Creating and implementing a customer relationship management (CRM) system at your company is a great way to manage all your interactions with customers and keep track of valuable data in one central location.
But failed implementation of a custom CRM can result in wasted money and lots of frustration within your sales department and upper level management.
In order to ensure a successful implementation of your CRM, there are some best practices you should follow.
If you stick to these recommendations, your sales team and other employees will be much more likely to adopt the new tool, and you should be well on your way to optimizing your sales flows!
1. Build an Advanced Text Editor into Your CRM
A CRM gets stronger when its users have advanced text editing options at their fingertips, such as easy copy/paste, built-in spell check, easy file uploading, and other must-have text editing features.
In order to provide your employees these features, consider building a ready-to-use advanced text editor into your CRM system.
Also known as a “what-you-see-is-what-you-get” (WYSIWYG) text editor, this component is pre-coded and fully functional straight out of the box.
This allows you to add all the text editing functionality your CRM needs, without spending the time and money on developing it from scratch.
2. Configure Your CRM To Meet Your Business Needs
Every business has unique needs, so don’t just build a generic CRM system.
Consider factors like your sales process, key performance indicators (KPIs), and reporting/analytics needs.
Then, configure your custom CRM to make it easy to run these processes and view and input data.
And remember, when you’re implementing a new CRM (or any new tool, for that matter), less is more. Keep things simple and true to your business’s core needs, and your team will be much more likely to get onboard with the platform.
3. Aim To Make an All-in-One Solution
A CRM can do so much more than just manage customer interactions and store data. With integrations, you can turn your CRM into an all-in-one solution for managing all your company’s business needs.
For example, you might integrate project management, communication, collaboration, and marketing tools into your CRM to allow your employees to get more done in a single unified platform.
Having an all-in-one solution won’t just make your team happy, it will also improve time management at your company by cutting down on context switching, or time spent toggling between tons of different apps and systems.
4. Assign a Dedicated, Digitally-Savvy Project Manager
Having a solid project plan and management is a key factor in successfully implementing anything.
To achieve this, assign a focused project manager to your CRM implementation project to track deliverables, hold people accountable, and closely manage rollout of the tool.
This project manager should be highly digitally-savvy, and have some knowledge of your sales processes and other business processes. This will make it easier for them to understand your team’s needs and develop a strong project plan.
5. Make Sure Your CRM Is Fully Scalable
Even if you only need a CRM for a handful of employees right now, you might one day need dozens or even hundreds of people to use it.
So, make sure the solution you launch is scalable and ready to grow with your business.
You should work closely with your IT team to integrate the CRM with your other systems, migrate data, and fix bugs and issues that could inhibit growth.
Even if building a fully scalable CRM means more work now, your future self will thank you later when you can smoothly add users and increase the system’s workload.
6. Train Your Team Thoroughly
When you’re ready to launch your new CRM, don’t overlook a comprehensive training program. Your users are much more likely to adopt and stick with the solution if they fully understand how it works.
Inform your team how to switch over from whatever system they are currently using and provide tips and tricks on how to make the transition more smooth.
Invest some resources in compiling training documentations, including text documents, presentations, videos, and other media, that your team can refer back to when they need to.
It’s a good idea to start by training two or three tech-savvy power users, who the rest of the team can go to with questions if they ever get stuck.
7. Collect Feedback and Iterate
After your employees have been using your CRM system for some time, send out a survey or meet with team members and request feedback.
This will give you an idea of how useful the tool is, what issues there are, and what improvements could be made.
Use this feedback to keep iterating and evolving the CRM solution — business needs change over time, so you should always strive to stay one step ahead with your CRM.
As people get more comfortable in the system, you might consider adding more complex features and functionality, or more integrations to make it even more of an all-in-one workspace.
Remember to keep getting feedback after each iteration to see how improvements are working out!
I’m is an owner of Venostech.com, blogger, Android and technology enthusiast. Individual who are educated in the IT and like to write according my scope.
