business builder technology
How to select, deploy a contact manager system that works
by Pat Noren Enderson
After several years of cutting back, you may now be looking at making technology investments. One of the largest items in your technology budget is your customer relationship management (CRM) program.
You might be saying, “What CRM program?” If you are marketing your product or service, a CRM program is something that’s important in helping you watch the return on investment of your marketing efforts. Also, a good CRM program, when used well and consistently, will assist you in keeping and growing relationships with your customers.
One of the benefits of having a CRM program is that you can enter notes on all customer interactions and attach them to one record. This enables your customer service and sales teams to work together better and it cuts down on the time it takes to resolve disputes.
For instance, if your customer service agent has an issue to resolve with a customer who says the sales rep promised something, the agent simply has to look in the records to find the details of the conversation. Vacations and other absences become easier when staff know they can look in a customer’s record to verify what someone else was working on.
If you are thinking of implementing a CRM program, you need to realize that the most important work is done before you select and install the software. You need to choose a high level champion for the project; make sure you are choosing the right program; clean up all your current data; and have a staff person dedicated to learning the program and becoming an expert on the data and how to retrieve information from it.
Who’s your champion?
The first, most important thing you need to implement a new CRM, whether you have 10 employees or 100, is a champion behind the project. This person should be a high-level manager or vice president who will help with the selection of the program and spread the word about the importance of moving to something new.
Employees can be fearful of change, so if you have senior staff support, they will know that the entire company is in support of the project. Of course, as the owner, you need to make an example once the program is implemented and use it just as you are expecting your staff to use it.
One caveat, however, is to make sure your champion is someone other than your director of marketing. Many people will see the project at that point as strictly a marketing project and not see the companywide benefits.
Selecting a program
Depending on your company structure, you should form a search committee to decide on the best solution. Select staff members from different departments to participate who will look at the CRM program options with their own needs in mind.
There are three basic types of programs you can use: boxed software (Goldmine or InterAct, for example), online programs (Salesforce.com) or custom-designed databases (Microsoft Access). No matter which path you think you want to take, first determine what information you are going to collect about your customers.
Think about how the information is going to be used and who needs access to the information. Also, how do you need to access the information? If you have a sales force that is spread out across the country, you may want an online option.
Once you create a list of your requirements, choose several programs to review. Reviewing at least three options will give you a good idea of what is out there.
Clean up data
If you have an older program or are using your invoicing program to gather your customer data, make sure that all the current data you want to export to the new program is clean. That means that all contact information is standardized.
It is best to use the U.S. Post Office regulations (check www.usps.com) for mailing addresses, especially if you’re planning to print mailing lists or invoices from the program. You will also need to work with your accounting department to determine which address of a customer will be the primary address — the street address or their P.O. box (usually their billing address).
After you’ve decided which information you want to collect, work to get that information from your customers before implementation. If your old program has fields for data such as e-mail addresses or industry classifications, you will want to collect that information and enter it into the old program. If these are new fields, collect the information and enter it into the new program.
Make sure it is available for staff in a completed version before launching the companywide use. If information is missing or incomplete, people will resort back to their own systems out of frustration.
How to keep up
Once you implement and roll out the program you’ve chosen, you’ll need someone to be the ongoing administrator for the program. Ideally, you should choose this person ahead of time, add the duties to their job description and make sure they are part of the selection process.
This person should have a sound idea of what kind of information is going to be updated and by whom, as well as have training in specialized areas of running mailing lists, creating sales lead reports or other types of advanced tasks.
One aspect to think about is how to train your staff to use the program and what expectations you have of them for the new system. You may be able to work with the program sales people to develop a training process. If not, make sure to have your committee address this area as well.
A little preparation will help keep most headaches away, but not all. Expect that there will be challenges when implementing a new product and roll with the punches. It will most likely take a year or more from the selection of a program to when it is up and running with everyone using it.
[contact] Pat Noren Enderson is a Twin Cities marketing and communications consultant with a background in professional services and manufactured products marketing. She is the communications coordinator for the Association of Accounting Marketing, Minnesota Chapter: 763.439.0035, pjend@aol.com.
