A CRM Implementation Plan: Your Fast-track to Success
By Nathan Weill · December 27, 2022
Implementing CRM (Customer Relationship Management) in your business should be a no-brainer, and for more than 80% of businesses— including professional services, retail, IT, manufacturing, and finance industries—it already is. In the article below, we give you our top tips to help you build a CRM implementation plan to guarantee successful adoption.
Why you need CRM: The Stats
CRM is the fastest-growing marketing tech in the world. The CRM market was worth $58 billion in 2021, and by 2029, this number will have reached $146 billion. The market is growing at a staggering rate because CRM works.
The stats are stunning. According to statistics from webfx.com, after implementing a CRM successfully:
- 74% of businesses said it gave them improved access to customer data,
- 60% said their productivity improved,
- and 45% said their sales revenue skyrocketed.
CRM software can increase your sales by 29%, your productivity by 34%, and your forecast accuracy by 42%. These benefits lead toward an enticing result: soaring business revenues. The average ROI of CRM is $8.71 for every $1 spent. It’s an investment most people can’t afford to miss out on.
Maximizing your Team, your Time, and your Money
With a mixture of post-its, email threads, memo boards and phone calls serving as a company’s customer service tracking, a treasure trove of data is lost. CRM software tracks your business’s communication with customers, harvesting the data to help your business thrive. It keeps the data in a central, secure (usually cloud-based) location so employees can easily update the system at any time.
By automating customer management, business owners get real-time stats about their customers, and customers get a personalized consumer journey.
It’s a win-win with worthwhile results:
- improved customer service
- a higher customer retention rate
- more sales, and
- more income.
Discover more benefits and reasons why to automate your business processes.
CRM saves time, too. There’s a reason 82% of salespeople say that CRM tools are “critical” to deal-closing: Sales and marketing teams can focus their efforts on the right audience and target precise pressure points. No more shooting in the dark and hoping for the best.
To quote the enduring words of Benjamin Franklin, time is money. Freed from the unnecessary drudgery of manual tasks, your team can focus on innovation and creativity—where the real potential lies.
How to Implement CRM Successfully AKA Your CRM Implementation Plan
Follow this six-step CRM implementation process to guarantee a successful CRM launch.
1. Map out your CRM Goals
You know your business inside-out. Now’s the time to nail down your business’s needs and think about how CRM can serve them.
Each CRM software offers an enticing array of features, including marketing, e-commerce, email leads, call-centers, dashboards, reports and workflows. For instance Pipedrive is renowned as an easy-to-use CRM that allows you to manage all your contacts from one tool. Get guidance from a Pipedrive consultant to discover whether it is the right platform to meet your needs.
Ask yourself the million-dollar question: Which features would meet your unique needs?
Improving and personalizing your buyer’s journey Improving your business’s efficiency and internal communication Increasing customer retention Acquiring new customers with targeted marketing Increasing company sales
Rank your goals so you can prioritize the most important ones.
2. Choose the Right CRM
You know what features you need, but now it’s crunch time: choosing the CRM that’s right for you.
The options are endless, and so are the decisions. Should my CRM system be cloud-based or on-site? What should my budget be? Which software will integrate best with my current IT systems? Do we need a customized system? How many employees will be using it?
The right CRM for your business is out there; you just have to find it. Solutions exist for all types of businesses, whatever size or industry.
You’ll need to tackle each one strategically until you whittle down the options to the perfect one. Evaluate the pros and cons, consult with your list of goals, consider your unique needs and ask the right questions.
Choosing the right CRM software is the most pivotal moment of your journey. It’s a big decision—one of the biggest business decisions you’ll ever have to make.
Sounds daunting? You can leave the decision-making to the experts. At Flow Digital we find the CRM software best for your business. With our inside-out knowledge of the top software solutions, we analyze your business’s unique needs to find the software that’s right for you. Use our CRM consulting service as part of your strategy for successful CRM implementation.
3. Plan your Strategy
Once you’ve settled on the right software, you’re over the biggest hurdle. The next task is to lay out your CRM implementation plan—because planning is everything.
You know your goals—but you need a strategy to help you meet them. Here are some questions to consider when you’re hammering down your plan:
- What steps will you take at each stage of implementation?
- When will you train your staff?
- What work processes will change and how will you change them?
- When do you plan to meet each of your goals—and how will you measure them?
- How does your CRM plan integrate with your overall business development plan?
Implementing your new system takes time. Set out a timeline with what you expect at each stage of the journey, including changes to your business and training schedules. Remember that implementing your new CRM system will overhaul some of your team’s long-standing methods; your plan must naturally integrate this new system with your current workflow.
As part of your CRM implementation steps, now’s the time to forecast your costs and benefits. Consider the cost of CRM versus your expected sales or profits, and mark down when you expect to see results.
4. Get your Staff on Board
Does your team have the know-how and resources to implement your new system? You’ll need a project manager, a data analyst, a developer to install the system, and an engineer for testing. If you don’t have the right employees for implementation, you’ll need to think about outside support.
No matter who is implementing your system, the new CRM project will need everyone in your company on board. One of the keys to successful CRM implementation is how your team reacts to it. For your new software to take off, the team must embrace it. Set an attitude of enthusiasm to excite even the most diehard skeptics. Your CRM success depends on it.
Once your staff members understand that CRM will make their work easier by managing customer relationships in one central hub, the excitement will spread fast. Effective CRM software shows users its value. A rule known as the “3X factor” dictates that when a user inputs a piece of data, they must get three valuable pieces of information back to motivate them to keep using the system. When your employees see the system’s helpfulness, they’ll be enthusiastic about using it daily.
CRM will affect every department and almost every employee. Your business will need to launch a staff-wide training to help employees master the new system. You might want to consider choosing advocates, who convey the importance of CRM to your team, and experts, who know the system well and can mentor others.
The training will vary for different jobs within your team. Some employees will focus on list building, others on research and data input, and others on interpreting data for sales. In all cases, make sure your staff know the CRM usage guidelines by laying down the what, when and how of what must go in the system. Getting your employees on board is one of the most important CRM implementation success factors.
5. Migrate and Integrate Data
Before you can kickstart your new software, you’ll need to import your data. Data is the engine that drives your CRM machine; the more comprehensive your data, the more effectively your system will operate.
If you’re graduating to an updated CRM system, you can find tools to help you migrate your data. But if you’ve never used CRM before, your staff will likely be transferring the data from a collection of spreadsheets and documents. With the right training, it’s a simple, risk-free task.
Make sure to comb through your data first. No invalid, outdated or duplicated data can be allowed to creep into your new cyberspace realm. Inaccurate data is toxic for your system, leading to mix-ups, inefficient sales, and erroneous reports.
6. Test the System and Follow your CRM Implementation Plan
It’s time to test the magic.
A solid CRM implementation plan includes:
- mapping out your goals
- picking the perfect software
- planning your strategy
- laying out a timeline
- training your staff, and
- migrating your data.
If you’ve followed these CRM implementation steps, you’re all set for success. Now’s the time to reap the benefits.
Celebrate the launch to keep staff enthusiasm high. Well-trained staff will be able to adapt easily, but the change still takes getting used to. Support your staff and have your specialists available for guidance.
Throughout implementation, take it slowly. You can always upgrade the system later. Doing too much too soon can overwhelm staff and make you lose their trust.
Follow your timeline to assess your progress. When your probation period is up, measure your success rates against your goals. Is your new system taking you to the right places? You can tweak your CRM implementation plan to better match your goals, for example, making changes to the way you use the system. Adjustments are a natural part of the implementation stage.
The cogs are in place, but you’ll need to stay alert to maximize your success. Your business needs are always shifting—keep a finger on your software’s pulse and make sure you’re optimizing your chances for success.
Why CRM Implementations Fail
More than 50% of CRM projects fail. Instead of benefiting from rising profits, improved customer service, and streamlined operations, too many businesses find themselves back at unglamorous square one.
It’s not the software that’s at fault; it’s the business’s poor implementation.
With CRM, successful implementation is everything. Implementing CRM has some common pitfalls, but with awareness and by following a CRM implementation guide, these can be easily avoided.
Here are some of the most common CRM hazards and how you can avoid them.
Using CRM software as an add-on
CRM is not an addition to your tech stack; it’s the beating heart of your business. To implement it, you’ll have to rethink your entire business. The new software must be integrated into every part of your company, and your existing IT structures must be adapted to work with it. An expert from a CRM consulting company can give you customized guidance on how to successfully integrate your CRM system within your existing infrastructure.
Businesses who viewed CRM as a convenient plug-in failed to integrate it properly, and the software fell into disuse. If you put CRM at the core of your business, the cogs can work together to produce a valuable output.
Think of it as Your Business, 2.0. It’s a big step—but it’s the only way to access the big gains.
Losing sight of the bigger picture
Successful CRM implementation relies on goals and strategy to survive. Businesses owners who fixated on technical details and neglected their wider goals failed to implement CRM effectively.
CRM is a process. Think of the CRM software as a tool to help you reach your customer goals and empower your team, not the be-all and end-all. With a solid CRM implementation plan, it’s hard to go wrong. Lay out clear objectives from the start—and don’t get sidetracked by the exciting rush of data.
Poor executive support
The top reason why CRM implementations fail is because they lack staff support.
CRM is a major change, affecting employees at every level of the company. Every employee who interacts with customers or uses customer data needs to be trained to use the new system. Training takes time and resources, but it’s a crucial investment. Without staff on board, the project is doomed to fail.
Your priority is gaining support from your management team. If high-level employees are unreceptive to the new software, their attitude has a negative ripple effect on the rest of the company and the new CRM system will be impossible to implement.
Practically, if your staff don’t know how to enter data into the CRM system, it will be impossible to access the CRM’s benefits. Without data, you can’t track sale progress, pull reports, send marketing emails or offer targeted customer service.
Your team’s positive attitude hinges on your transparency. Share your vision so that all members of the team know what to expect and when to expect it. With the bigger picture in mind, employees will be eager to learn the new ropes. Then, once the CRM system works its magic, the whole team will revel in the accomplishment.
Want to Guarantee Successful CRM Implementation?
While CRM is undeniably worthwhile, proper implementation can be the difference between wild success or a wasted investment. As the hard stats prove, CRM can propel your business to new heights and bring incredible returns—but only if you do it right. By following our CRM checklist for success, and with strategy, planning and awareness, your CRM implementation is risk-free and bound to succeed.
It’s a major change, and we know it can be daunting to do on your own.
That’s why you may want a team of experts to guide you through it from start to finish, enabling you to launch your CRM project with confidence.
Need help choosing the right CRM?
We help you pick the right software and build a CRM implementation plan that delivers real efficiency, productivity, and revenue gains — not just another system to maintain.
Nathan Weill
Certified Zapier expert, premier Pipedrive partner and self-professed tech geek. Nathan has over a decade of experience helping hundreds of companies optimize their workflows, streamline processes and eliminate time-consuming tasks. Founder of Flow Digital, Nathan enjoys harnessing the power of automation to save businesses time and money.
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