CRM Terminology Glossary
Learn the key terms of CRM, sales, and marketing automation.
Core
CRM (Customer Relationship Management)
Customer Relationship Management system that helps you organize customer data, manage sales processes, and optimize communication.
Sales
Pipeline
Sales pipeline - visual representation of sales process stages where leads move from first contact to deal closure.
Lead
Potential customer who has expressed interest in your product or service.
Kanban Board
Visual board where tasks or leads are displayed as cards that move between columns (stages).
Follow-up
Subsequent contact with a customer after initial interaction - call, email, or message.
Deal
Specific sales opportunity that has value, date, and probability.
Lead Nurturing
Lead nurturing is the consistent development of a relationship with a lead until they are ready to buy: useful content, timely follow-up messages, personalized offers. The goal is to keep the lead from being lost after first contact and move them step by step toward a deal. Nurturing often runs through automated email and SMS sequences.
Cold, Warm and Hot Leads
A classification of leads by buying readiness: a cold lead does not yet know your product or shows minimal interest; a warm lead is familiar and interested but not yet buying; a hot lead is ready to decide and waiting for a concrete offer. This split defines what type of communication and priority each lead needs.
Opportunity Stage
An opportunity stage is the step where a specific deal sits in the sales pipeline: for example, new lead, contacted, proposal sent, negotiation, closed. Stages give the sales process structure - you always see where each deal stands and at which stage most leads are lost.
Upsell / Cross-sell
Upsell is offering an existing customer a higher plan or an upgraded version; cross-sell is selling an additional, complementary product. Both increase customer LTV without extra acquisition cost. In a CRM, purchase history and segmentation help you define exactly who needs which offer.
Invoice
An invoice is a payment request document that tells the customer what service or product to pay for, how much, and by when. In a CRM, creating, sending, and tracking invoice status is automated - you see who has paid and who needs a reminder. This shortens the path from agreement to payment.
AI & Automation
Lead Scoring
Methodology for automatically scoring leads based on various factors (activity, demographics, behavior) to help prioritize prospects.
Automation
Automatic execution of routine tasks: follow-up emails, reminders, lead distribution, stage change triggers.
AI Employee
AI-powered virtual employee that automatically responds to comments and messages, qualifies leads, and moves them to private messages.
Workflow
Automatic sequence of work processes that executes when a certain trigger occurs.
Trigger
Event or condition that causes an automatic action to execute, e.g., new lead creation, stage change.
Chatbot
A chatbot is a program that automatically replies to user messages in chat - on a website, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, or other channels. It runs on predefined scenarios or AI, answers frequent questions, collects contact details, and hands the conversation over to a live employee when needed. A chatbot provides 24/7 communication without waiting.
AI Agent
An AI agent is an artificial intelligence system that completes tasks without human intervention: replying to messages, qualifying leads, booking appointments, and making simple decisions based on context. Unlike a chatbot, an AI agent does not follow a rigid script and steers the conversation with context. In FollowUP, this role is performed by the AI Employee.
Missed Call Text Back
Missed Call Text Back is an automation that instantly sends an automatic SMS to a caller when their call is missed and continues the communication in messaging. This turns a missed call into an active dialogue instead of a lost customer. The feature is especially effective for small businesses where answering every call immediately is physically impossible.
Communication
Unified Inbox
Single interface that combines messages from all channels: Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Email, SMS.
Omnichannel Communication
Omnichannel communication means interacting with a customer across all channels with one continuous history: Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, SMS, Email, phone. A customer can start a conversation on one channel and continue on another without losing context. Unlike multi-channel, omnichannel does not just add channels - it unifies them into a single experience.
WhatsApp Business API
WhatsApp Business API is the official business interface of WhatsApp that lets companies message customers and reply from a CRM or another system instead of the regular app. It enables team collaboration on one number, automated replies, message templates, and saving conversation history on the customer card.
Viber Integration
Viber integration is connecting Viber to a CRM system so customer messages arrive in a unified inbox and conversations are saved in the customer history. In Georgia, Viber is still a popular channel, so connecting it to a CRM lets the team miss no messages and reduce response time.
IVR (Interactive Voice Response)
IVR is an interactive voice menu that automatically greets and routes incoming calls to the right department: one key for sales, another for support. It distributes calls without an operator, reduces waiting time, and records the call route. IVR is often used together with call tracking.
Service
SLA (Service Level Agreement)
Service Level Agreement - for example, maximum response time to customer messages.
Onboarding
Onboarding is the process of getting a new customer or employee up and running in a system: walking through first steps, preparing the account, training, and support until they use the product independently. Good onboarding reduces early customer churn and speeds up time to real value. At FollowUP, onboarding for SaaS plans is free.
Online Booking
Online booking is a system where the customer picks an available time slot in a calendar and books it themselves - from a website, social media, or a link, without calling. The system automatically sends confirmations and reminders, which reduces no-shows. Bookings appear directly in the CRM calendar.
Marketing
Dark Posts
Facebook/Instagram ads that don't appear on your page but show in target audience feeds. Comments are difficult to monitor with traditional methods.
Multi-channel Marketing
Marketing strategy that uses multiple channels simultaneously: email, SMS, social media, paid ads.
Segmentation
Segmentation is dividing your customer base into groups by shared attributes: interests, purchase history, location, activity, or lead source. It lets you send each group a relevant offer instead of the same message to everyone. In a CRM, segments are usually built with tags and filters.
Drip Campaign
A drip campaign is a pre-planned series of messages sent automatically at set intervals to a lead or customer: for example, a welcome email right after signup, a useful tip on day 3, an offer on day 7. The goal is consistent communication without manual sending. Drip campaigns typically combine email and SMS.
A/B Testing
A/B testing is a method where you show two variants of one element (for example, two headlines, two buttons, or two offers) to different parts of your audience at the same time and measure which performs better. The winning variant stays. This way you make decisions based on data, not assumptions.
Landing Page
A landing page is a web page built for one specific goal, where a visitor arrives from an ad or link. Its job is a single action - filling out a form, booking, or buying. Unlike a regular website, a landing page has minimal navigation so the visitor does not get distracted from the goal. It is often connected to a CRM to measure conversion.
SMS Marketing
SMS marketing is communicating with customers via text messages: promotions, reminders, follow-up messages, and status updates. SMS open rates far exceed email because a message on the phone is read within seconds. Effective SMS marketing requires the recipient's consent, precise segmentation, and moderate frequency.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is communicating with customers and leads by email: newsletters, promotions, drip campaigns, and personalized offers. It is one of the highest-ROI channels because the audience belongs to you, not to a platform. Results are measured by open, click, and conversion rates.
Reputation Management
Reputation management is the systematic monitoring and improvement of online reviews (Google, Facebook): automatically requesting reviews from satisfied customers, responding to negative feedback in time, and tracking rating growth. A high rating directly increases trust and attracts new customers, especially in local search.
Analytics
Conversion Rate
Percentage of leads that convert into customers.
KPI (Key Performance Indicator)
Key Performance Indicator - metric that measures progress toward goals, e.g., number of closed deals, average deal value.
Churn Rate
Customer loss rate - percentage of customers who stop using your service.
ROI (Return on Investment)
Return on Investment - how much profit each spent currency unit brought you.
LTV (Lifetime Value)
LTV is the total revenue one customer brings you over the entire period of working with them. For example, if a customer pays 100 GEL per month and stays an average of 24 months, their LTV is 2400 GEL. LTV helps you decide how much is worth spending to acquire a customer and which segment is most valuable.
CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost)
CAC is the average cost of acquiring one new customer: total marketing and sales spend divided by the number of customers acquired. For example, if you spent 1000 GEL on ads in a month and gained 10 customers, CAC is 100 GEL. For a healthy business, LTV should significantly exceed CAC.
Retention
Retention is the metric and strategy of keeping existing customers: what share of customers continue using your service after a given period. Keeping an existing customer is significantly cheaper than acquiring a new one, so high retention directly increases profit. It improves with quality onboarding, regular communication, and timely support.
Call Tracking
Call tracking is a system that records every incoming and outgoing call: who called, which ad they came from, whether the team answered, and how the conversation ended. Calls can be recorded for quality control. As a result, you see exactly which marketing channel brings phone leads.
Dashboard
A dashboard is a visual panel that shows your key business metrics on one screen: new leads, sales pipeline, revenue, team activity. Instead of digging through spreadsheets, you assess the situation in seconds and spot problems early. A good dashboard updates in real time and shows only the metrics that matter.
Reporting
Reporting is the regular collection of data and its presentation as reports: sales dynamics, conversion by stage, employee results, marketing channel effectiveness. Unlike a dashboard, a report summarizes a specific period and analyzes trends. Automated reporting eliminates manual counting.
Sales Forecast
A sales forecast is an estimate of expected revenue based on pipeline data: the value of open deals multiplied by their probability of closing by stage. For example, a 10,000 GEL deal at 50% probability appears in the forecast as 5,000 GEL. An accurate forecast helps you plan resources and set realistic goals.
CRM
Customer 360° View
Complete customer view - entire history, all interactions, orders, preferences in one place.
Tag
A tag is a label you assign to a contact or deal for categorization: for example, "VIP", "from Instagram", "asked about pricing". One contact can have several tags. Tags are used for segmentation, filtering, and launching automations - for example, assigning a specific tag can trigger an automated campaign.
Custom Field
A custom field is a user-created field in a CRM that adds business-specific information to the standard fields (name, phone, email): for example, car model for an auto service or date of birth for a clinic. Custom fields are used in filtering, automation, and personalized messages.
Smart List
A smart list is a dynamic list of contacts that updates automatically based on predefined filters: for example, "leads active in the last 30 days with the Instagram tag". Unlike a regular list, contacts are added or removed automatically as they match the conditions. Smart lists are used for segmentation and targeted campaigns.
Technical
Webhook
A webhook is a mechanism by which one system automatically notifies another about an event in real time: for example, when a form is filled on your website, a webhook instantly sends the data to your CRM. Unlike an API, where you request data yourself, a webhook pushes information as soon as the event happens. It is the foundation of integrations.
API (Application Programming Interface)
An API is an interface through which one program receives data from another, sends data to it, or uses its functions. For example, with a CRM API you can automatically create contacts from your website, pass data to an external system, or connect your own application. An API is the standard way to link systems, and most integrations are built on it.
Integration
Integration is connecting two or more systems so data flows between them automatically: for example, Facebook leads land directly in your CRM and payments show up in your accounting. Integration eliminates manual data transfer and the errors it causes. It is implemented with ready-made connectors, APIs, or webhooks.
CRM Migration
CRM migration is moving data from one system to another: contacts, deals, history, tags, and documents. A successful migration includes data cleaning, correct field mapping, a test transfer, and verification of the result. A well-planned migration does not stop business processes and loses no data.
Security
Data Protection (GDPR)
GDPR is the European Union data protection regulation that defines how you must collect, store, and process personal data. In Georgia, the Law on Personal Data Protection regulates the same area. In a CRM context this means customer consent for communication, secure data storage, and the right to deletion.
Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)
Two-factor authentication (2FA) is a security method that requires a second confirmation along with the password when logging in: an SMS code, an authenticator app, or another factor. Even if the password is stolen, an attacker cannot access the account without the second factor. In a CRM, 2FA is the minimum standard for protecting customer data.
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