Finding the Mr. or Ms. Right is hard. What’s even harder is taking the relationship to a happily-ever-after ending.
Your journey with a CRM solution is no different. You need to find that right solution, deal with the initial hiccups and complications, and even distractions from other vendors. But once you successfully cross these initial barriers, it’s a smooth sail to a new beginning.
So, how do you lay the foundation for a long-term relationship?
Find ‘The One’
With many vendors out there, here are some tips to keep in mind to find the right one.
- Set clear objectives on what you want to achieve by deploying a CRM system in your organization. It could be to,
- Increase sales
- Generate revenue
- Improve customer relationships
- Track your sales team’s performance
- Identify trends in the customer’s history to provide cross-sell or up-sell offers
- Measure the ROI of marketing activities
- Many CRM solutions come with different editions. You need to make sure you’re evaluating the right edition that matches your business needs.
Let’s say, you have a small business and you require a CRM that focuses on the sales and marketing aspect. Rather than choosing a bulky one with many features and modules, it’s best to select an edition that focuses on improving sales and marketing activities. - The key to find the right solution for your business needs is to test run a deployment. Make sure you select a CRM that comes with a free trial for a sufficient period so that you can use it to the fullest.
- The whole world is going mobile and it’s obvious that you too move to the latest technology. Select a CRM that supports the mobile platform so that it is always updated with the latest customer information.
- Choose a solution that has the right price for the edition you’ve selected. Many CRMs cost you a pretty penny. So while evaluating, choose the ones that meet your company’s budget.
Falling in and out of love is OK
Not every CRM deployment is successful at the first time. It is said that 50-80% of implementations are bound to fail. So, how do you overcome these initial teething problems? It’s easy.
- Take help from the vendor. Use their help manuals, forums and 24/7 support to get rid of the initial hiccups.
- Many CRM vendors provide a certification course. If required, it’s best to get trained and then deploy it in your organization.
At this point, it’s easy to side track and fall into distractions, especially if your CRM is not working the way you want it to. But you need to resist the temptation of evaluating other solutions at this stage. It’s only going to confuse you more and you’d not give a fair chance to any of the CRM solutions.
Learn from the past
One of the reasons you’d be choosing a CRM for your organization is that you’d have faced some issues with another in the past. To choose ‘The One’, you need to first understand the limitations of your ex.
Maybe it
- Made you do too much data entry
- Was not mobile enough
- Made you forget follow-ups
- Was not flexible to meet the changes in business goals
- Was too pricey, or
- Your relationship with the vendor no longer worked
If you think about it, it’s not always the CRMs mistake. It takes two to tango and you might be at fault too! There would have either been:
- Poor communication with the vendor, or
- You may not have explored the features fully
Take the positives from your past experience. Learn from your mistakes and understand what went wrong to make sure it gets better second time around.
Happily ever after isn’t difficult
Let’s face it. No relationship is perfect. But you can make it perfect. It requires some dedicated time, energy and commitment to get the best from both sides.
Similarly, maintaining a long-term commitment with your CRM is not difficult as long as you,
- Take help from the experts in time of need
- Stay away from distractions
- Retain the objectives
So now you’re ready to find the right CRM for your business. Good luck! And, don’t forget to let us know how it’s going 🙂
Hi Radhika, I am working on a project which would need to a) take care of email marketing campaigns for consumer segment, may be even social media marketing campaigns, and see track how consumers are interacting with the marketing efforts. b) On the other part, I would have Corporate Partners / Vendors whose basic information / meeting information / action items etc needs to be recorded and captured for reference and action on due dates. In short, can you CRM support two different target segments with different requirements for each of them? Regards Viral
Merci beaucoup !-) Très utile :))
Your information about the new technology &steps about crm Is very clear,I will keep it in my knowledge .
Thank you very much... Very usseful !!!
I'm always stucked with finding the right CRM software. But after reading this post I think I find the answer to my problem. Thank you very much.
Hi Good article . I am using the free version and find it very useful. To learn more , do Zoho give training ? I would like to have it pls get in touch
Info given to move on new technology is good idea. Thanx for sharing for wonder article.
your article was nice.it could be better if u give some technical details about CRM. i got some overall view. thanks
very clearly explained the steps about CRM....thanks for the information...