When business is booming and your number of customer interactions starts to spiral,
those ledgers, file cards, access databases and spreadsheets just
aren't going to cut it for your sales team.
What do you need?
A CRM. A customer relationship management solution may sound like an expensive
and maybe time consuming venture, but if you miss out on hopping aboard this
bandwagon, you'll be exchanging opportunities for liabilities.
But don't just take our word for it.
Let's find out why CRM uptake is essential for modern day business interaction.
Hey, guys, it's Liv here from Neighbourhood where we help brands find,
sell and keep their people. Implementing a solid CRM system will help you convert
site users and visitors into sales, ensure your sales team
keep on top of customer queries, communicate more effectively
with customers, retain an accurate understanding
and knowledge of your customer base to improve the lives of your marketing
team and the overall sales process. Spot and take advantage of advertising
and marketing opportunities and loads more. In 2020,
a study showed that the number of CRMs in use had increased across the board.
But despite their popularity,
there are a few steps you need to go through before pressing go.
Let's dig into each one.
As part of step one, you need to first identify your goals.
Think about what you want your CRM system to achieve.
Is it primarily to communicate with potential customers?
Are you using it for marketing automation? At this stage,
brainstorm all that you might want and then distil it down to an achievable
wish list. Step two, review and select a CRM technology provider.
If you spent longer than two minutes in a room with us, you'd know that we love
HubSpot and think it's a hugely powerful tool for your business processes at large.
However, we know and appreciate that it's not the only customer relationship
management system in town, so you've got a few choices to make.
Be sure to check out the competition and what's on offer so you can be dead
convinced on the system that will give you everything you need without charging you
for the features you're certain that you'll never use. As a tip,
carry out a risk assessment.
Some of the risk to bear in mind will
include loss of data, loss of time, data corruption and loss of functionality.
To mitigate these risks, you can plan to do asample transfer.
If you're going to use a data transfer partner, they'll perform a data quality
audit on a test sample before you commit to a full transfer.
Step three, prepare your data and build your team.
This stage is a great opportunity to get out the feather duster on that data.
Weed out the deadwood and make sure the data is accurate and complete.
Think about what data fields you'll want
to fill in in the future and build a team to manage the implementation.
This may be a combination of in-house and external personnel.
The skills you'll need to assemble as part of your CRM powerhouse include project
manager, data analyst lead, systems engineer and application developer.
Leadership is the key to an effective rollout.
Step four, defined criteria for a successful transfer.
Here's where you'll hone in on the final selection of features for your CRM system.
Simply decide what you want to see as part
of your CRM and what a successful CRM implementation will look like to you.
And then use this as the blueprint for your entire CRM setup.
Just ensure that everyone has bought into your final project definition as it
will be super costly and time consuming to make changes down the line. Onto step five,
obtain final buy-in, organisation wide. Here's
where the project team put the final proposal to the whole company.
You're guaranteed to get a volley
of feedback in return, sometimes not all of it coherent or compatible.
However, this will help you make the final few tweaks to your CRM.
Feedback is always a good thing because
there's always the chance some bright spot will throw out a clever idea or
an unforeseen problem that will cause a vital course correction.
Now is where you need buy-in,
especially by middle managers who may not have contributed creatively, but know how
their customer-facing facing teams will actually use the system.
We'd recommend you engage in internal
marketing by taking the time to sell the new system to your employees.
Step six, budget appropriately. Before you finally make the data transfer
and potentially enlist a data transfer partner,
make sure you set up a realistic budget for any expenses you may encounter.
As well as the subscription charges and fees for any partnership providers,
there may be costs associated
with downtime, time out for training and a period of transition where your
productivity may dip while the team gets used to operating inside the new system.
One of the major benefits of a system like the HubSpot CRM is the smooth transitions
it allows with dashboards, menus and features.
Hopefully you'll quickly make back whatever time you spent in terms of new
opportunities and improved lead conversion and sales activity.
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Step number seven, plan for innovation.
CRM systems are powerful tools that will allow
you to do even more and exceed your customer expectations.
Now's the time to plan for future developments and sustainable growth as
part of a long term implementation strategy.
Make sure you take a moment to allow
for future innovation and growth in the implementation cost.
Put on your entrepreneurial hat and allow
for add-ins you won't immediately use but could prove vital in the future.
Step eight, roll out the basics.
The CRM implementation process is made up of three main stages. One, test data
transfer. Two, systems rollout and three full implementation.
Here's where you move to test
data transfer with just a sample of your customer data.
Then when everything's looking sweet,
roll out the basics and build user adoption as quickly as possible.
If you're using an implementation partner,
they should be able to provide Face-To-Face training or online training
material to help everyone quickly get up to speed.
You'll also need a timetable to roll out
the less routine features of your CRM. Things like marketing campaigns,
integration to social media and newsletters. Step nine, access success.
Remember the success criteria you worked out in step four?
Well, this is
you'll see whether reality matches your aspirations. If it doesn't,
no sweat.
You haven't gone into full implementation yet.
You can still make changes before everyone gets too deep in the new system.
You still got plenty of feedback
from the teams on the ground who actually have to use the systems.
Remember that no one likes change.
There's often a bias against the new just because it's unfamiliar.
But riding it out will mean that in no
time at all, new systems will become second nature.
Your team will wonder how they ever managed without them.
Broadly speaking, you can access success with four main criteria. Integration,
level of completion, accuracy and fitness for purpose.
Finally, step 10, revise and fully implement. Make changes based
on the assessment you conducted and consult the team. When you're ready
it's time to push that big red button.
Remember, you should plan for regular assessment and tweaking. Aim to not
disassemble the project implementation team.
You'll still need them from time to time
as you finesse the design of your system, including additional training
in the internal processes and ongoing use the training of the CRM strategy.
Using these 10 steps to success, you'll be on track to see a 65%
increase in sales, 74% in better customer
relationships and 27% in enhanced customer retention.
However, guaranteed implementation
benefits require a lot of effort and investment.
So, if you're looking to apply proven implementation practises to your project
and get professional assistance from CRM experts, be sure to reach out to us today.
If you found this video helpful, then feel free to share it with someone
that you know that needs a hand in CRM implementation.
You could also subscribe to our blog,
where you will find a bunch more tools, tips and templates to help you find, sell &
keep your people, just like Neighbourhood does.
But for now, that's it for me. Happy marketing.