Here are my thoughts/plans for a WordPress-based CRM type site. My needs above regular web-based message are basically the reply to email feature in Basecamp. Each time I've tried something else, that is what folks complain about, because they live out of their inbox. When I was poking around Mailgun I noticed one of their clients was 37 Signals, and it all clicked together.
Since I use todo.txt for, um, "task management", I really just need a communication platform to capture messages (especially useful, since I delete mail when I've processed it; inbox/archive 0!). I need a place to do group discussion, and a place to do the occasional mail blast to large segments of my client base.
The recipe is WordPress + Gravity Forms + Pods + Mailgun post hooks + some other odds and ends as mortar.
Custom post types for:
- Folks - Basic contact info, basically name and email, and then tags for sorting (web hosted, email hosted, dns hosted, network-name, etc). I use the tags for sending out notices ("the solanin network is being upgraded next week").
- Discussion - A place for people to discuss and collaboration; it has always bothered me that I can work with multiple clients to solve a common problem. Well, I plan on being able to.
- Tickets (but called something else that sounds more friendly) - When someone has a specific, time-senstive, or private matter that needs fixin'.
I plan to build this as part of my support site that also hold the knowledge base, of which articles will be added as I answer questions, and can be updated through collaboration with the folks that actually use them. This is part of my social documentation idea.