CRM, or customer relationship management, is one of the best approaches to boosting sales. Rather than focusing solely on luring in new clients, CRM encourages your company to target existing clients with personalized attention and messaging. Repeat business is easier to get than new business, which is why CRM has become such a popular method of increasing sales. However, successful CRM calls for new tools that facilitate interactions with customers. CRM implementation takes some time, but it’s worth the wait.

How Long Does CRM Implementation Usually Take?

Factors to Consider

The exact time it’ll take for your company to deploy a CRM system depends on several variables. From a technical perspective, a cloud-based CRM software suite could be up and running in as little as a month, given enough resources. However, your CRM software needs to be tailored to your company and the products or services you offer. Customizing your CRM system may add a few weeks to deployment. Data migration is another variable to consider.

Ideally, you’d upload data from existing systems to make your CRM system productive from the day you launch. If you leave old data in the dark, expect a longer wait to see a significant return on your investment. This is where the experience of your team comes into play. Do you have experienced IT personnel who can handle a large data migration? Do you have CRM experts? If not, consider bringing in outside help.

Starting From Scratch

If you’ve never used any sort of CRM tool before and you’re looking to add it to your business, you can get up and running faster. If you’re a small company or a startup, you might be able to use your CRM tools in as little as a month or two. Larger enterprises may need a few more weeks given the breadth of their client base and diversity of products or services. However, even large companies can get moving quickly.

Cloud-based CRM tools scale very easily. From a system perspective, there isn’t much of a difference between a CRM user with 10 clients or one with 10,000. Data transfer to the new system becomes the main challenge for large enterprises. Finally, you have to consider employee training needs. A long CRM project could take up to three or four months to complete if there is a lot of data to manage and many people to train.

Upgrading Existing Systems

How long does it take for companies that already use CRM in their workflow? Upgrading a CRM system to a more versatile one is usually an easier process than starting from scratch. System setup time is similar, but your staff can adopt a new platform faster since they’re familiar with CRM tools. Data transfer across systems is also faster since data is already organized.

Whether you’re looking to start fresh with CRM or you’ve got an aging system in need of an upgrade, CRM is always a worthwhile investment. If you need help implementing CRM in your company, contact Project Genetics to learn how we can get your CRM system up and running.