The American Psychological Association (APA) is the leading scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States, with more than 133,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants, and students as its members. Its mission is to promote the advancement, communication, and application of psychological science and knowledge to benefit society and improve lives.
Historically, the association’s organizational customer, member, and prospect data was held in two different systems: a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system and a separate Fulfillment and Invoicing system. Orders and activities, such as memberships, contracts, and publication holdings, were held at many different levels within an organization, from, the top-level, e.g., a university, down to the various departments and affiliates within the university. This complexity meant that the association had difficulty determining relationships common to both systems and prevented it from having a much-needed holistic view of its customers and prospects.
To address this challenge, the APA set out on a project to bring its systems together so that all data would be connected and easily accessible for internal users — and to create a centralized data entry point so that accounts would not be duplicated moving forward.
It is much easier for users to see the holistic view of that customer because now data is all in one place.
