Companies are often reluctant to change and as a result, fail to get the most out of their CRM strategies. This isn't just problematic for employees and customers, but ultimately allows the ROI of the company to suffer. ROI is often an afterthought to those implementing CRM systems and creating strategies, but this school of thought needs to change for the benefit of the company, its employees and most importantly, the customers. Our Slideshare identifies 10 best practices that companies like yours ought to follow which will help you to empower employees, remove silos between departments and open up opportunities to create long lasting relationships with your customers. Each of these factors will drive ROI and overall success for your CRM strategy.

1. best practices
foryour CRM
strategy10

2. If there are two acronyms you don’t see together often enough, it’s
CRM and ROI. Often the issue isn’t with software choices, but with
the way they were implemented. Management buy-in, employee
training, company wide reluctance to change, orvendors who didn’t
‘get it’ all contribute to failed projects.
To help you achieve success, we outline 10
best practices you should use throughout
your CRM strategy.

3. Your CRM strategy should
empoweryour people
By far the biggest issue in the success of CRM is the mindset of the people using it.
Some may be reluctant to change, so you must be prepared to show them how CRM
will benefit. CRM can help:
Marketing to improve
their targeting
Sales to convert leads
into sales
IT to become strategic
drivers.

4. Relieve your IT
team by placing
emphasis
on Sales and
Marketing
Complex software projects frequently get
dumped on IT’s shoulders, but if this team feels
burdened then your CRM implementation is
likely to fail.
CRM is supposed to empower Sales and
Marketing. Ensure that both teams are working
collaboratively with IT and giving the data and
information input that’s required.

5. Integrate multiple
databases for a single
view of the truth
Integration is a difficult job but it’s critical to CRM
success. CRM strategies can only be successful when
data can be accessed easily, precisely when someone
needs it. This data also needs to be error free,
de-duplicated and easy to understand. Integration
provides a holistic, singularvision.

6. Use CRM to eliminate
the silos between Sales
and the wider business
With social CRM, campaigning plug-ins, and even
financial data capture, the CRM features that benefit
Sales work equally well for Marketing,
Finance, Management, and countless other
vertical functions.
So if CRM is known only to a few insiders,
try introducing its features to people
outside the sales function. If everyone at
C-level has problems gathering accurate
data, show them a dashboard. If your
Accounts people have trouble matching
Purchase Orders to costs, demo some
plug-in apps. CRM can take a lot of the leg
work away from Sales and empower other
departments.

7. Use your CRM to act proactively, rather
than reactively
Social listening, e-CRM and a variety of online, dedicated, blogs means the world beyond
youryour office matters. A good CRM system and strategy can empoweryour staff to listen to
customers’ tweets, posts and reviews created when people talk about you, not to you - and take
necessary, responsive, action.

8. Use your CRM to create
opportunities
There are many uses of
CRM, but sometimes it is
easy to get caught up in
the administrative aspects,
blinding themselves to what
that dull-but-essential work
enables.
It’s hard, but keep your
data policy (or equivalent
document) short and simple,
so people aren’t turned off by
entering the details of a new
client accurately.

9. Create long-lasting
relationships with
your customers
Ideally, each campaign or customer
communication should be part of a
“conversation over time” - with insights
gleaned from how customers behaved
last time. Yet countless campaigns
are launched treating long-term
customers like fresh-found prospects.
Have a chat with your colleagues and
see if they’re using CRM more as a list
than a network. Then show them the
power of what it can really do.

10. Achieve real business
intelligence with
your CRM
Your CRM database isn’t a static list. With
a few thousand names and activities
recorded, it becomes a useful tool for
predicting and testing.
It can be as simple as: do customers
respond more when contacted on
a weekly or monthly basis? It’s
surprising how many companies
don’t know these simple metrics.
If you’re in a position to share these
findings, shout them from the rooftops.

11. Use it to streamline
your business.
It’s supposed to
replace things, not
add to them
CRM can extend into many areas of
your business, but it should streamline
aspects by replacing them - rather
than adding to them.
So if you’re doing a feasibility study, see
where CRM could simplify and replace
other systems, driving costs out of the
whole business, especially legacy apps
that are costing too much to support.

12. Maximise your
businesses efficiencies
A final note: CRM should improve your
business, not hamperyour people. For
every task and requirement on the list,
you should see whether the CRM rollout
you’re planning will make the tasks easier.
CRM should make the day to day running
of your projects easier and less time
consuming.
To sum up, make sure everyone who
matters thinks of CRM as an enabler, not
a technology. Your job may - just - get
easier because of it.

13. Takeaways:
Following best practice guidelines for CRM
strategies will improve chances of success.
CRM will enable your business, so you must ensure
each department know how they will benefit.
Streamlining your processes is a big benefit of
CRM and will improve overall performance.

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