Lesson 4 - Finding your perfect CRM - What to look for and ask providers

Finding the perfect CRM can be a daunting task for many people and businesses. But it doesn't need to be once you break it all down into simple steps. This can be broken down into

1. Things to remember before looking at a CRM
2. Where are you now and where do you want to be? What type of CRM do I need? A needs assessment
3. Questions to ask the provider
4. Implementing a CRM

Things to remember

It’s all about the customer
Before you embark on a CRM adventure, you have to remember it’s about your customers as much as it is about you. Think about how and what is needed to improve how they interact with you and your organisation.

Understand CRM, it is not just software
A CRM does not guarantee great customer service. CRM is much more that a software solution, it is an organisation wide philosophy, even with the technology; it is still about the people within your businesses.

Promote organisation-wide adoption
One of the key elements to securing a CRM success is the user adoption. By involving them in your software needs assessment you have addressed their needs, and they feel part of the process. This will help create positive perceptions from the outset for your new solutions and incredibly boost the adoption rate. Offer them training on the software solution before it is activated so they are as comfortable and confident as possible with the new solutions. This gives you valuable time to receive feedback from the users and give you time to make any chances to the system

A needs assessment

That leads nicely onto our 2nd point - the needs assessment.

We all know that planning is the most important aspect when investing in anything - and it is the exact same with a new software solution, and a key part of the planning process is completing a needs assessment. The four key aspects to CRM failure are being over budget, too little or too much functionality, behind scheduled implementation, and user adoption. All of this can be avoided by completing a need assessment. Establish a core team of individuals, including a project manager, to oversee and manage the whole process. A CRM solution is one of the most valuable tools your organisation will have at is disposal, therefore allocate time in your dairy to hold a team meeting and complete a need assessment.

We know this can be difficult to do because some users are in customer facing roles and need to concentrate on serving your customers. Therefore, try and elect one person from each area that has the responsibility to collect the views of their selection of users. This will not only help you make knowledgeable decisions that are beneficial to all areas of your organisation, but also improve the success of the implementation of your CRM solution because you have the time and views to determined the budget, the timescale, and the features the users want, which will improve the user adoption rate of the new solution.

All businesses are different and different needs and objectives will need to be discussed within your needs assessment. However, your needs assessment should include some of these key points:

• Analysis of your current process and highlight which ones are working, which are not, why?
• What is it about our current system that is most frustrating or troublesome?
• What steps are required to solve the problem?
• What do we want to achieve?
• Is new software the solution to our problems?
• What will happen to your organisation if these changes are not addressed?
• Do we need a CRM?
• Do we need online CRM, on premise CRM or a combination?
• How many system users will we have? Don’t forget to include administration, technical, customer service representatives and off premise users.
• What features, and key fields will do we need?
• What reporting capabilities will we need?
• When do we need the CRM in place?
• What is our budget?
• Is they a solution currently available that matches our requirements?
• What type of CRM do we need? off the shelf? tailored? bespoke solution? Look at Lesson 2 - Types of CRM for more info

By asking yourself these questions you will be able to find a CRM solution and provider, that emulates the positive ways you do business as well as incorporating and helping you achieve your future business goals.

Questions to Ask

Choosing the CRM solution is much more than choosing the right CRM software, you have to think about the CRM provider. Would you want a solution that had little or no support? How about overseas call centres? All this has to be included in choosing the perfect CRM for you and your business. With so many companies in the CRM marketplace, how can you find the best provider and solution for your unique business? It all begins with asking the right questions during the initial process to help you make a smarter, and more informed purchasing decision.

Get the information you need from the CRM provider by and asking the following questions…

• What is your history? How long have you been providing this software?
• Do you specialise in any industries?
• Costs and pricing structure of the software? One off fee? Annual / monthly fee? Charge per user? Charge for storage? Charge on amount of contacts?
• Can we speak to your clients? Contact them directly? View testimonials?
• Can we see a demonstration?
• What installation timescale can we expect? Any costs with this?
• What kind of support and training is provided? Any costs for this?
• Will the solution grow and adapt as we do? Will they be additional charges?
• Will the system work/transfer data from our original system?
• What kind of support is provided? Is they a charge?
• Does the supplier provide consultancy? Costs again?
• How secure is my data?

You should also consider…

• Are we ready?
• Have we completed software needs assessment?
• Do we need online CRM, on premise CRM or a combination?
• What features do we need?
• How challenging will it be to introduce?
• How supportive are our staffs to new software?

The debate

Anything you would like to add to this? Do you have any other questions people should ask CRM providers? How about additional things to think about during the needs assessment process?