7 Steps to a Successful CRM Implementation

Projections show that the global CRM market will reach a size of $170 billion by 2030.

CRM (customer relationship management) is a software solution many businesses use to track and manage interactions with leads and clients. It’s an ideal way of consolidating all necessary information and data into one system. This makes it easier for you and your staff to find the information you need about specific customers when you need it.

CRM implementation can be a big change for a business, so you want to ensure it goes smoothly. For 7 key tips on CRM system implementation, keep reading.

1. Pick the Right System

Before you can implement your CRM, you’ll need to decide on one to use. There’s no single best solution out there, so you’ll need to find one that’s ideal for your business. Some CRMs are better suited to specific types of businesses, while others are more universal.

At TrellisPoint, we work to ensure our CRM meets our client’s needs as best possible. With over 20 years of experience in implementing CRM solutions, we’ve been able to develop our platform to be suitable for any situation.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 can help improve sales, build customer relationships, and improve overall productivity. It’s also fully interoperable with Microsoft business applications, making it very versatile.

2. Plan Your Sales and Marketing Process

Something else you need to do before implementing your CRM is to map out your entire system. You need to know what different processes you’ll be using to ensure your CRM can properly automate them.

You should look at things like orders, best practices, labels, and more. Once you have a plan laid out, you can determine which CRMs are most suitable for what you need to do.

3. Consider an End-To-End Solution

One of the main benefits of CRM systems is that they can integrate with other tools. In the past, this was mainly for accounting and inventory, but it now includes a range of other types of tools such as:

• Project management
• Collaboration
• Web conferencing
• Email marketing

By integrating these into your CRM system, you can manage many more operations from a single platform. This helps keep everything streamlined, and ensures different departments are all sharing accurate data and information.

You can integrate various tools with D365 including Outlook, SharePoint, OneDrive, Yammer, Flow, and more. By adding whichever tools you need, you can create a custom setup that’s perfect for your business.

4. Choose the Right Partner for your CRM Implementation

Many businesses don’t have the internal resources to manage a full CRM implementation, including integrators. By choosing the right partner, you can get all the assistance with this that you need.

At TrellisPoint, we’ll work with you so that we can get an understanding of your business, including your processes and needs. From this, we can better provide the most suitable CRM solution. This will include thinking about the future of your business in terms of what you want to achieve.

We’ll stay in constant communication with your team throughout the design process to make sure things stay on track. Once we’ve determined everything you need and how it will work, we’ll run tests and you can let us know of any changes you want to make before the system goes live.

5. Get Feedback

Throughout the whole implementation process, you should have people using the system you’re setting up. This is the best way to make sure it’s meeting the needs of your business and working how you want it to work. One of the main reasons that CRM implementations fail is because users take no part in how it’s developed.

You want to have people involved from the start, and ideally, these people will have different tasks. This will ensure that different features of your CRM are tested for a better overall view of how things are panning out.

This team can test how effective the CRM is, giving feedback on various aspects. From here, you can make changes to optimize your system for your business. The earlier you get feedback, the quicker you can get your system fully implemented, so this is something you want to start as early as possible.

6. Create a Project Plan

Your CRM strategy should involve a solid plan based on clear deliverables. Have a skilled project manager set timelines for your goals to make sure things stay on track.

It’s common for businesses to use a phased approach. The first iteration of your CRM system may just include some basic functionality such as document access and a contact database. As you move through phases, you can then add more advanced features such as marketing automation.

At TrellisPoint, we use a process called “TPSF” or TrellisPoint Success Framework, created based upon our years of experience implementing CRM solutions for clients. Phase 1 is called Discover and the goals is to guide you through the project planning process so you can decide if the vision, budget, and timeline suit your needs before moving forward.

7. Ensure Your CRM Solution Works and Is Scalable

One problem that many businesses face at some point or another is scaling. With your CRM and any other systems you have in place, you want to be able to scale them as needed so that you can keep things running smoothly. This could be as your business grows over time or could be more short-term if you experience increases or decreases in business.

Think about how your CRM will line up with the rest of your technology initiatives to make sure they’ll all stay effective with changes in demand. D365 is designed to be highly scalable and flexible, making it an ideal choice for any business.

Your CRM Implementation

TrellisPoint is here to support you through your CRM implementation journey. We can help businesses of any size develop a solid plan to establish the perfect CRM solution, and provide ongoing maintenance and support to keep things running smoothly.

Click here to request a free D365 demo today.

About TrellisPoint

TrellisPoint is a Microsoft Dynamics 365 Consulting firm with locations in Cleveland and Cincinnati. As a Microsoft Gold Partner, TrellisPoint is dedicated to helping customers drive digital transformation by implementing and integrating Microsoft Dynamics 365, the Power Platform and related customer experience applications. Additional services include on-premises to cloud migration, software development, and managed services including Dynamics 365 Support.

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