CRM Implementation: The Process and the Factors That Influence It

Vu Khoi

Author at Wotech Electronics Blog

CRM — customer relationship management — is an indispensable activity for running a business. It connects the business and its customers, builds close relationships, and increases revenue and profit. So what does it take to manage customer relationships effectively? Let's look for the answer with SimERP in the article below.

Success factors in CRM implementation

To implement CRM successfully, we need to pay attention to two factors: the external environment and the internal environment.

Factors from the internal environment

CRM strategy

Every activity must have a strategy and a specific process in order to create a systematic environment. Senior managers must articulate a clear CRM strategy — only then will managers know what their departments are responsible for, assign specific roles to each employee, and manage and run the company effectively.

In particular, senior managers need to set the right customer management strategy, one suited to the business's operations and its customers' needs.

People

People are the most important factor in any business and they determine the outcome of customer relationship management. To do this work well, employees need to consciously create, improve, and add to their own knowledge. Above all, make an effort to interact with customers directly and communicate in a warm, personal way to understand them better — and from there, come up with the best ideas for customer management. Alongside employees, managers should be decisive and steadily lead the company upward.

Corporate culture

A company's culture has a huge influence on its output and effectiveness. If a business has many members who habitually arrive late — turning tardiness into a habit and a company culture — the business will struggle to succeed not only in customer management but in everything else as well. So build a business with a punctual culture and dynamic, conscientious employees.

Technology

There are many CRM tools on the market today, so which technology a business adopts depends heavily on its systems, structure, and operating methods, as well as its financial situation. A business needs to study these factors carefully to make the right choice and avoid spending heavily without getting results.

External factors

Alongside the essential factors of the internal environment, a business also needs to pay attention to the external environment, including factors such as:

• The public: the press and media strongly influence how customers view the business

• The culture of the market

• The needs customers are aiming for

To meet customers' expectations and build a close relationship between business and customer, we need to know what customers need and what they want from the business.

It can be concluded that organizations that want to adopt CRM successfully need a combination of many different factors and departments, both inside and outside the business.

The CRM implementation process

Build a standard CRM implementation team

To adopt and deploy CRM software such as SimERP well, building and training a professional implementation team is extremely important. The team needs knowledge of customer relationship management and must certainly include an overall coordinator, an administrator, end users, and so on.

Set clear goals

First, managers must map out a clear strategy and objectives for the CRM implementation — for example, targets for higher revenue or reaching more new customers. From there, draw up a concrete plan and create the pressure and motivation to achieve strong results. Note that goals and strategy must fit each specific phase: you cannot set difficult challenges and objectives over a short time frame.

Define CRM output requirements

Inspect and study how your chosen CRM software handles your business's workflows to see how things are managed. From there, specify the data you want the CRM software to measure, evaluate, or track throughout the business's operation.

Prepare the data to enter into the CRM

Once you have identified the data the CRM software needs to manage, the business must determine how much time is needed to prepare it. All of that data will then be entered into the software as completely as possible.

Integrate the data

All data needs to be fully consolidated, even data not yet in the software. For many businesses, this is a key step in making the software run more effectively. Once the data has been loaded into the CRM system, it needs to be tightly linked and related so that it can be accessed quickly and efficiently.

Assign user permissions

Within a business, much information must be kept secure and accessible only to specific departments. Therefore, assigning user permissions in the CRM software is a very necessary and important activity.

Manage risks

This is a fundamental step that every business must pay attention to, because once confidential information leaks out, the damage can be unpredictable. So once you have spent the money to install CRM software, think everything through carefully and make a suitable, safe choice.

Produce a report and build the CRM implementation plan through the users

After analyzing and evaluating the relevant factors, the business needs to produce a report covering strengths, weaknesses, and the information needed, and from there derive a suitable plan for rolling out the customer management software.

Many businesses stop here without going back through the users, which causes the CRM implementation project to fail. Every plan should be consulted with users and other involved individuals to gather suitable, valuable advice.

Key notes on customer management

• Security: Security is a top priority for businesses. No matter how cheap the cost, businesses must pay close attention to the security factor in order to choose the most suitable CRM software.

• Determination: Implementing CRM is not an easy process — it demands effort from the entire organization. Many businesses have had to switch CRM software several times because of poor fit. So a business must be serious and see the project through to the end in order to succeed.

• Simplicity: If your business is just starting out, don't try too hard to deploy an overly complex piece of software. Choose the simplest, most understandable software first, then gradually upgrade the system to a higher level.

CRM implementation is not a simple process — it consumes a great deal of cost and time — but if you put in the effort and succeed, profit will come to your business sooner.

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