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"Intuit has completed the purchase of certain products from Entellium. Meet your
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Source : Entellium
Cutting the Risk from CRM Purchase and Deployment
CRM Purchase and Deployment is also known as :
CRM Purchase,
CRM Purchasing,
Purchase CRM Software,
CRM Purchase Tips,
Making a CRM Purchase,
CRM Purchase Decision,
Strategy CRM Purchase,
CRM Purchase Managing,
CRM Purchase Management,
Data CRM Purchase,
Guidelines CRM Purchase,
Right CRM Purchase,
Purchase CRM Software,
Hosted CRM Purchase,
Effective CRM Purchase,
Committing CRM Purchase,
CRM Technology,
CRM Buying Tools,
CRM Success Strategies,
CRM Deployment,
CRM Deployment Mistakes,
CRM Deployment Pitfalls,
CRM Deployment Model,
CRM Online Deployment,
CRM Deployment Option,
Analyst CRM Deployment.
CRM is finally ready for prime time.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications
have finally evolved from a risky 18-month IT project into
an essential productivity tool that any size business can easily
purchase and deploy. Instead of paying for software and annual
maintenance contracts, many mid-market companies have chosen to
rollout a "hosted" solution, whereby the CRM software is accessed
over the internet. In this scenario, the customer simply "rents" the
ready to use application for a monthly fee. Over 20,000 small and
mid-market firms, with more than 275,000 subscribers, have
deployed hosted CRM in the last few years alone.
Dramatic improvements in value and user-friendliness have
fueled this adoption as well as the fact that powerful CRM can now
cost less than monthly cell phone service. But the savviest hosted
CRM vendors understand that small businesses don't want watereddown
solutions - just ones that are easy to use and can scale to grow
with their company without the burden of IT support or capital
investment.
Going through the CRM buying process has become quite cumbersome
more recently because there are more options than ever
before. But when you make the right choice, you'll finally iron out the
inefficiencies of your sales and service organizations and gain actionable
insight into customer activity - which can significantly impact
revenue in terms of higher sales and greater customer loyalty.
What should I look for?
With all the effort you'll be putting into making a CRM purchase
now, wouldn't it be great to avoid the same process again in 12 to 18
months as your business matures? For this reason, evaluate only those
vendors that offer support for every stage of the customer lifecycle -
marketing, sales and service - and whether or not you intend to purchase
for all these departments up-front. This approach means you
can add functionality when you're ready.
Some providers make CRM deployment easy with modular
applications, so that you only need to deploy the sales functionality to
sales people, and the customer service functionality to your service reps. Sounds simple, right? But compare this method to "one size fits
all" solutions that force all employees to look at tabs and screens for
both functions - and unfortunately many do. Modularity also helps
significantly reduce cost because you aren't paying for features for
every employee that they'll never use.
One hosted CRM provider, Entellium, offers sales, marketing
and service functionality in modules, and also allows each module to
"see" into the others for free - the best of all worlds. They also have a
module with read-only access that is perfect for finance and other
teams that just need to track results and run reports. This feature isn't
available with any other leading vendor and at $12 per month per user
it's cheap enough to finally get everyone on the same set of data.
Key Sales Requirements For Any Sales-Oriented Business
Analysts estimate that most companies lose track of between 40
and 80 percent of all leads during the sales cycle because of an
unhealthy reliance on manual processes. Clearly, better sales start with
a greater automation of lead management. The right lead routing features
eliminate the micromanagement of lead distribution, so executives
can spend more time improving performance.
Choose a CRM vendor that gives you maximum control over how
leads flow through your organization. Every vendor can route leads
according to rules you specify, so judge providers by their support for
thresholds that distribute leads based on the current workload of your
sales force. Support for ratio and round-robin distribution gives sales
organizations the ultimate convenience and flexibility. For the price,
Entellium leads the way here too, including in-line editing in a bestin-
class Activity Center that allows you to make virtually all edits to
an opportunity in one place, compared to traversing multiple screens
in other applications - a real time saver.
Also, if you have different sales teams - major accounts, direct
sales, channel sales, or teams divided by product type or industry -
some CRM vendors force all of these different groups to compromise
on a uniform sales process. Instead, consider providers that offer multiple
sales workflows, so each team can apply the sales methodology
best suited to their prospects, including the ability to define different
sales stages, tasks and forecasting rules.
Empowering The Customer And Managing Incidents
Customer empowerment means the customer has control over
how they interact with your service team. Every vendor offers a multichannel
solution where customers can use e-mail, phone or an online
form to raise an issue. But the experience online is very different from
one vendor to the next. Consider solutions that offer each customer their own unique webpage. This personal touch has a practical benefit,
since inquiries from these channels can be automatically routed to
the appropriate service rep. In addition, ask each vendor if they offer
the ability to support your customers via online chat, a cost-effective
helpdesk solution that allows you to better capture your incidents.
Incident management is all about resolving issues quickly and completely.
From an implementation perspective, incident management is
similar to lead management - both require information to be routed to
the right person quickly according to complex business rules. Only vendors
with a workflow-driven approach to incident management will
enable companies to consistently meet service level standards.
Guided Deployment
CRM has become much easier to deploy, but it's a long way from
plug-and-play. Many vendors promise world-class support throughout
the relationship, but premium support usually costs extra, or is
only delivered right after the contract is signed and right before it's
time to renew.
Ask each vendor about their deployment process. The best way to
launch your new CRM initiative is a highly structured, clearly defined
path that explains how to implement your business processes, customize
and personalize the product for your requirements, and make
users proficient. Look for vendors that offer highly targeted training
- for management, for administrative support, and for reps - because
that's exactly what you'll need to get your best practices implemented.
Cost
Another challenge is deciphering the true cost of ownership.
Despite the price quoted by the vendor, you'll often end up paying
more for data backup, offline and wireless clients, and access to full
customization. In fact, one leading hosted CRM vendor notes that
their subscription price is only 68 percent of the total cost of ownership.
Make sure to ask exactly what's included in the sticker price, and
what you can expect to pay for essential extras, especially training and
ongoing live support.
What's The Bottom Line?
Perhaps the best gauge of the right CRM solution is a "bake-off".
Create a scenario of daily activities, and ask each vendor to show you
exactly how their product accomplishes each one. Note how many
places you need to go to fully edit a record, how many screen changes,
and how easy it is to move around the product. Without this
approach, each vendor will show you just where their product shines.
This is the most objective approach to product evaluation.With these
CRM purchase and deployment tips your company can experience
the positive bottom line impact hosted CRM now offers.