Customer Relationship Management, or CRM, is one of the most successful strategies for businesses of all sizes. CRM focuses on improving profit per customer by improving the quality of the relationship that your company has with each of its customers. When your customers feel that they have a more personalized relationship with your business, they’ll be more likely to come back and spend more. If CRM isn’t already embedded in your company’s DNA, consider how successful CRM implementation plans work.

What Are the Most Important Steps in CRM Implementation?

Understand Your Shortcomings

Why do you want to implement CRM in the first place? What problems will CRM solve? All too often, we see companies rush into CRM without first evaluating their circumstances. Before you embark on any CRM project, gather heaps of data. Interview as many customers as you can to find out how they feel about their relationship with your business. Speak to CSRs and sales to find out what makes it difficult for them to forge strong client relationships.

Take a closer look at your internal business processes. Can you adjust them to give clients more involvement? Are unnecessary tasks or excessive exchanges between employees keeping your customer service team from focusing on the customer? A good rule of thumb is any activity that doesn’t generate value for the customer is one you can live without. Once you know your flaws, you’ll be able to address them precisely through meaningful changes.

Set Goals for CRM

How will you know whether your company implemented CRM successfully or not? Without clear objectives, you won’t be able to accurately measure the impact of your implementation. Select KPIs that relate to CRM and pull as much historic data as you can to see where you stand now. Consider comparing to industry benchmarks or other organizations to spot where you’re lagging and where you excel. Set new KPI targets and observe how CRM affects them.

Numbers alone are only half of the equation. Add a timeframe to your goals to make sure your implementation doesn’t drag on or balloon in cost. Set short-term and long-term goals for each of the KPIs you chose. Some useful ones to consider are profit per customer, purchase frequency for returning customers, customer satisfaction, and the number of referrals per customer. Aim for a 1-year target goal and build from there with 3-year or 5-year goals.

Choose the Right Tools

How are you going to track all of those KPIs? How can you strengthen your internal processes to facilitate growth in those areas? CRM tools can help you measure progress towards your goals while also making it easier to interact with your customers in ways that boost your KPIs with minimal effort. However, your company may already have some tools in place. It’s important to make sure that new software is compatible with existing tools and practices.

The most successful customer relationship management implementations are guided by expert consultants who understand CRM and the tools that support it. Book an Intro Call with Project Genetics to learn how we can help your company implement CRM.

6 Keys to PMO Methodology Implementation

1. Establish a Defined Selection Process

Any successful project management office is careful when selecting projects to be undertaken. Acceptable projects must fall within certain criteria, such as financial viability and profitability, alignment with the organization’s strategy, adaptability in the event of future shifts in strategy or technology, the relative risk factor for success, scalability, and the legal and ethical implications (does the project comply with local, national, and/or international regulations?).

2. Identify the Project’s Objective(s)

From the outset, establish measurable objectives for the project in question. Define how those objectives will be measured. Identify key performance indicators which can monitor progress or reveal any bottlenecks or other obstacles hindering success.

3. Define the Function and Scope of the Project Management Office

A project management team can function in three fundamental manners. It can act in a supportive role as advisors or consultants, as a controlling agent by, for instance, establishing protocols and mandating compliance, or by assuming direct control and management of the projects. Those boundaries should be clarified from the outset to ensure full support from sponsors and stakeholders.

In addition, other questions should be addressed. To whom will the team report? Will train project managers throughout the organization? Will it interact in other ways with various departments or be siloed? While subject to change, the project management office’s scope should always be transparent and clearly defined.

4. Be Certain the Project Management Team Has the Full Support of Its Sponsor

5. Engage Stakeholders

6. Always Be Open to Improvement

Downtime, differing standards in various departments, poor communication and documentation, as well as other inefficiencies are the bane of any successful business. While standardization, scalability, and agility are all desired qualities, they cannot be achieved if a project team, or the organization as a whole, are not open to new techniques, tools, and methods.

No manager or team can organize or execute a project without both a passion for problem-solving and the experience of past successes. Consistency and inspiration must work hand in hand. To get your critical project on the track to green, consult Project Genetics today.