The Complete Guide to Successful CRM Implementation

A CRM system is a software application that supports the collection of customer data and maintenance of contact information.

The process of setting up and installing customer relationship management (CRM) software is known as CRM implementation. While most CRM products for small companies are plug-and-play, thorough planning and implementation are essential for getting the most out of your investment. The software’s settings, integrations, and data should all be appropriately configured and matched with your business objectives. Learn about the eight stages to installing your CRM product effectively.

A CRM deployment strategy may be broken down into eight key components. We go through each step in depth here to help you through the process.

1. Assemble your CRM team’s core members.

It’s critical to have a dedicated CRM team whose duty it is to ensure that your CRM is properly implemented and utilized across the firm. This team doesn’t have to be committed to running the CRM; it might be made up of existing personnel with existing positions who have CRM oversight added to their responsibilities.

The following people should be on your CRM installation team:

• CRM project manager: The system’s lead individual who is engaged throughout the process. They are in charge of ensuring that the system is utilized as intended, including keeping track of critical administrative data and granting access to end users.
• IT manager: An in-house IT manager is crucial in aiding the project manager in the case of bottlenecks and technical challenges. They are typically responsible for supporting the deployment of different technological instruments.
• Sales team managers: Once the system has been rolled out, sales team managers are in charge of overseeing the data and information being processed in the system.

Consider bringing on the following individuals to help with the implementation of very complicated and enterprise-level CRMs to make the process go as smoothly as possible:

• Software analyst: The person in charge of data transfer and purification is known as a software analyst. As a result, they must comprehend how each component works as well as the software’s bells and whistles.
• Software or app developer: The program developer will thoroughly personalize the software, ensuring that the pipelines and processes created in the system correspond to the business’ procedures and meet its needs.
• The software test engineer is in charge of overseeing the testing of numerous software features. Prior to the deployment to the bigger team, they must work closely with all members of the core team to ensure that everything works well.

It’s critical to assemble all identified end users in addition to having a core CRM implementation team. Getting input from them can help you figure out which features they want the most, how much training they’ll need, and a number of other details that will make it easier to roll out the new system.

You should question your CRM users if they’ve used a CRM before, what sorts of everyday chores they wish might be automated, and what other business software they use on a daily basis. This will help you create a CRM training strategy, determine which workflow automation tools you’ll need, and identify which third-party connectors your team will need.

2. Establish Your CRM Goals & Objectives

Define the goals you want to achieve using the CRM. Outline the objectives you want to accomplish by defining the conditions for how your team will be assessed and how the system will be utilized.

Your objectives must contain clear and measurable outcomes against which you can assess your company’s success over a certain period of time. Having clearly stated objectives aids in the development of a feasible action plan.

3. Figure out what data needs to be moved.

Determining ahead of time what data needs to be migrated into the new system and where it now sits is an often ignored phase in the CRM setup process.

Contact, company, and deal data is exported from existing business systems or CRMs and uploaded to the new platform as a simple comma-separated values (CSV) file. To help automate the procedure, most CRMs have an import function. However, since each solution handles data transfer differently, it’s crucial to assess what’s required right once.

Tip: Don’t transfer all of your info at once. First, test the data transfer’s integrity using a tiny sample.

You don’t have to move all of your data from your old systems. You may choose to leave some behind, particularly if they won’t be used in your CRM and would only take up space. These might contain out-of-date sales reports and customer information, as well as duplicated customer data and poorly designed spreadsheets that could clog up your new CRM.

4. Define CRM Configuration Customizations

Defining system settings and procedures ahead of time is another important part of establishing a CRM deployment strategy. CRMs include a number of options that should be tweaked to meet the requirements of your team, including:

• Profile and options for the company
• Fields that may be customized
• Selections from a drop-down menu
• Permissions and administration of users
• Policy for sending emails and a consent list
• Admin options

Really Simple System’s settings page lets users configure the setup for areas including company settings, Fields that may be customized, system logs, and service level agreements. (Source: Really Simple Systems)

Many CRMs have customized choices for roles, reporting, job automation, pipeline phases, and mailing lists in addition to standard system settings. Before you begin developing these features, think about your customer’s journey from the initial point of contact through the moment of purchase.

The steps of a customer journey are as follows:

• Prospects discover about your goods and services via a variety of sources, including your website, social media, ads, referrals, and cold calls.
• Customers evaluate if your goods and services are a suitable match for them via queries, introduction calls, product demonstrations, and free trials.
• Users’ choice on whether or not to acquire your goods or service.
• Retention and nurturing: Customers are reinforced by consistent customer service and overall product satisfaction, as well as ongoing interaction via channels like newsletters and feedback requests.
• Customer loyalty: Loyal consumers help organizations expand by retaining customers, increasing the opportunity to cross-sell and upsell items, and attracting new customers via word-of-mouth from current customers.

Freshsales allows customers to customize their pipeline phases depending on the client journey they’ve discovered and their own business process. (Image courtesy of Freshsales)

The majority of the CRM’s settings, permissions, and modifications will be guided by your customer journey and feedback from your team. This stage in the implementation planning process will save you time when you roll out a system that is user-ready from the outset.

5. Make Use of Third-Party Apps

Integrating your CRM with third-party apps like Facebook, Microsoft Outlook, Mailchimp, and Slack improves the productivity of your company. This step of CRM deployment lets your team to transition between applications and access vital customer data without having to leave the CRM platform.

Most CRMs come with dozens to hundreds of third-party connectors, so select them based on what your sales teams feel is most essential to them.

The following are examples of popular integrations:

• Apps for email
• Tools for generating leads
• Tools for project management
• Platforms for messaging and communication
• Management tools for social media
• Programs for live chat
• Apps for help desks
• Programs for marketing and email automation
• Apps for customer service and ticketing
• Analytical software

Users may effortlessly transfer data between HubSpot and Mailchimp thanks to the connection. (Image courtesy of HubSpot)

6. Perform a CRM Environment Test

When you test your CRM environment, you’re nearly done with the setup process, and it’s time to see whether the program is completely functional and meets your needs. You’ll understand how various components interact via testing, and you’ll be able to assess customer touchpoints that link to the CRM to verify they function properly.

There are a number of things to check, including:

CRMs are often simple to set up and manage, regardless of your degree of expertise. Examine the level of support provided by your new CRM if you have a particularly difficult migration or want assistance setting up integrations.

Email assistance, online resources, and online user community forums are usually the only troubleshooting alternatives for free products like Capsule or HubSpot CRM’s free plan. Paid CRMs, like as Salesforce, on the other hand, provide guided setup and onboarding support as part of their subscription plans.

7. Educate Your Customers

After the testing step is over and all components of your CRM have been correctly put out, include your employees and demonstrate how to use it. Make sure to seek input from your team so you can figure out how to enhance the system even more. It’s also a good idea to collect input from them on a frequent basis to reduce blockages and difficulties with the system.

Pro tip: Use this free checklist to establish a CRM team training plan that will help your team get started right away.

8. Track CRM Adoption.

When your staff figure out how to use the CRM system, the job isn’t done yet. The next step is to ensure that they make effective use of it. Here are some indicators to monitor to determine your end users’ utilization rate:

• Track user logins: Checking the amount of logins and seeing which of your workers do so on a frequent basis is one of the easiest methods to evaluate system utilization. However, this is only a measure of use rather than the quality of acceptance.
• Examine how your workers enter customer and company data, including as leads, contact information, opportunities, tasks, and activities, into the system.
• Track CRM-generated reports: Encourage your employees to process data and produce reports using Analytical software within the CRM. This will help in eventually migrating all your sales and business data into the system.
• Using the system, track the following KPIs: Use the CRM to track your sales representatives’ productivity and key performance indicators (KPIs), such as calls made, transactions completed, and income produced.

Remember that these measures will take time to develop, so don’t expect to be able to measure them all right now.

The Importance of CRM Implementation Strategy

It’s not easy to get your CRM software up and running. It’s a multistage process that starts with putting together a team, then refines procedures, identifies data for transfer, and finally conducts thorough testing and training.

You may prevent typical mistakes by having a solid CRM deployment plan in place, such as:

• Low acceptance rate among your target users: If no system or training is in place to help users understand why CRM is being implemented, there’s a good chance they won’t utilize it.
• Not requiring management staff to use CRM: If the top levels of your company support CRM implementation and use, individual workers are more likely to follow suit.
• Users are unsure about their roles: Determine a team to manage the CRM system’s use, and give defined tasks to each member to hold them responsible.
• Putting the system in place all at once: It will take some time for users to get accustomed with the new CRM. Plan out the data and procedures you want to save in the CRM over time so that users may gradually learn how to utilize it.
• Poor data migration: Whether current customer data is housed in Google spreadsheets or another formal CRM, it must be thoroughly and correctly migrated to the new CRM to enhance accessibility and usefulness.

Conclusion

While most CRM systems are meant to function right out of the box, keep in mind that it is not a one-size-fits-all solution that can be used by every member of your staff right away. Spend additional time integrating, configuring, testing, training, and gathering feedback to ensure that your whole staff is on board with your new CRM system.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the keys to successful CRM implementation?

There are many keys to a successful CRM implementation, but the following could be some of your best bets. First and foremost, you should probably make it clear what is expected from employees in terms of their participation through various communication channels such as email newsletters and internal social media groups. Youll also want to create a proper training plan for new hires so that they can learn about how things work within your company and which tools will assist them with specific tasks.

What are the steps for CRM implementation?

You should start by creating a CRM process and setting up an appropriate workflow. The next step is to assign the processes that youve created to users who have access rights for them, or implement them as workflows in your software. Lastly, you need a mechanism for measuring success metrics so that you can track progress over time of those initiatives through data analysis and reporting tools.