Conventional CRM programs help companies manage sales opportunities of products or jobs that typically end with the deal being either closed or lost.  They may or may not continue to focus on additional sales to individual customers.  The rules of the game are a little bit different for companies that provide professional services. 

For service-based companies, such as financial, legal and consulting businesses, converting a potential customer into a client is only the beginning of what is hoped to be a long term relationship.  Therefore it is important to implement a CRM software program that is designed with the specific needs of services-based companies in mind.  There need to be a focus on tracking client service rather than closing deals.

The following are features that should be taken into consideration in your CRM decision:

Client Support & Service: This feature enables the recording and tracking of all client contacts by e-mail, the web and phone. Additional features may include automatic escalation rules and tools to improve trouble-ticket handling.

Services Item Catalog Creation: This feature allows for the creation of a portfolio of services.  It may include client-specific price levels, discounting rules and preferred-client pricing.

Job/Project Tracking: Tracking allows you to manage and track multiple types of projects or jobs with linked activities that clients, sales, service and support personnel can all view.

Services Sales Management: That can manage the full sales cycle including tracking leads, generating proposals and contracts, forecasting bookings and support resources.

Advanced Calendaring and Activity Time Tracking: Normally this feature allows for sharing calendars, developing schedules and monitoring assets.  It will also let managers track the employee actions on an individual or per-project basis with time-tracked activities (tasks, calls and meeting events).

Self-Service Center: A secure center where clients can track: project status, order history, current quotes, shared documents; knowledge bases, FAQs or submit a trouble ticket.

Document Management: Provides a location to store, organize and transfer documents in different formats. These documents can be published to intranets, corporate web sites or client self-service centers.

Technorati Tags: client support, crm, customer tracking, service business