if your company’s needs are more terrestrial the Contact to Account affiliations are a useful way of tracking secondary relationships that can exist between Contacts and Accounts. If you have a large reseller for your products, for example, then you can now track which account managers at your reseller represent each end customer Account.
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