---
title: Get Personal With Your CRM (Customer Relationship Management) System
description: The CRM allows you to easily manage every aspect of your store's emaildelivery, storage, replies, addresses, and much more.
---
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# Get Personal With Your CRM (Customer Relationship Management) System
The CRM allows you to easily manage every aspect of your store's email delivery, storage, replies, addresses, and much more.
**Setting Up Your CRM**
Before using the CRM, you have to configure it in two ways:
- Departments the CRM will sort emails into
- Connecting the CRM to one or more store email accounts.
Once a customer sends an email to an address associated with the CRM, the CRM will collect that message and process it according to the settings you assign.
### Configuring CRM Departments
One of the functions of the CRM is to filter incoming mail. You can set up rules so that the CRM directs incoming mail sent to various accounts to different departments within the CRM. For example, email sent to [sales@abc123.com](mailto:sales@abc123.com), [returns@abc123.com](mailto:returns@abc123.com), and [bobsmith@abc123.com](mailto:bobsmith@abc123.com) might be sent to one department; [questions@abc123.com](mailto:questions@abc123.com) and [setup@abc123.com](mailto:setup@abc123.com) to another; and so on.
First, you need to create departments within the CRM. The system can host up to 40 different departments and each one can be tied to one active email account associated with your store.
1. From your Admin Area, go to **Customers** \> **CRM System**.
2. Click **Manage Departments**.
3. Click **Add** near the top of the page to begin creating a new department.
4. Enter a **Private Name** and a **Public Name** for each department. The **Private Name** will be the name the department is referred to within the CRM and is visible only to administrators. The **Public Name** will be seen by customers who send or receive emails to or from your store.
5. Click **Save**.
You may want to create various departments to specifically address certain types of inbound and outbound messages - Sales, Returns, Customer Service, Support, etc.
Once you've created departments, you can connect your email account(s) to the CRM!
### Configuring CRM Mail Settings
To configure the CRM with one or more email accounts, do the following:
1. Go to **Customers** \> **CRM System**.
2. Click the **POP3 Settings** tab.
3. Click Add to add a new email account to the system.
4. Configure the email account settings for your store. The settings are covered below.
5. Click Save when you're finished creating the email rule.
Repeat this process to connect multiple email accounts to the CRM! Here are some terms you may want to know when filling out the information in this section:
- **ID** (the auto-generated ID for the CRM).
- **Email Address** (the live email account to be associated with the CRM).
- **Email Username** (the name used to log into the email account itself).
- **Email server** (The email server name that hosts the mail account. If the mail account is a Volusion-hosted mail account, the server name will be secure.emailsrvr.com.)
- **Ticket Type** (assigns departments to an email account setting).
- **Email Reply Footer** (create an automatically-generated footer for any response from this CRM).
- **Auto-Reply Subject** (creates an automatic subject for any message sent through this CRM).
- **Auto-Reply Body** (creates an automatic email reply from the the CRM).
**Viewing a Ticket**
Once your departments and email accounts are configured, you can start receiving messages! Administrators can view or reply to email messages from the **CRM System** page in the Admin Area. Here are a few details about how the page works:
- Messages logged in the CRM are referred to as tickets.
- Newly created tickets within are assigned ticket numbers that identify the ticket to both administrators and customers.
- Each ticket represents a record of correspondence between a customer and your store.
- Any replies to a ticket will be logged in the ticket history, including replies from customers.
- Viewing ticket contents will display the entire ticket's history of messages, notes, and replies.
Here's some additional information you may want to know about certain fields on your CRM tickets:
- **Action Item Due Date** (Any ticket that has had an action item scheduled for it will have the action item and due date listed in this column.)
- **Ticket Classification** (If CRM administrators have configured ticket classifications within their system, any classification assigned to a ticket will be displayed here)
- **Locked By** (Each ticket has the ability to be reserved by an administrator with access to the CRM. This field will display the name of any administrator that has claimed the ticket!)
Once you click on a ticket number to view its content, which includes **Customer Information** and a history of **Ticket Correspondence**.
### Ticket Correspondence
This area contains the majority of controls for a ticket. Here are some sections you'll want to be familiar with!
- **Department** (the administrator-defined department the ticket was delivered to or created in).
- **Status** (Each ticket is assigned one of three different values in this field. **Open** tickets are waiting on replies from CRM administrators. **Closed** tickets have received replies. **On Hold** tickets remain within the CRM, logged under the administrator account that placed the ticket on hold.)
- **Add Notes** (add anonymous notes to a ticket).
- **Notify Me When Solution Is Found** (automatically email the administrator the next time the ticket receives a response).
- **Link to Ticket** (add additional notes and attach files to a ticket).
**Replying to a Ticket**
Inside a ticket's settings page, CRM administrators can **Post a Reply** to the ticket. Here, a reply email message can be created and sent by the CRM. You can also add a private note to the ticket the contents of which will not be emailed and will only be viewable by those with access to the CRM page!
### Action Items
CRM administrators can also add action items to ticket replies. To do so, just click **Add Follow-Up** in the ticket reply area. From here, enter a follow-up action - plus a deadline - using the text box and menus provided!
Creating a New Ticket
To create a new ticket, take the following steps:
1. At **Customers** \> **CRM System**, click **Add**.
2. Fill in the **Enter Email Address** field with the customer's email address.
3. Select the **Department** that should receive the question
4. Fill in the **Subject** field.
5. Click **Create New Ticket**
6. If you have created classifications, choose the appropriate selection from the **Classification** drop-down menu.
7. Type your email in the **Body** field.
8. Click **Post**.
Congrats: you've created a new CRM ticket!
**Customizing Your CRM Account**
Like most email or content management systems, the CRM lets you get a little more personal with customization. Here are some ways you can make it your own.
### My Departments
Depending on your business, you may need to manage a few departments, or you may have many departments to oversee. Here's how you can edit them on your CRM:
- Click the three-dot actions menu icon and select **Customize My Departments**
- Select the department you want to add to your **My Departments** group and click **Apply Changes**.
### Changing CRM Views
Want to view your tickets differently? Easy!
- Display tickets of a certain status or department by selecting an option from the **Filter** drop-down menu
- View tickets you have locked by selecting **My Tickets**
- Take a look at tickets you have flagged for notification under **Solutions To Review**
- Additionally, the **Departments** drop-down menu will show you a list of tickets within each CRM department!
### Signatures
You can set up email signatures that will automatically be posted to a ticket reply. To edit them, just take the following steps:
1. Go to **Customers** \> **CRM System**.
2. Click the ID number of any CRM ticket.
3. Below the **Body** text box, click **Add Signature**, then click **List All**.
4. On the **CRM: Signatures** page, click the **Add** button.
5. Enter the ID of the administrator account the signature will be configured for.
6. Enter a title for the signature (for example, "My Default Signature").
7. Enter the actual signature content into the **Body** field.
8. If this signature is to be the default signature for the administrator's replies, select **Make This My Default.**
9. Click **Save**.
You can create as many signatures as you need.
**Advanced Settings**
Volusion has some advanced features that will allow administrators to really dig in to their CRM. Read on if you want to learn more!
### Audit Reps
Administrators can use the **Audit Reps** link to monitor and verify the responses that store agents and representatives have issued through the CRM.
1. Go to **Customers** \> **CRM System**.
2. Click on the **Audit Reps** tab near the top of the page.
3. Choose a name from the **Representative** drop-down menu.
4. Enter a start and end date, hours, and minutes to define the period of time the audit will cover, or leave these fields blank to audit the entire history of replies issued by a representative.
5. Click **Submit** to generate the report.
Once the **Audit Reps** report is generated, a list of all information created by the representative during the period of time defined will be displayed.
### Ticket Classifications
You can also assign classifications to CRM tickets based on common issues that may occur, such as customer complaints, returns, etc. Essentially, these are labels that you can use to further classify your system's tickets however you'd like!
1. Click on the **Ticket Classifications** tab near the top of the page.
2. Click **Add** and assign the classification a name.
3. In the **Ticket Types** menu, select the departments that administrators will be able to assign the classification to.
4. When finished, click **Save**.
Any number of classifications can be created or assigned. Once configured, assign any ticket classification within a ticket's content page.
### Inbound Rules
Volusion's CRM lets you create **Inbound Rules**: rules that affect different types of incoming email delivered through the CRM.
### Creating an Inbound Rule
The following steps will allow administrators to create an **Inbound Rule** within their CRM:
1. Go **to Customers** \> **CRM System** and select the **Inbound Rules** tab.
2. Click **Add** to create a new rule.
3. Enter values into the 5 fields and click **Save**.
Here are some terms you'll want to know for the various fields:
- **Field** (the portion of an email message an inbound rule will apply to).
- **Operator (**This drop-down menu defines how the rule will search the email to compare and contrast email content with the rule's criteria. Specify the rule to search for text that begins with, ends with, contains, or is an exact match for the criteria entered into the **Value** field..)
- **Value** (The actual value the rule will search for within the portion of the email defined in the **Field** drop-down menu. The rule will compare this value with an email's content based on the operator chosen.)
- **Action** (If the rule finds a match between an email's content and the rules '**Value**, this drop-down menu will define the action the rule will apply to the email. Rules can move a ticket to a different department, close the ticket or delete it from the system.)
- **Department** (If the **Move To Dept** option was chosen in the **Action** menu, specify the department the ticket will be automatically moved to by selecting it from the **Department** drop-down menu.)
### Tips and Special Settings
#### Grouping Customers
If you have customers who are associated in some way and would like to be able to view all their tickets at the same time, you can use **Customer Groups**.
1. From your Admin Area, go to **Customers** \> **Accounts**.
2. Click on the ID number of the first customer you want to assign to a group.
3. Under the **Optional Fields** section, click the **View All** link next to the **ID Customers Groups** field to open the Customer Groups page.
4. Click **Add**.
5. Enter a number in the **Group Title** field and click **Save**.
6. Go back to the **Manage Customer Accounts** page and add each customer that you want in this group by entering the number in the **ID Customers Group** field and clicking **Save**.
Now, whenever you view the tickets for a customer from a customer's page, tickets for all the customers in the same group will be displayed.
### Batch Processing Tickets
Knock lots of tickets out at once with batch processing! Within the main CRM System table view, each ticket listed in the table will have a checkbox to the left of its ticket number. Click this checkbox to group specific tickets into a batch.
Once a batch has been grouped, choose a batch option from the **Batch Action** menu above the table.
From here, you can to transfer all tickets in the batch to a specific department, change the status of all tickets in the batch or delete the batch outright.
Once a batch and action have been chosen, click the **Save** button to execute the action upon the chosen tickets in the batch.
### Using Contact Forms
The Volusion CRM is designed to operate in a plain text only environment. Therefore, it is not recommended to use the CRM with any type of Contact Form. The HTML code from the form will not be carried over to the CRM and information may not display in the correct format.
**Summary**
The Volusion CRM is a comprehensive email management system within a comprehensive management system. Meta, right? This means you have the power of a full-featured, web-based email client at your fingertips, which you can use to keep communication between store representatives and customers running smoothly.
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