Method of enhancing customer relationship management content and workflow
Forward-looking sales activities are poorly served by existing Customer Relationship Managements systems, as the customer information those systems maintain by definition does not include the speculatively interested “leads” pursued in initial sales contacts. An Enrichment database, asynchronously loaded with corporate and optionally individual contact information in anticipation of use, provides real-time access to information in support of such first customer contacts. The Enrichment information may also be used to expedite creation and revision of CRM records.
1. A system comprising:
at least one memory storing computer-executable instructions;
at least one processor for executing the instructions stored on the memory, wherein execution of the instructions causes the at least one processor to perform operations comprising:
parsing, utilizing a first candidate uniform resource locator (URL) as a first seed during a first iteration of a parser, a first webpage to identify first web content that includes a parsed URL identified by the parser during the first iteration;
parsing, utilizing the parsed URL as a second seed during a second iteration of the parser, a second webpage to identify second web content that includes entity information of an entity identified by the parser during the second iteration, wherein the entity information includes an email address;
submitting the email address to an external service to retrieve information related to the entity as a response to the email address;
generating enrichment information for storage within a database based upon the entity information and the information from the external service;
detecting a contextual identifier from user activities with content within an application;
querying the database with the contextual identifier to retrieve the enrichment information based upon the contextual identifier being associated with the entity, wherein the querying comprises:
parsing a domain name and an extracted email address from the content as a domain name query term and an extracted email address query term; and
querying corporate enrichment information using the domain name query term and individual enrichment information using the extracted email address query term to retrieve the enrichment information; and
displaying the enrichment information relevant to the user activities.
2. The system of claim 1 , further comprising a customer relationship management (CRM) application, wherein the CRM application maintains data relative to customers, and wherein the database queried by the application is distinct from the CRM application.
3. The system of claim 2 , wherein the application is associated with a user identifier and comprises an email application, and wherein the user identifier is correlated with user access activities within the CRM application.
4. The system of claim 1 , further comprising an enrichment database communicating with the application.
5. The system of claim 4 , wherein at least a portion of the enrichment information retrieved from the enrichment database is obtained independent of user activity within the application.
6. The system of claim 5 , wherein the enrichment database is provided as a web service.
7. The system of claim 4 , wherein the enrichment database responds to queries incorporating the domain name comprising corporate business information relevant to an entity represented by the domain name.
8. The system of claim 4 , wherein the enrichment database responds to queries incorporating email addresses comprising information associated with entities represented by the email addresses.
9. The system of claim 7 , wherein at least a portion of the corporate business information is obtained from public web pages.
10. A computer-implemented method comprising:
parsing, utilizing a first candidate uniform resource locator (URL) as a first seed during a first iteration of a parser, a first webpage to identify first web content that includes a parsed URL identified by the parser during the first iteration;
parsing, utilizing the parsed URL as a second seed during a second iteration of the parser, a second webpage to identify second web content that includes entity information of an entity identified by the parser during the second iteration, wherein the entity information includes an email address;
submitting the email address to an external service to retrieve information related to the entity as a response to the email address;
generating enrichment information for storage within a database based upon the entity information and the information from the external service;
detecting a contextual identifier from user activities with content within an application;
querying the database with the contextual identifier to retrieve the enrichment information based upon the contextual identifier being associated with the entity, wherein the querying comprises:
parsing a domain name and an extracted email address from the content as a domain name query term and an extracted email address query term; and
querying corporate enrichment information using the domain name query term and individual enrichment information using the extracted email address query term to retrieve the enrichment information; and
displaying the enrichment information relevant to the user activities.
11. The method of claim 10 , wherein the enrichment information is offered for user selection from a list.
12. The method of claim 10 , wherein the enrichment information is offered for user selection as an autocompletion option to user data entry.
13. The method of claim 10 , wherein the database is provided as a web service to a CRM system.
14. A method, comprising:
parsing, utilizing a first candidate uniform resource locator (URL) as a first seed during a first iteration of a parser, a first webpage to identify first web content that includes a parsed URL identified by the parser during the first iteration;
parsing, utilizing the parsed URL as a second seed during a second iteration of the parser, a second webpage to identify second web content that includes entity information of an entity identified by the parser during the second iteration, wherein the entity information includes an email address;
submitting the email address to an external service to retrieve information related to the entity as a response to the email address;
generating enrichment information for storage within a database based upon the entity information and the information from the external service;
detecting a contextual identifier from user activities with content within an application;
querying the database with the contextual identifier to retrieve the enrichment information based upon the contextual identifier being associated with the entity, wherein the querying comprises:
parsing a domain name and an extracted email address from the content as a domain name query term and an extracted email address query term; and
querying corporate enrichment information using the domain name query term and individual enrichment information using the extracted email address query term to retrieve the enrichment information; and
displaying the enrichment information relevant to the user activities.
15. The method of claim 14 , comprising:
displaying the enrichment information through a sidebar of a web browser during real-time web browsing by a user.
16. The method of claim 14 , wherein the database comprises a customer relationship management database.
17. The method of claim 14 , comprising:
displaying the enrichment information through a sidebar of a web browser, wherein the enrichment information is populated within a user interface element used to populate information within a customer relationship management database.
18. The method of claim 14 , comprising:
displaying the enrichment information as an auto completion option for user data entry into a customer relationship management database.
19. The method of claim 14 , comprising:
displaying the enrichment information for user data entry into a customer relationship management database.
20. The method of claim 14 , comprising:
displaying the enrichment information through a user interface element used to compose an email to a recipient.