CRM or Customer Relationship Management Software helps organizations to improve their sales and customer relationships. It automates or streamline business processes within the organization. There are two common types of CRM software: 1) Sales Force Automation 2) Customer Service/Support.

Sales Force Automation
Sales Force Automation (SFA) solutions are designed to help organizations manage their sales processes. Most SFA packages have very basic functionality and do little more than help a sales executive organize their sales contacts. However, there is an emerging class of SFA solutions that have robust features which help facilitate the entire sales process. These solutions empower both the front line sales representative as well as sales management. A true SFA system will help simplify a sales executive's day by taking on the burden of many tedious tasks like gathering, categorizing and distributing sales leads. Sales management also benefits by using a full-featured SFA with the ability to view, forecast and report on the entire sales pipeline as well as measure the performance of each sales rep.

Customer Service/Support(CSS) solutions are designed to help facilitate customer interactions with support representatives. CSS helps by automating customer incidents originating as service requests, complaints and other types of information requests. A best-of-breed CSS will allow a customer care representative access to all customer interactions - appointments, tasks, notes, email, inbound and outbound calls - in a single location, and are automatically linked to specific contacts and company details related to a customer service incident. Through quicker incident resolution, an organization is better able to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.