Are you going to implement CRM? Many managers ask themselves: “Why do I need a CRM system? After all, everything works as it is. The transition to CRM – this is a major change that affects the work of the entire company. But the benefits you get afterwards are worth it! That is an increase in sales by an average of 15% or more by speeding up the work of employees, automating repetitive routine tasks, systematic analysis of sales channels, segmentation of the customer base and so on.
When will there be more money in the company? Right, when the sales department deals specifically with sales – calls, meetings with customers, sending offers, closing deals. Let us look at the main steps to follow when starting a project to implement CRM.
Define the goals of CRM implementation
Before you start looking for a CRM system, you need to define your goals. What do you want the CRM to do for your business? Are you looking to improve customer satisfaction, increase sales, or streamline your sales process? Once you have a clear idea of your goals, you can choose a CRM system that will help you achieve them.
The departments of your company see their work in the CRM system in different ways. You need to consider the desires of every department that will interact with the system, not just the sales department. Set priorities, write down business processes by department. It is important to take into account all the details and describe the requirements in great detail. Then you will take them into account when transferring business processes to the system and automating repetitive operations.
Modern sales management systems help to save time and simplify the work of all departments of the company, not only the sales department. You can automate the setting of tasks, creation of new contractors, automatic SMS notification of customers, emailing of events in the sales funnel, creation of documents such as invoices or counterparty contract details, and much more.
Based on the collected requirements and business process descriptions, identify the processes that your employees spend the most time on. Typically, these are repetitive routine functions that can be automated.
Get buy-in from your team. Your team will be the ones using the CRM system, so it’s important to get their buy-in. Explain why you’re implementing a CRM system and how it will benefit them. Offer training and support to help them get up to speed.
The structure of the most important stages of a cloud CRM implementation is presented below:
- Development of an implementation plan
- Definition of the implementation goal
- Description of sales stages
- Description of bottlenecks in sales processes
- Definition of automation points
- Selection of the contractor
- …
- Setting up card fields
- Deal fields
- Contact fields
- Company fields
- (Grouping of fields, if necessary)
- Customize individual fields:
- By Type
- By nomenclature
- …
- Integration of email address:
- Employee John Constantine
- Employee Tom Cruise
- …
- Setting of user roles:
- Sales Director
- Marketing Director
- CEO
- Sales Manager
- Secretary
- …
- Transfer access
- Administrator access
- Employee access
- …
- Configure rules for distribution of requests
- First: Administrator / automatic distribution
- Second: Manager
- Third: Sales Director
- …
- Setting up the sales funnel and sales stages
- Sales funnel by product type
- Sales funnel by transaction type
- Sales funnel by market segment
- Connecting and configuring CRM widgets
- Mailing list widget
- Callback widgets
- Telephony widget
- Automatic document creation widget
- Online chat widget for website
- Chatbot
- …
- Transferring / unloading counterparties
- Grouping of fields
- Dump to xml
- Website and application form integration
- Corporate website
- Landing pages
- Testing of distribution forms
- Setting up auto-tasks depending on the event
- Appointment of a responsible person
- Specified date
- Order formed
- Call after proposal in 2 weeks
- …
- Testing CRM integrations
- Testing widgets
- Testing calls
- Testing website forms
- Testing the distribution of requests
- Testing other processes
- Training employees to work in CRM
- Preparation of handouts
- Transfer of training videos
- Breakdown video
- …
- System support at the contractor
- Integration support
- Consulting and support
- Development and automation
Choose the right CRM system
There are many different CRM systems available, so it’s important to choose one that is right for your business. Look for a CRM system that is easy to use, has the features you need, and fits within your budget.
Choosing one or another CRM is a responsible process that will affect the work of your entire company, so here it is better not to take risks and choose a proven solution. For example, our company has become a partner of amoCRM, and amoCRM implementation is one of our services.
We chose amoCRM system for several reasons – its popularity, convenience for users, constant development of the system, more than 1,000 different widgets developed and supported by third-party developers, and the possibility of automation, perhaps the most outstanding feature of amoCRM. This is the reason why we recommend and implement amoCRM.
Choose a contractor
You have collected information, described business processes and defined the tasks for CRM? Now it is time to choose a partner for implementation. Why is it better to implement with a company that specializes in it? The answer is simple: you gain experience and expertise that will benefit your company. Moreover, amoCRM implementation costs about 4-7k USD and takes 10-20 days. In addition, you will receive support and training that will make your future work with CRM much easier.
Map the integrations
An experienced contractor will work with you to create a roadmap of the integrations required for your business. This usually includes connecting all websites, integrating IP telephony, integrating email addresses for correspondence directly from the system, connecting social networks and messengers such as WhatsApp, Telegram, etc., and setting up widgets and services that you’ll use to simplify your work. It’s much more effective to use the best practices of integrations that bring results than to reinvent the wheel yourself. That’s why I recommend you to turn to the experts in implementing sales management systems and use the successful experience based on the implemented projects.
Train employees to use CRM
Do you want your employees to use the system? To do so, you need to train and motivate them. We will talk about motivation below. As far as training is concerned, usually the contractor implementing the CRM, after all the settings and integrations have been made, is ready to instruct the sales department on how to work with the system and provide a personal tutorial with screenshots of all the settings. This makes it easier for employees to become familiar with the system. Video instructions that remain in the system after training are also useful.
Get support after CRM implementation
As a rule, regular support after implementation is not necessary. This is true, of course, if the implementation has been professional and of high quality. However, there may be force majeure situations when an integration fails due to third-party API updates, requests and calls stop coming into the system (someone updated the forms or the website), and so on. In such cases, the hourly technical support that you can get from your contractor will help you. The cost of one hour of technical support varies from $70 to $100 in the US.
Motivate employees to use the CRM
How can you encourage employees to make CRM their tool, not a pen-less suitcase that management has come up with for extra reporting? The answer is to properly motivate employees. This can be considered directive motivation – for example, all reports and statistics of work is considered only by data in the sales management system, not based on the employee words. And financial motivation – all those who use CRM system in their work, can receive additional bonuses, because now there is a transparent record of the number and profitability of transactions on employees. By the way, do not forget that the adaptation of the sales manager is also of paramount importance.
For example, you can give a subscription to coffee for a month to those who work with a CRM system. Yes, that works, too. But seriously, by training them and showing them that the CRM system now saves time and helps them earn more, you motivate the sales team to completely switch to the CRM system. Everyone wants to earn more money and works just for the money and the fun of working.
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