How to implement CRM successfully?

CRM is a business strategy in which the relationship with the customer is paramount. CRM helps you and your employees to work in a more customer-oriented way. Needless to say that every CRM implementation has a profound impact across your entire organization (marketing, sales, service, HR, etc.)

User adoption of your CRM solution

To have a successful CRM implementation, providing a user-friendly CRM tool is critical. Your employees should certainly not be overloaded with too many new concepts and extra administrative work. If the CRM solution is too complex (it is often wiser not to implement specific exceptions) then your employees might refuse to use it and the value of your CRM system will drop dramatically. A CRM system must ensure that your employees work smarter.

Provide an intuitive, streamlined interface and apply the KISS (“Keep It Simple, Stupid”) principle. For example, do not display more buttons or options than necessary to avoid confusion.

Specific CRM training

Your employees must understand the benefit of the CRM tool for their work. It must be clear to them what the strategy behind the CRM implementation is. They need to know the goals of CRM, what is expected and how the software works. Therefore, provide sufficient time for specific CRM training and this for each type of user.

It’s also very important that after the go-live, your employees can rely on additional support, such as the help from a CRM administrator or a CRM Service Desk.

Evaluate and invest

As we wrote above, CRM should be seen as a business strategy and not as a destination. A CRM project must be continuously evaluated and adjusted if necessary.

After the go-live, take a longer evaluation period and give your employees the opportunity to learn how to work with CRM. During this evaluation period, collect all the suggestions and comments. Afterwards, you can review with your project team and CRM partner which changes or additions should or should not be implemented.