Order Capture & Hand-off

Where CRM stops and commercial order management starts: basket to order, the point of no return, and getting the router and SIM to the customer.

At checkout the customer’s choice becomes a product order. This is the hand-off that decides most of what happens next, and the one where responsibilities most often blur. CRM and the web shop capture and confirm the order; commercial order management (COM) owns it from the moment it is submitted. Devices and SIMs then have to reach the customer, which brings in the warehouse and ERP.

One consumer order, end to end

Home fibre plus a SIM-only mobile line, ordered online by a new customer.

Fibre and a SIM, from basket to delivery

Basket

TMF663

Fibre and a mobile line in the basket, the address already checked as serviceable and the offers checked as eligible.

Checks pass

TMF696 / KYC

Credit approved; identity verified for the SIM. Results and their references are attached to the basket.

Order submitted

TMF622 → COM

Checkout creates one product order with two items. From here COM is the system of record; CRM shows the order and its status.

Contract recorded

TMF651

Minimum term and any early-termination charge recorded as an agreement, so billing and future changes can read it.

Decomposition

TMF641

COM splits the order: the fibre goes to service order management and a field installation; the mobile line to activation.

Shipping

TMF700 / ERP

A shipping order sends the router and the SIM from the warehouse. Stock is reserved at checkout so the order cannot be promised a device that is not there.

Completion

TMF637

The router’s serial number and the SIM’s ICCID are recorded against the customer’s products. The order completes, the installed base is updated, billing starts.

Where CRM stops and COM starts

	CRM / channel	COM
Before submission	Owns the basket and the conversation	—
At submission	Sends the order; keeps the order number against the customer and the interaction	Validates and accepts or rejects it
In flight	Shows status, read from COM events	Owns status, amendments and cancellation
Point of no return	Tells the customer what can still change	Decides it, and refuses amendments after it
Completion	Shows what the customer now has, read from product inventory	Closes the order and updates product inventory

Point of no return

The moment after which an order can no longer be simply amended or cancelled — usually when work has started in the network or a device has shipped. Before it, the customer can change their mind and the order is altered. After it, undoing the order means a new order: a cease, a return, a refund. COM decides where the point is; CRM must read it, not assume it.

The order itself — validation, decomposition, orchestration — is covered in Section 7.2. This section is only about the hand-off.

Logistics: devices, SIMs and returns

Stock is checked before it is promised. The basket asks whether a handset or router is available (TMF687 Stock Management); without that, orders are taken for devices that are out of stock and wait unseen.
Shipping is its own order. A shipping order (TMF700) goes to the warehouse or a logistics partner; its tracking comes back separately (TMF684). In a store, collection reduces store stock instead.
The device is linked to the product. The serial number, IMEI or ICCID is recorded against the product instance. Without that link, a fault, a return or a stolen-phone block cannot be traced to the right customer.
Returns go backwards through the same chain. A cancelled order after shipping needs a return, a stock receipt and a refund, which is why the point of no return is often the dispatch of the device.

Anti-pattern: CRM holding order state

The order lives in CRM, and COM gets a copy

Order status, amendments and cancellations are kept in CRM objects because that is where agents work, and COM — or a set of fulfilment scripts — receives updates from CRM.

Why organisations choose it: the CRM project starts first, and storing the order where the agent sees it looks simpler than integrating with COM.
What must hold true for it to work: orders never change after submission, and only one channel ever submits them.
How it fails: an amendment made in CRM after the point of no return is accepted on screen but never happens in the network; the app and the agent show different statuses.
Long-term cost: every channel added later has to integrate with CRM’s order objects instead of COM, and replacing CRM means migrating in-flight orders.

Section 4.5 Key Takeaways

At submission the basket becomes a product order (TMF622) and COM becomes its system of record
CRM keeps the order number against the customer and shows status read from COM
COM decides the point of no return; after it, undoing an order means a new order
Logistics is part of the order: stock checked before it is promised, a shipping order, and the device linked to the product
Anti-pattern: CRM holding order state that COM merely copies