Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a huge step for an organization to enhance its operational efficiency and customer service. Adoption of a CRM is a whole process which might span over a long period of time.
There are a few things that should be taken into consideration during or before moving towards a CRM solution:
Choosing the right partner:
Microsoft provides its 365 to its customers through a list of its gold and silver partners. These partners are responsible for the installation, switching to, proper operation and maintenance of the CRM. If you, as an employer, do not know what the new addition brings to the table and the CRM experiment fails, the responsibility is on the partners. This is why it is essential to choose the right partner. Gold partners are the best choice for this. Visit Microsoft partner center to find out more.
Plan ahead:
CRM is not a wonderland fix. It will not change everything how you want without knowing. Plan ahead and note exactly what you want to accomplish. Build a road-map of how you want things to change, communicate them with the provider that you have chosen and request them to implement exactly like that. CRM has a lot of functionalities. You might not need all of the, but you might need a couple or three and you will have to decide which ones are those requirements.
Executive Leadership:
CRM is usually the job of the IT tech guys. It mainly affects the work they work. But its benefits reach beyond their ecosystem. The whole operations of the company, customer relationships and data management outlook is changed. Make sure that the executive leadership knows what bringing a CRM to the corporation means. They should be informed about the adjustment period of the employees, the new way interactions will be managed since the time CRM is up and running and how and why was this necessary.
Transparency is essential with the leadership because they are the ones who commission or decommission a project and have the ability for a judgement call on your progress and the ideas you put up.
Employee Acceptance:
Like it has been mentioned before, employees dislike being put outside their comfort zone especially in the way that they operate. CRM is a big step for them and they will have to go through an adjustment phase to start working effectively through this new addition to the company. Changing routine that might have been set for years is not a small task. They have to rewire their muscle memories and adapt to a whole different world. It is likely they will straight out call you out on this. You have to understand their concerns and let them know why this is important for the company but for them as well. Working on a CRM is a glistening skill that will help them in their future endeavors and would ultimately make their life easier, even though it might not look like this at this point.
Choosing the right mix:
Again, it is very important to choose what you really need to accomplish your goals and ambitions. CRM is a diverse solution with functions that are continuously expanding and evolving. You cannot take on all of the, it could get too complicated. Pick and choose what is right for your corporation, your employees, the ongoing projects that are being worked on and the meager idea of future that you might have.
Talk to your partner provider and let them know the key points you want to be solved through a CRM. They should be happy to assist you in deciding the functionalities you should include in the CRM you are going to implement.
The point is not to overwhelm and everything that you can think of but to start with the basic, absolutely necessary functionalities and then as time passes, keep adding to them.
IAXCESS, IAXServices, IAXDynamics are gold partners with Microsoft for Dynamics 365. This means that they have an excellent track record and demonstrated the ability to capture a good working market and a list of satisfied clients. With decades of experience in implementation, installation, support and maintenance.
According to worrying statistic, 63% of the CRM deployment usually does not bear fruit. This is because either the management has no idea what is going on and why or that they do not take the employees into consideration while thinking of an organization as infrastructure only.
“For senior leadership in high-growth organizations versus low-growth organizations, we saw that senior leadership in high-growth organizations really understood the value of CRM as strategic and critical to their organization. Low-growth organizations were much more inclined to view [CRM’s] as a tactical tool.” says Steve LaValle, EVP of Merkle.
