The CRM (customer relationship management) is an essential part of today's business landscape. These software tools perform a myriad of important customer relations functions quickly and efficiently. They help your business stay on top of customer communication, while freeing your employees to handle more sensitive, non-routine matters.
Each company has its own unique set of circumstances that affect how long it will take to get a CRM system up and running smoothly. The entire implementation process can vary considerably, depending on:
For example, if you are currently using a system of spreadsheets to track customer interactions, collecting and cleaning all the data may take more time than if the data was stored in a different CRM platform. However, reformatting and cleaning data exported from a different CRM can take time, too, depending on how data needs to be imported into the new system.
While time varies considerably overall for CRM implementation, for a mid-market manufacturer who needs to train between 50 and 100 people on the new system, the process takes about 11 months to a year.
Catch the segment from 14:41 - 16:41 below to hear how long it took for UFP Industry's CRM Implementation:
We’ve outlined an example of a basic CRM implementation timeline for a mid-market manufacturer. Depending on your business, some of these stages can be accomplished in short order, while other phases will take more time.
Setting a goal is, arguably, the most important part of your CRM planning process. Until you decide clearly what you want to achieve by adding or switching CRM systems, you're just wasting time and money.
Do you want your system to streamline your customer service functions, saving your employees time? Perhaps you want to make 24/7 customer service possible or increase your number of sales leads. Maybe you want to increase customer retention by upping your customer service "game".
Whatever you decide, keep in mind that you'll also want to choose a method of measuring your progress towards those goals.
You can use our template to create a one page goal sheet that can be leverage throughout your organization to stay on the exact same page.
Another essential step in your timeline is to decide which CRM features you need. You certainly don't want to pay for features that you'll rarely, if ever use.
When you’re looking at the possibilities, keep in mind your goal of the CRM. It’s very easy to get lost in the many bells and whistles that might not apply to how you can most effectively operate with a CRM.
Some common features a CRM should have:
- Customer database with advanced filtering
- Integration with major email clients such as Outlook and Gmail
- Automation that logs activities like emails opened and links clicked
- Automation that allows sales reps to create email templates or sequences for common communications
Now, armed with your goals and a list of features you need, it's time to select the software vendor that has the product and pricing that will work best for your needs. Some major CRM vendors include Zoho, Salesforce, and HubSpot.
Many CRMs offer modular or a la carte pricing, meaning you only pay for the features you want. Others offer tiered pricing where each tier contains a specific set of features, often based on the size of the business. CRMs designed to help businesses scale often offered tiered pricing that builds on the previous tier with advanced or additional features.
Common hold ups for CRM set up include:
This step is crucial because without team-wide adoption of the CRM, the value decision makers will get out of the tool will be greatly diminished. You can choose to launch the new CRM with a group of Beta users, or Super Users who will manage the adoption of the CRM by other team members, to iron out any kinks before a full rollout across the entire organization. T
he ManoByte team will be alongside your leaders each step of the way to fine tune the CRM system, automations, integrations, and customizations to ensure your team can work well with the new system. Full rollout and User Training is a substantial portion of the CRM implementation project and is one of our highest priorities for the project because without user adoption, there is significantly less benefit to your organization. We are then available for continuous improvement via creation of new custom reports, keeping data clean, creating new automations, adding and training new users, etc on a retainer basis.
Before you start, decide how you want to hold your training sessions: during work hours or after hours, by team or department, or as a mixed group from various departments? Additionally, you’ll need to make plans for ongoing training for new hires and when upgrades are done to the system.
How long it takes to train the team will depend on the size of your team as well as what they need to learn. While it might be tempting to hold a couple large training sessions to give all the information to your team quickly—this actually hinders software adoption. Offering more training sessions in smaller groups and making resources easily digestible will help the team retain more information. When they remember more, they can implement what they learned, allowing them to see quicker wins with the new platform and want to use it more.
Training should ideally be ongoing, too, with resources available to refresh and expand on what the team has already learned.
Your expertise is in the products you manufacture and the services you offer. While it’s important to understand the trends in your industry and needs of your organization, a little help can make the CRM implementation process smoother. Partnering with an implementation expert can ensure proper CRM set up and connection with your other systems as well as assist in training efforts. An implementation partner knows their way around the platform you’re implementing and can make sure it’s set to reach your goals and help your business grow.