Implementing CRM successfully is crucial in today’s business landscape, where 40 to 70 percent of projects are reported to fail, leading to significant time and financial losses. This stark reality underscores the importance of approaching implementation with effective strategies, rather than relying solely on consulting firms, which may not always deliver the desired outcomes.
Over our two decades of experience, we’ve identified four key principles that ensure implementation success. These insights are drawn from hundreds of implementations and can significantly influence your CRM journey’s success.
Starting Small
The analogy of eating an elephant, bite by bite, perfectly encapsulates the approach needed for CRM implementation. Despite the urgency to leverage all functionalities immediately, it’s beneficial to start with the smallest possible footprint. This approach not only shortens the project timeframe but also accelerates the return on investment, simplifies project management, and eases the learning curve for your team.
Focusing on Performance
Drawing from sports, improving a team’s performance doesn’t equate to just enhancing the scoreboard or metrics. Similarly, the initial focus should be on enabling salespeople to close deals more efficiently and reducing their busy work, rather than on dashboards and analytics. Automating daily tasks that slow them down can significantly speed up their work, allowing them to sell more effectively.
Making CRM Accessible
Convenience plays a crucial role in preference and usage, akin to choosing a restaurant closer to the office for lunch. This principle applies to CRM as well; it needs to be easily accessible to your team. Integrating with commonly used tools like Microsoft Teams and Outlook can make it significantly more user-friendly, encouraging adoption and regular use by making essential functions readily available within familiar platforms.
CRM as a Continuous Journey
Implementation is not a one-time project but a journey of constant evolution and improvement. It’s vital to foster a culture of ongoing feedback and enhancement, involving both your team and potentially your customers. This approach allows for continuous refinement of the system, enhancing productivity, efficiency, and responsiveness over time.
CRM implementation can transform your business, provided it’s approached with these principles in mind. Embracing CRM as an ongoing journey of improvement rather than a static project can lead to sustained growth and success. For more insights into selecting the perfect CRM for your needs, explore further resources we offer.
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Peter Wolf is the president and founder of Azamba. He has spent the last 20 years focused on helping small and medium-sized businesses become more profitable through effective and efficient usage of CRM.
His passion is blending the promise of CRM with the realities of business needs to create successful outcomes.