Collaborative CRM is an approach to customer relationship management (CRM) in which the various departments of a company, such as sales, technical support, and marketing, share any information they collect from interactions with customers. For example, customer feedback gathered from a technical support session could inform marketing staff about products and services that might be of interest to the customer. The purpose of collaboration is to improve the quality of customer service, and, as a result, increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. ¹⁾

Collaborative CRM is separated in two dimensions:

• The interaction of all persons that are involved in the process. The collaboration can be within the company and of course across organizational boundaries.
• Integration focuses on the links between software and interfaces.

Collaborative CRM is a component that is based on established CRM components. There are a lot of different types of CRM that are using collaboration features. For example:

• Communicative CRM
• Operational CRM
• Analytical CRM
• Social CRM
• Mobile CRM

The trend is that there are more collaborative and communicative functions as collaborative and analytical. New collaborative elements can be assigned to any existing component. These are classified in pure collaborative CRM. For example, the cross-company interaction is such a concept. Thus, collaborative CRM is not just a stand-alone component, but extends every single established CRM components with new opportunities. ²⁾

Collaborative CRM data is culled and shared to implement strategic, product and customer analysis from cross-departmental customer interactions through chat, websites, email and voice response systems, while supporting a number of back office processes, like billing, invoicing, marketing, advertising, finance and planning.

Opportunities of Collaborative CRM could be:

• Identifying of customer service cost reduction opportunities
• Collecting of data to create an enhanced customer service overview
• Facilitation of customer-channel interaction

CRM software can be described as collaborative CRM software if it meets the definition of collaborative CRM. The real-time integration of collaborative functions differentiates collaborative CRM systems of traditional CRM software.

The enhanced interaction and management of new communication channels is always a key issue in collaborative CRM. Four types of communication are distinguished. The criteria here are the room (same, different place) and time (same, different time).³⁾

The following two combinations are relevant to the CRM

• in different places at the same time and
• in different places at different times.

Collaborative CRM systems must provide to support these new technologies and communication functions.

Following there are a few examples of Collaborative CRM Systems that meet the definitions:

• Sugar CRM (http://www.sugarcrm.com/)
• SAP 360 Customer (http://www.sap.com/lines-of-business/sales/sap-360-customer/index.epx)
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM (http://www.microsoft.com/de-de/dynamics/default.aspx)
• Sage CRM (http://www.sage.de/smb/prodloes/sage_crm/)

Janssen, Cory. “Collaborative CRM (CCRM).” Thesis. Edmonton, Alberta Canada, 2012.

Meyer, Matthias: CRM-Systeme mit EAI: Konzeption, Implementierung und Evaluation. 1. Aufl., Wiesbaden : Vieweg Verlag, 2002.

Gross, Tom; Herczeg, Michael; Koch, Michael: Computer-Supported Cooperative Work. München : Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag GmbH, 2007.