Overview of CRM system types: operational, analytical, and collaborative CRM

“Operational CRM saves hours in the sales funnel, analytical CRM adds forecasting to actions, and collective CRM brings departments together into one team,” emphasizes Yevhen  Kasyanenko, an expert at KISS Software.

Next, together with Yevhen, we will talk in more detail about the types of Customer Relationship Management.

Operational CRM – business and sales automation

If your managers still keep customer data in Excel and messengers, operational CRM will solve the problem in a month. It will take care of the routine, reduce the communication channel to a single window, and show where the funnel is slowing down.

Key features of operational CRM

The system assigns tasks to the customer so that no stage is missed:

• Sales under control. The deal moves through the stages, reminders about calls and invoices are automatic, and revenue forecasts are visible in real time.
• Marketing without chaos. Database segmentation, mailings, and conversion rate calculation in a single panel.
• Faster service. Tickets, auto-replies, and request histories—support specialists see the entire context and resolve issues in a single call.

“The more cumbersome the transaction cycle, the more noticeable the time savings. One of our e-commerce clients saw their average order processing time reduced by 28%,” recalls Yevhen Kasyanenko.

Who is operational CRM suitable for?

Before choosing a platform, it is important to understand what daily tasks it should cover. Below are three scenarios in which operational CRM delivers maximum results:

• Online retail, whether it is a marketplace or a proprietary online store. Orders are pulled from all storefronts into a single log, delivery statuses are updated automatically, and correspondence with the customer is stored directly in the purchase card. Is the courier late? The manager sees the delay in the system and notifies the buyer before they have time to write to support chat.
• Service companies — from cleaning to engineering visits. CRM assigns technicians based on location and workload, issues work checklists, and monitors SLA compliance. The manager opens the dashboard and in a minute understands where the problem is and who can be called in for backup.
• B2B sales departments with long deal cycles. Commercial offers, approvals, follow-up reminders — everything is recorded by stage. The system prompts when it’s time to update the KP and when to return to the customer with an upsell. Potential repeat sales are not lost due to human error.

“Operational CRM turns routine into a well-oiled process. Fewer manual errors, faster feedback, and a transparent picture of the team’s workload. That’s why we at KISS Software call such a project an investment, not an expense—it pays for itself in increased speed and quality of service in the first year,” emphasizes Yevhen Kasyanenko.

Analytical CRM—data as the key to business growth

Gathering information is easy, but turning it into action is more difficult. Analytical CRM answers why customers are leaving, where margins are falling, and which segment will bring in money tomorrow.

What analytical CRM gives you—a few specifics

When all customer data is collected in a single control center, the company begins to see the whole picture, rather than fragments.

What changes after implementation:

• One dashboard instead of a dozen reports. The website, telephony, messengers, and offline cash registers converge into a common repository, and the manager can see the contact history in two clicks.
• The system itself highlights at which stage leads are lost and how much money is wasted—no need to guess where the gap is.
• Forecasting based on ML models. Algorithms assess the chance of a deal and suggest personalized actions: from call reminders to targeted discounts.

“We often see companies saving on discounts by simply removing guesswork from the process. Analytics shows who really needs the incentive and who doesn’t,” explains our expert.

We would add from experience that after connecting the analytics module, a fashion retail chain, which is one of our clients, reduced its promotional budget by 15% while maintaining turnover—only customers with a low probability of purchasing without an incentive received personal bonuses.

Who uses analytical CRM?

If it is important for a business to reduce the cost of acquisition and increase repeat sales, analytical CRM is now indispensable, because manual reports simply cannot keep up with the speed of the market. It will be useful for:

• Marketers – for accurate segmentation, LTV calculation, and quick assessment of the effectiveness and ROI of advertising campaigns.
• CFOs – to understand the real profitability of each segment and forecast cash flow more accurately.
• Product teams – A/B testing, heat maps, and behavioral metrics help you make decisions based on data, not intuition.

Collaborative CRM: Interaction without barriers

In large companies, customer requests rarely follow a straight path. The sales manager needs marketing data, the support team needs to see the details of the deal, and the partner needs to see the current status of the order. If these links are not connected, the customer feels disconnected and leaves. Collaborative CRM bridges this gap by creating a shared screen for all participants in the process.

What does this approach offer in practice?

• A unified customer profile. Every interaction—from the first lead to repeat purchases—is stored in a single file. Any employee can see the full context and doesn’t have to ask the customer to “tell the whole story again.”
• Online data exchange. Integration with corporate messengers, email, and internal chats means that comments on a deal immediately appear for colleagues. Automatic notifications (new task, changed status, overdue deadline) save time on phone calls.
• Joint projects with external partners. Branches, dealers, and franchisees only have access to their part of the data, but they work in the same system. The manager sees a real-time summary of the network: sales, balances, service KPIs.

“Collaborative CRM is people and information without unnecessary barriers. The faster data moves from department to department, the higher customer satisfaction,” explains Yevhen Kasyanenko.

The more complex the chain of interaction, the higher the value of collaborative CRM. It speeds up service cycles and makes the customer experience equally high-quality at every stage.

Collective CRM: Well-coordinated teamwork

A large company has dozens of points of contact. Without a common platform, data gets scattered, and customers hear different tones in each department. Collective CRM builds a bridge between sales, marketing, and service.

Key features of collective CRM

The system ensures that every employee can see the customer’s entire journey:

• Single card. All emails, calls, invoices, and tickets in a single timeline.
• Corporate chats and mentions. Once a deal detail has been discussed, a record is saved in the card for colleagues to refer back to.
• Automatic task routes. The deal has gone to the service—the CRM will create a ticket and assign a responsible person.

What companies are suited to collective CRM?

A collective format is needed when a single manager can no longer handle the entire history of communication with a customer, and the deal travels between departments and branches. More specifically, CRM will be useful in the following cases:

• Networks with a distributed geography. Retail franchises, service points, or regional warehouses—everyone sees the same data, so the customer hears the same answers.
• Multilayered processes. If the order path looks like this: reception—production—delivery—after-sales service, collective CRM passes the request on without losing context. Each stage is marked automatically, and the person responsible receives a reminder.
• Businesses with strict communication standards. Banks, telecoms, medical technology—it is important that letters, calls, or chat messages follow a single script. The system stores templates and contact history, so instructions are always at hand.

“When there are many departments, manual tables turn into a broken telephone. Collective CRM eliminates this noise and saves hours on coordination,” explains Yevhen Kasyanenko.

If the customer journey crosses several teams or cities, and the speed of information transfer determines the deal, then collective CRM becomes an essential part of the infrastructure.

How to choose the right CRM?

Before leafing through solution catalogs, we at KISS Software always ask our customers to answer three simple questions:

• What business processes are currently slowing things down: are leads being lost, deals dragging on for weeks, departments not sharing customer information?
• Are there plans to expand geographically, connect marketplaces, or open new branches?
• What programs should the CRM be compatible with: accounting, warehousing, telephony, analytics?

Clear answers immediately set the direction and eliminate half of the unnecessary options.

If you are unsure which type of system to choose, our team has made a selection that will help you:

• Operational CRM removes routine tasks, records requests, sets service tasks, and helps online stores track orders without Excel spreadsheets.
• Analytical CRM collects data from websites, emails, and calls and turns it into understandable numbers.
• Collective CRM builds a unified information field, which is useful for networks, holding companies, and companies where customers interact with several departments.

Once you understand what is most important to you, it becomes easier to narrow down your search.

“Don’t chase after the most powerful CRM. It’s better to choose one that solves 80% of your tasks right away and painlessly grows to the remaining 20%,” reminds Yevhen Kasyanenko.

We start with a brief audit of processes, select two or three suitable solutions, and deploy a test bench so that the sales department can try out the system in real life. After approval, we connect telephony, warehouse, and reporting, conduct training, and remain on support. We add new modules and build dashboards as the company grows.

Conclusion

When a properly configured CRM appears in a company, it quickly ceases to be just another IT project. The customer relationship management system becomes the very desktop at which the sales, marketing, and support departments sit. Each of them sees their own tasks, but works in the general context of customer focus.

“A good CRM doesn’t complicate work — it removes noise. Our task is to give businesses exactly that kind of tool,” emphasizes Yevhen Kasyanenko.

Instead of scattered spreadsheets and chats, you have a single system that guides the customer from the first contact to repeat purchases, shows in numbers where the company is making money and where it is losing money, and grows along with the business. Want the same order in your company? Write to us, and we will restore control over sales and communications in the next quarter!