Rules of the road
for CRM
Contact and Customer
Relationship Management
When it comes to choosing the right
Customer Relationship Management
(CRM) system for your business, it’s
important to understand all the benefits
of a CRM system before beginning your
selection process. When you launch
a CRM implementation, your choices
can impact nearly everyone in your
company. That’s why this booklet has
been created.
These 17 “Rules of the Road” for CRM were collected
from executives, managers, employees and consultants
who shared their experiences with Sage. The goal is to
provide you with useful information as you choose a
new CRM system. We’re confident that forewarned
is forearmed and that the educated choice will be a
Sage product.
17 Rules of the Road
for Contact and Customer
Relationship Management
1. CRM is more than a product, it’s a project
When your company chooses to implement a Customer Relationship
Management system (CRM), it is taking a dramatic step forward in it’s
customer commitment. And, since customers drive your business,
you’re leaping ahead in your ability to generate and manage revenue,
too. The benefits of CRM come not only from the product you
purchase, but also from the implementation plan you follow. The more
thoroughly you embrace a company-wide CRM project, the more your
company will benefit from the features your CRM software offers.
Choosing a CRM system is often the simple part: the implementation
can be hard. That’s why we always recommend working with a
recognised expert in the area and learn from their experience in
delivering a successful project. Through the course of a widely
scoped project it is common to uncover areas and functions that
can be automated that were not considered before. In principle give
the CRM project time; it will repay you many times in what it delivers
to your organisation.
2. Customers are everywhere: clients,
vendors, employees, mentors
It used to be easy to define the word “customer.” But companies are
becoming more diverse, with multiple locations, employees who
telecommute and vendors who function as partners. The idea of
“customer” has broadened to include a wide range of end-users of
different kinds of corporate information.
For example, employees are customers when they need self-service
information on pension plans or other benefits. Shareholders are
customers when they’re looking for financial information. Vendors are
customers when they need detailed specifications before they can
proceed with a project. A colleague is a customer when you need
to deliver time critical data. And, of course, the buyer is always a
customer whose experience is critical to your bottom line. With a
CRM system, you can serve all of the groups who rely on your
company for important, timely information.
3. Bigger is not always better
CRM is a broad discipline. Solutions are built to deliver and match
different levels of functionality, complexity, structures, methods of
working and robustness. Just as you are unlikely to buy a tractor to
mow your lawn you should avoid looking to buy enterprise-focused
systems it your company’s requirements are simple or modest.
The reverse is also true. One of the key areas of dissatisfaction in
CRM is a mis-sold solution. Our advice is simple - take a proper look
at what the current and potential needs for organising customer
interactions are in your company. Are your relationships long lasting
or brief, do you re-sell or look to cross-sell? Do you need to link
other departments and people together on a shared system? All of
these requirements have tools that suit them, and very often contact
management, for example, is enough. Sometimes more of an
investment is needed. Work with an expert to assess this, it need
not be expensive and it could save you much money and hassle in
the long term.
4. CRM solutions are different for
mid-size companies
Some software companies selling CRM would have you believe that
you need to buy what they call an enterprise solution that includes
all the bells and whistles required for the largest of global enterprises.
But for small to mid-size companies this may mean paying for
more capacity than is required. In fact, the price of these systems is
often so high that any company smaller than a FTSE 500 firm cannot
reasonably afford one.
But other vendors have created CRM solutions with the mid-sized
company in mind, offering applications that include virtually all of the
features common in enterprise solutions, but at a cost that is
reasonable for smaller scale users. Even better, many of these
solutions can be scaled from as little as a single user to as many
as you are likely to need in the future. With a CRM solution designed
for mid-sized companies, you can start small and grow big without
ever wasting your valuable resources on capacity you don’t need.
You buy what you need, when you need it.
Another benefit of CRM solutions designed from the ground up for
mid-sized companies is that they are easier to implement and are
fully functional right out of the box. Maybe larger enterprises have
the time and resources to spend tailoring a solution and integrating it
into their enterprise. But mid-sized companies want a CRM solution
that they can get up and running easily, quickly and at minimal cost.
And they want one that can be seamlessly integrated with back
office systems such as accounting - without the need for custom
programming.
5. Planning Pays
To ensure a successful CRM project, planning is essential.
Begin by defining the need for a CRM solution. Arm yourself with
the background information to justify the investment costs and to
demonstrate where the benefits, savings and Return on Investment
will come from.
Next, define the stakeholders in the project and use the needs
analysis and benefits projections as a foundation for establishing
a common, company-wide goal for CRM. With this groundwork
completed, you can now establish a budget, planning for the
costs associated with identifying vendors, testing solutions,
implementation, integration, training and support. A team should
then be assembled to begin the drive towards completion of the
project - a drive that begins with a clear description of your
company’s CRM objectives and any processes that will have
to be modified to make the project successful. Make sure the
head of this team is a CRM champion - someone who completely
believes that CRM will make a difference.
Good planning will involve discussions with internal and external
customers. What are the best practices for your sales force, for your
marketing team, for customer service? Also consider the various
types of data that are important to track for each group involved.
Data required by different groups of system users, such as field sales
representatives, may be different from those of customer service
agents. Plan for the needs of each group by confirming that your
data requirements list is complete.
Remember: any person who requires information available through
the CRM solution should be considered a system user, whether he
or she is an internal staff member, an external partner, or a customer.