When 20% of the change handles 80% of the need

Your company has decided to implement a CRM system. You don’t want to leave anything to chance, so you’ve chosen one of the better solutions. The key people in your company are interested in improvements and are starting to think about what they want from the new system.

• WHAT DOES THE SALES DEPARTMENT WANT? Better activity overview and better insight into the Pipeline. Simplicity is important to them – they should be able to focus on sales, rather than surplus data and its administration. Of course, ultimately – they want to achieve better sales results!

• WHAT DOES THE MARKETING DEPARTMENT WANT? Better insight into marketing campaign results – information on which campaigns were successful, whether they were event-related or classic advertising or online marketing campaigns. They want a system that will help them gather more quality potential customers.

• WHAT DOES THE IT DEPARTMENT WANT? More efficient business operations – to efficiently connect the new CRM system to all other important systems, such as an ERP system, a webshop or any other systems already implemented within the company.

All of these wishes are legitimate and make sense. It is about introducing a new system that is expected to solve almost all the challenges the company has ever encountered, while at the same time it is expected to bring new value and enable further development of the company. Expectations are big. And of course, often not so easily accomplished.

A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS

CRM solutions have advanced greatly in recent years – they are flexible and relatively easy to implement. But to be set up in the right way, financial and time resources are needed, as well as good engagement from the users themselves. Sometimes it can take several months until everything clicks into place. But the positive effects of introducing CRM systems can be felt much earlier.

This graph illustrates what each project implementation should look like

If a company hasn’t previously implemented a CRM system, it is good practice to employ a CRM consultant – a CRM implementation specialist who can ensure the future quality of the system. The common task of the CRM consultant and future system user is to locate Quick-win solutions – that is, the modifications that will require the least resources, but will have the greatest impact on business processes, as soon as possible.

WHERE TO START?

All businesses are different, so there is no unambiguous answer here- there is no universal solution that addresses all problems. For example, a company that finds most of its customers online will get the highest value from integrating existing systems with social networks, while the same integration in another company could have an almost negligible effect.

However, there are some changes that we have recognizes as best practices in most implementations. These four steps have helped the new CRM systems deliver fast results to our clients.

4 STEPS TO A SATISFIED NEW CRM USER

STEP 1. Sometimes, more is less.

The best feature of any CRM system is its ability to customize it according to your needs and desires. At the same tame, that is also its worst feature. It can be difficult to resist the urge to tell your salespeople to enter a lot of client information into the system, simply because it could be interesting to you over time. At the same time, a salesperson’s priority should be to spend more time with the client than they spend entering data. Our recommendation is always this – if you don’t have a clearly defined strategy for using data, don’t ask your salespeople to enter it.

STEP 2. Link your marketing and sales campaigns.

You probably know what your marketing budget is, but you have a lot less insight into what revenue your marketing actually brings. By linking marketing and sales campaigns, you’ll find it easier to find out which campaigns are cost-effective and worth investing into, and which aren’t.

STEP 3. Systematization of sales processes.

Whether your company sells simple products with short sales cycles or complex solutions with multi-month sales cycles, your sales process is likely to be divided into key steps. Of course, you always want to know which stage your sales process is in at any given time, so you can intervene and help if necessary, to successfully close the sale.

example of a simple business process

STEP 4. Embrace the power of real-time reports.

By tailoring the reports to your business needs at any given time, you will have insight into how things are developing and will be able to respond in time. And most importantly, you will be able to make decisions based on knowledge rather than feeling.