10 best practices for your CRM strategy

Your CRM strategy should empower your people By far the biggest issue in the success of CRM is the mindset of the people using it.. CRM can help: Marketing to improve their targeting Sa

best practices for your CRM strategy

10

If there are two acronyms you don’t see together often enough, it’s CRM and ROI Often the issue isn’t with software choices, but with the way they were implemented Management buy-in, employee training, company wide reluctance to change, or vendors who didn’t

‘get it’ all contribute to failed projects.

To help you achieve success, we outline 10 best practices you should use throughout

your CRM strategy.

Your CRM strategy should empower your people

By far the biggest issue in the success of CRM is the mindset of the people using it

Some may be reluctant to change, so you must be prepared to show them how CRM

will benefit CRM can help:

Marketing to improve

their targeting Sales to convert leads into sales IT to become strategic drivers

Relieve your IT

team by placing

emphasis

on Sales and

Marketing

Complex software projects frequently get dumped on IT’s shoulders, but if this team feels burdened then your CRM implementation is likely to fail

CRM is supposed to empower Sales and

Marketing Ensure that both teams are working collaboratively with IT and giving the data and information input that’s required

Integrate multiple

databases for a single view of the truth

Integration is a difficult job but it’s critical to CRM success CRM strategies can only be successful when data can be accessed easily, precisely when someone needs it This data also needs to be error free,

de-duplicated and easy to understand Integration provides a holistic, singular vision

Use CRM to eliminate the silos between Sales and the wider business

With social CRM, campaigning plug-ins, and even financial data capture, the CRM features that benefit Sales work equally well for Marketing,

Finance, Management, and countless other

vertical functions

So if CRM is known only to a few insiders,

try introducing its features to people

outside the sales function If everyone at

C-level has problems gathering accurate

data, show them a dashboard If your

Accounts people have trouble matching

Purchase Orders to costs, demo some

plug-in apps CRM can take a lot of the leg

work away from Sales and empower other

departments

Use your CRM to act proactively, rather

than reactively

Social listening, e-CRM and a variety of online, dedicated, blogs means the world beyond

your your office matters A good CRM system and strategy can empower your staff to listen to customers’ tweets, posts and reviews created when people talk about you, not to you - and take necessary, responsive, action

Use your CRM to create opportunities

There are many uses of

CRM, but sometimes it is

easy to get caught up in

the administrative aspects,

blinding themselves to what

that dull-but-essential work

enables

It’s hard, but keep your

data policy (or equivalent

document) short and simple,

so people aren’t turned off by

entering the details of a new

client accurately

Create long-lasting relationships with your customers

Ideally, each campaign or customer

communication should be part of a

“conversation over time” - with insights gleaned from how customers behaved

last time Yet countless campaigns

are launched treating long-term

customers like fresh-found prospects

Have a chat with your colleagues and

see if they’re using CRM more as a list

than a network Then show them the

power of what it can really do

Achieve real business intelligence with

your CRM

Your CRM database isn’t a static list With

a few thousand names and activities

recorded, it becomes a useful tool for

predicting and testing

It can be as simple as: do customers

respond more when contacted on

a weekly or monthly basis? It’s

surprising how many companies

don’t know these simple metrics

If you’re in a position to share these

findings, shout them from the rooftops

Use it to streamline your business

It’s supposed to

replace things, not add to them

CRM can extend into many areas of

your business, but it should streamline

aspects by replacing them - rather

than adding to them

So if you’re doing a feasibility study, see where CRM could simplify and replace

other systems, driving costs out of the

whole business, especially legacy apps

that are costing too much to support

Maximise your

businesses efficiencies

A final note: CRM should improve your

business, not hamper your people For

every task and requirement on the list,

you should see whether the CRM rollout

you’re planning will make the tasks easier

CRM should make the day to day running

of your projects easier and less time

consuming

To sum up, make sure everyone who

matters thinks of CRM as an enabler, not

a technology Your job may - just - get

easier because of it

Following best practice guidelines for CRM

strategies will improve chances of success.

CRM will enable your business, so you must ensure each department know how they will benefit.

Streamlining your processes is a big benefit of CRM and will improve overall performance.

The Ultimate Guide to:

why slow user adoption affects 49%

of CRM projects

Low adoption rates and general indifference can kill your CRM project – here’s how to combat that problem.

ULTIMATE SERIES

CRM partner Redspire has many

more ideas for making CRM work

for you Take the next step by

downloading:

The ultimate guide

to: why slow user

adoption affects 49%

of CRM projects

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