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Oncontact is dedicated to providing mid-market companies with easy-to-use, quick to implement,
cost-effective
CRM solutions that enable you to better serve your customers and prospects. "
Source : Oncontact Software
The Real Challenge of CRM: Employee Buy-In
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CRM System.
Your company has just selected a new CRM system for
your company. Congratulations should be in order.
However, your work is really just starting so there
won’t be much time to rest. You know that in order for
your CRM initiative to be successful, that you’ll need
buy-in from your users. This buy-in starts from the top
management all the way down to occasional users of
your CRM system. Hopefully, you’ve selected a CRM
system that all users will find extremely easy to use.
Your motto during your CRM selection process should
have been, “If CRM isn’t easy to use, it won’t be used”.
We’re sure you’ve made a good selection.
Outline
- Congratulations: You’ve made a selection on a new CRM system.
- The initial steps – the big announcement to the staff
- How focus groups can provide vital input for success
- Prioritizing for quick success
- Your Next Steps
Congratulations:
You’ve made a selection on a new CRM system
You have gone through a comprehensive evaluation and
have found what you fully expect to be the best CRM
system for your company and you believe your new
CRM system will serve your company well for years and
years into the future. During your selection process
you most likely assembled a group of employees
together to evaluate vendors to see what company
would make the best partner for your CRM initiative.
During your evaluation process your team most likely
developed a needs list of the features you were hoping
to have in your CRM system. Specific information was
gathered among your vendor finalists, demonstrations
by the CRM vendors ensued, and you were able to
determine the best fit for your CRM initiative. Some
of you probably thought the hard part was done – the
selection process.
However, now you are quickly realizing that you have
some significant work ahead of you to make sure your
CRM system delivers the key, important needs that your
users expect. You want to make sure your CRM system
fits your business like a glove and makes life easier for
all of your users. After all, if your CRM system doesn’t save you time, make you more efficient, and doesn’t
help you spend more time with your clients, what’s the
point of having a CRM system?
There’s probably some question as to how the rest of
the company will react when they hear the news that
your company will soon be rolling out a new CRM
system. Some will be extremely happy and say, “It’s
about time!”, while others will have extreme hesitation.
With a proper game plan in place, you will be able to
deliver your news with confidence and you’ll soon be
showing everyone why your initiative will be extremely
worthwhile for your company.
The initial steps –
the big announcement to the staff
You’re about to tell your company about the new CRM
initiative that will be forthcoming. Are you prepared
for the onslaught of questions everyone will have?
Do you have a game plan in place to insure a smooth
transition? Setting realistic and honest expectations
with your staff can greatly assist in getting your
employees behind you to ensure a solid CRM
implementation. What will you tell your company?
One of the key items you will want to discuss in your
CRM announcement is exactly why your company is
taking on a CRM initiative. Many users may falsely
believe that a key reason that a company brings on
a CRM system is so they can keep a better eye and
play big brother with their employees. This is usually
not a very good reason in itself for a CRM initiative.
Remember, you need your company behind you to make
your CRM initiative successful. Everything you should
be focused on in your CRM initiative should be around
how life will become easier, hopefully immensely easier
once they are using the new CRM system. You should
always be thinking to yourself, that your new CRM
system will save you time, money, and will allow you
more time with your customers and prospects.
Your users will want to know that you have selected
something that not only will save them time, but
that they will also be getting a great tool that will be
extremely easy to use. Your users know that if their
CRM system isn’t easy to use, it won’t be used. Your
users also know that a CRM system will only be as
successful as the commitment senior management
has. They need to know senior management is 100% behind the success of your CRM initiative. If senior
management isn’t committed to this, they will not see
the value that can be created from your CRM system.
If you can communicate these benefits to your company
they will have a greater appreciation for what their new
CRM system can do for them to make their life easier
Benefits to communicate:
- A. Your CRM system will save you time and money
- B. Your CRM system will be easy to use
- C. Your CRM system will have 100% commitment from senior management
How focus groups can provide vital input for success
Now that everyone knows a CRM system will be
coming – you need to get them actively involved.
This will not only convince them of the vast benefits
of a CRM system, but it will also help ensure that
their CRM system is focused accordingly to their
specific needs.
One route your company may decide to go in your CRM
implementation is to establish various focus groups
of key users to get their input on specific features,
workflow functions, and how to best automate different
departments. The input from even the most novice
employees may provide critical information that can
help your company be more efficient and track the best
possible information for your company.
Further, the active involvement of various users in
your company during the implementation process
often provides an added incentive to even the most
casual users to ensure they are committed and even
excited about the new CRM system. Most companies
that deploy a CRM system will have a project manager
from the software supplier that is responsible for
overseeing the proper implementation of their CRM
system along with you. Your project manager follows
a specific implementation methodology based on an
agreed framework and can suggest many ways in which
focus groups can assist your company to insure a very
effective implementation.
Prioritizing for quick success
Quick wins. This term will be of great importance to
you during your implementation. Too many times, we have all heard of CRM initiatives that have taken
far too long to implement and have cost far too much.
Some companies have taken six to eighteen months to
implement their CRM system and have way overspent
their budget. This shouldn’t be you.
One of they key principles you should employ in your
CRM initiative is what we call “quick wins”. What
we mean by this is quite simple. Choose a few key
hot priority areas that are must haves in your CRM
initiative and make sure these key feature areas are
included in the very first phase of the implementation.
And then make sure you are able to deliver this to your
users in a very short amount of time. Users will become
very committed to your CRM initiative if they’re able
to use some of their most requested features in a CRM
system in a short amount of time. They will be very
impressed by this. On the opposite end, nothing will
turn users off more than a CRM system that takes
forever to implement and doesn’t deliver the basic key
features they are looking for. Another key benefit of
our “quick wins” approach is that senior management
will feel good about the CRM initiative since the first
phase is being delivered in a timely manner and within
budget guidelines.
Your Next Steps
We have hopefully provided a few key ideas for you to
think about regarding employee buy-in. You certainly
know that if you don’t have the proper employee buy-in,
your CRM initiative will not have the vast success you
are hoping for. We encourage you to talk to your CRM
partner regarding your implementation to ensure your
employees will reap the benefits they are hoping for
with their CRM system.
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