crm from a to z - ledgeview partners...all of these pain points happen to a variety of companies...

CRM from A to ZFrom Selection and Implementation

to User Adoption and ROI

Introduction

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Are you ready to make your CRM process smoother no matter what point you’re at in your journey?

Throughout the lifetime of your CRM, you will inevitably encounter obstacles and experience change along the way, but the knowledge, resources, and tools you have to manage these obstacles and respond to changes will make it much easier to get through. By providing your team these resources, tools, and a knowledgebase for success, you will increase their confidence and improve user adoption throughout the lifecycle.

Throughout this eBook, you will learn about:

• How to get over bad experiences you may have had with CRM in the past

• Common reasons CRM projects fail and how you can prevent failures to plan for success from the start

• The basics and benefits of CRM

• How to select and decide on the right CRM solution for your organization

• CRM best practices

• Common CRM gotchas

• How to gain high and continuous CRM user adoption

• How to measure your success with CRM

• And much more!

Based on many years of experience, Ledgeview Partners experts have compiled their insights into top tips and best practices to ensure your success with CRM from A to Z.

Table of Contents

3

1 . H O W T O G E T O V E R B A D PA S T C R M E X P E R I E N C E S

2 . C O M M O N R E A S O N S C R M P R O J E C T S F A I L

3 . H O W T O TA K E A C T I O N T O S U C C E E D W I T H C R M

4 . W H AT I S C R M ?

5 . W H O I S I N V O LV E D W I T H C R M ?

6 . W H Y C R M I S N E C E S S A R Y T O B E S U C C E S S F U L

7 . H O W T O S E L E C T T H E R I G H T C R M S O L U T I O N

8 . C R M I M P L E M E N TAT I O N B E S T P R A C T I C E S –B E F O R E , D U R I N G , A N D A F T E R Y O U R G O - L I V E

9 . H O W T O M E A S U R E Y O U R C R M S U C C E S S

1 0 . T H E F U T U R E O F C R M –W H AT ’ S N E X T F O R Y O U R B U S I N E S S ?

How to Get Over Bad Past CRM Experiences

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Before you understand what CRM is, and decide on a solution for your business, it’s important that you understand some of the most common reasons CRM projects fail.

Personally, you may have experienced or heard about a CRM project gone wrong. Some of the most common complaints about CRM include:

• “ M Y S A L E S T E A M N E V E R U S E D I T. ”

• “ T H E S E T H I N G S A R E S O H A R D T O U S E . ”

• “ W E S P E N T A L L O F T H I S M O N E Y A N D W H AT D I D W E G E T ? ! ”

• “ W H AT G O O D I S I T I F I C A N ’ T G E T D ATA O U T O F I T ? ”

• “ W E G A V E S A L E S E V E R Y T H I N G T H E Y W A N T E D A N D N O W I T ’ S T O O C O M P L I C AT E D . ”

• “ M A R K E T I N G A N D S A L E S H A V E T O TA L L Y D I F F E R E N T E X P E C TAT I O N S O F T H E S Y S T E M . ”

Does this sound familiar? Even if you’re already using CRM, it’s good to understand the potential challenges you may face as a team. These may also be reasons you’ve yet to deploy a CRM solution. In this eBook, we provide insight to get you started or back on track.

Common Reasons CRM Projects Fail

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Some of the most popular CRM tools available today, such as Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Salesforce, are extremely robust and offer similar features to customers. These tools are not the reason that CRM projects fail. Most often, CRM project failure happens when:

• E X P E C TAT I O N S A R E N ’ T M E T

• T R U E P A I N P O I N T S A R E N E V E R M A D E V I S I B L E .

• T H E R E I S A L A C K O F E X E C U T I V E S P O N S O R S H I P.

• T H E R E I S A L A C K O F C U S T O M E R O U T R E A C H , C O N S I D E R AT I O N , A N D F E E D B A C K .

• T H E S Y S T E M I S O V E R L Y -C O M P L E X .

• S U C C E S S M E T R I C S A N D G O A L S A R E N E V E R C L E A R L Y D E F I N E D .

• T H E R E I S N O O N G O I N G S U P P O R T O R G O V E R N A N C E .

• O N L Y O N E P E R S O N R E A L L Y K N O W S C R M A N D L E A V E S T H E C O M P A N Y.

All of these pain points happen to a variety of companies across industries. When we fail to meet user expectations, we fail to gain the high and continuous CRM user adoption we need to thrive. When insight into possible hurdles is not made clear, users enter the system blindly. When leadership doesn’t support CRM, users have no reason to either, and so on… Luckily, there are many ways to be proactive and plan for CRM success.

How to Take Action to Succeed with CRM

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Take the positive approach! To be successful, there are three key actions you must take as a team:

P R E P A R EP L A N P E R F O R M

Don’t focus on what potential failures you may encounter or face. Focus on how you can prevent failures from the beginning of your CRM journey. Learn to plan and prepare so that your team can perform at their highest with CRM!

As you plan, prepare, and perform, you should achieve the following sub-tasks:

✓Get input from cross-functional groups to build a consensus and account for all roles and responsibilities during the design phase of your CRM project.

✓Gain executive sponsorship to show the importance of CRM to your users.

✓Define true problems you may encounter and set expectations so that users enter your CRM space with clarity.

✓ Listen to what your users and customers are asking for so that your CRM technology can reflect internal and external needs.

✓ Keep your CRM system simple.

✓Define your goals and measurable success metrics so that you can work with your CRM partner and team to ensure your CRM system is working in the way you need.

> > > C O N T I N U E D

Interactions

Documentation

Communication

What is CRM?

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Now it’s time to answer the BIG question – What is CRM?

It’s much more than you might think! Consider all of the internal and external relationships you may have – with customers, prospects, vendors, suppliers, competitors, etc. Think about how many people externally and internally touch your business. All of these important parts and people are a big part of what makes your CRM system what it is.

CRM has evolved massively over the years to respond to modern consumer and business demands. Relationship Management is just the start of what CRM offers your business. CRM as it stands today revolves around the customer experience. Companies like Microsoft, who powers Microsoft Dynamics 365, and Salesforce, put the customer first so that the technology serves their needs. Partners/Business and Technology Consulting Firms, like Ledgeview Partners, ensure that customers are able to use the technology in the most optimized ways to meet their unique objectives and goals.

CRM works to help salespeople gain more new business, and extend opportunities with existing customers, while building more thorough, personalized, and sustainable relationships. CRM helps to align sales, marketing, and customer service departments. It’s not just for salespeople! It’s for everyone. Once you have a CRM system, it should operate at the core of your business functionality.

CRM helps drive value during your sales processes, helping marketing send qualified leads to sales with more efficiency than with spreadsheets or binders, for example...

> > > C O N T I N U E D

CustomerLoyalty

Personalization& Promotions

Order, Process,& Strategy

And much,much more!

Data & Analytics

Transformative Business Growth

What is CRM?

8

CRM provides ample data analytics for success. Gain 360-degree views of customers, prospects, and leads to connect with them more effectively. Keep a pulse on your conversion rates, win rates, and pipeline value, and see key trends among the data you analyze. Gain holistic performance insights. The end-user becomes much more strategic in their decision-making processes and discussions as a result of the availability and clarity of these analytics!

But, what’s possible doesn’t stop there –automation capabilities within leading CRM technology helps your team focus on their core job functionality, and put other time-consuming tasks on autopilot, such as researching key data, visualizing competitive insights, and sharing purchase history.

Customers today do a lot of web research before they reach out to sales reps. So, in addition to helping your team focus, it also gives you a leg up on the competition. By establishing a web presence early on through CRM, your business is able to reach the customer sooner in their buyer’s journey. Personalized message capabilities make you a stand-out among your customers with CRM!

CRM helps you manage customer relationships with more ease and confidence. See past and current open service tickets, sales history, and communications across departments. This will help you better serve the customer!

While this may seem like a lot, it’s really just the start. CRM technology today is vast, comprehensive, and intricate. When you put the art of the possible to work for your business, you will begin to understand its full, riveting value.

“In 2019, overall

CRM usage

increased from 56, to 74%.”

S U P E R O F F I C E , 2 0 1 9

Who is Involved with CRM?

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S A L E S

O R D E R SS U P P O R T

M A R K E T I N G

Suspect

Quote

ProspectService

Delivery

Purchase Lead

QualityOrder

- everyone.


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CRM impacts

relationships

among people

S U B S C R I B E R S

W E B S I T E V I S I T O R S

A L L I A N C E S

D E A L E R S

I N D U S T R Y L E A D E R S

C O M P E T I T O R S

V E N D O R S

C O N T R I B U T O R S

M E M B E R S

D O N O R S

C U S T O M E R S

C L I E N T S

L E A D S

R E F E R R A L S

S H A R E H O L D E R S

PA R T N E R S

P R O S P E C T S

E M P L O Y E E S

A S S O C I AT E S

M A N A G E R S

O W N E R S

Internally, all departments that impact the customer experience may be involved with CRM. A single source of information for all of these key departments will help improve your customer experience. It’s not just customers you’re serving with CRM, but all of the business relationships your company has (shown above). The impact of these relationships to your business may be just as important as your relationships with your customers.


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It’s becoming even easier to extend CRM access to provide external resources with insight into key information. You may want to provide a customer or vendor web portal, for example, to share invoices, services cases, or even pipeline information.

A web portal is, essentially, a secure website where customers, partners, and vendors can access key information about your business that comes directly from CRM. By connecting CRM to your financial or ERP (enterprise resource planning) system, you provide a broader view of the full customer lifecycle to your sales and customer service departments.

That insight can help them quickly address a customer question, or position sales to offer the customer better products or services based on their CRM account profile.

“47% of CRM users said that

their CRM had a significant

impact on customer retention.”

N U T S H E L L , 2 0 1 9

Why CRM is Necessary to Be Successful

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Each business has unique reasons for implementing a CRM solution, but there are many that resonate across the board.

You will need to identify your own reasons for implementing a CRM, which you can do with your team and CRM partner. The reasons you decide to implement CRM should have tangible value associations.

Among the most popular include:

✓To stay competitive.

✓To give your sales team easy access to information at any time, from anywhere.

✓To provide insight into the customer and the customer experience.

✓To create transparency and efficiency across your organization.

✓To add consistency to your business processes and strategies.

✓To connect sales and marketing to produce more effective outcomes.

✓To increase productivity among your sales team.

✓To measure what gets done against what you want to achieve.


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Today, many sales teams have little access to information to aid their sales processes. CRM puts data right in the palm of their hands, at their fingertips, whether they’re traveling on the road, are working remote, or are right in your business headquarters.

Additionally, accounting system integrations with your CRM have a lot of useful information to offer your sales and customer service departments. By sharing some of this information with them, such as customer purchase history, they are better prepared to upsell and cross-sell. This leads to developing much richer, more meaningful relationships with your customers.

CRM systems help organizations across industry sectors to define their business processes, making sales teams more consistent, which, in turn, makes it much easier to onboard new sales team members. These new sales reps will especially appreciate having account history available to them as new accounts are turned over.

All said and done, sales managers and account executives will appreciate having the ability to monitor trends and track the sales pipeline to make better business decisions. What gets measured gets done! What better way to do it than with CRM?

There may be many reasons your business decides to implement CRM, including some of or all of the aforementioned, but what it really comes down to is the cost of doing nothing. Not implementing a CRM may cost your organization more in the long run. When you articulate the value of CRM and put its potential to work from the beginning, you set yourselves up for lasting success.

Determine what tangible benefits CRM will have for your business. Consider more leads coming into your sales pipeline, empowering sales reps to handle a large pipeline, or shortening your sales cycle. Do you have customer retention issues that could improve by providing customer service reps more insight into the customer, enabling them to have faster response times?

> > > C O N T I N U E D


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These are just a few of the examples of things you can measure within CRM, and reasons you may implement the technology into the core of your business. Having clearly defined reasons is very important. It gives your team a purpose from the start, and a foundation for strong adoption during every CRM project phase.

Whatever your reasons, they should have clear revenue benefits or cost-savings associations. These reasons will become the basis for the metrics you will use to identify your CRM project success.

C O M M O N R E A S O N S

B U S I N E S S E S I M P L E M E N T

C R M :

✓ To better manage the sales team.

✓ When the current state of the customer experience is not ideal.

✓ When customer retention needs to be improved.

✓ To get ahead of the competition.

✓ To measure marketing’s effect on the overall lead generation process.

✓ When sales needs to do a better job of cross-selling and upselling.

✓ To improve collaborations across departments.

✓ To gain access to and utilize better data analysis tools.

✓ To gain a 360-degree view of the customer across all touchpoints and areas of the business.

How to Select the Right CRM Solution

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There are a few common mistakes to avoid before you select a CRM solution. If you’ve had a failed CRM experience in the past, you may want to examine this list carefully to identify any underlying reasons it may have gone wrong.

Common CRM selection mistakes include:

1 . R e f u s i n g t o e x a m i n e t h e r e a l i s s u e s d r i v i n g t h e n e e d f o r C R M a n d t h i n k i n g i t w i l l s o l v e a l l o f y o u r b u s i n e s s p r o c e s s e s o n i t s o w n ( m a g i c a l l y ) w i t h o u t m u c h u s e r s u p p o r t .

2 . N o t c o n s i d e r i n g t h e e n d u s e r f r o m t h e b e g i n n i n g a n d h o w i t w i l l m a k e t h e i r d a y s e a s i e r ( o r h a r d e r, i f n o t c o n s i d e r e d ) .

3 . P u t t i n g t h e s e l e c t i o n p r i o r i t y o n t h e t e c h n o l o g y a n d n o t y o u r t e a m m e m b e r s o r y o u r b u s i n e s s p r o c e s s e s .

4 . B e i n g o v e r l y a m b i t i o u s a n d c r e a t i n g a n o v e r w h e l m i n g e x p e r i e n c e f o r y o u r u s e r s a s a r e s u l t . T h i s o f t e n l e a d s t o a n o v e r l y - c o m p l e x s y s t e m d e s i g n a n d l o w t o n o u s e r a d o p t i o n !

5 . N o t c l e a r l y d e f i n i n g t h e g o a l s o f a C R M p r o j e c t f r o m t h e b e g i n n i n g a n d f a i l i n g t o h e l p y o u r t e a m u n d e r s t a n d i t s p u r p o s e a n d v a l u e a s a r e s u l t .


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During the CRM selection and buying process, you will want to take a close look at your current business processes to identify real pain points that your team and business are currently experiencing. Conduct an internal analysis of the current state of your business versus the desired future state. Dive deep into this to cover all of your basis and ensure everything you want out of your CRM system and project is accounted for!

C o n s i d e r e v e r y d e p a r t m e n t a n d t h e i r n e e d s t h r o u g h o u t t h e s e l e c t i o n p r o c e s s .

Inside sales may have completely different needs out of a CRM than outside sales, for example. Customer service needs to see customer information to quickly address customer questions, marketing needs very specific customer data to target their messages and personalize content, and so on. Get input from all roles involved with and impacted by CRM.

Next, you will want to consider future growth. What else might happen in the future that could impact your needs and requirements of CRM? As your organization adapts over time, so must your technology along with it. You will want to select a CRM that accounts for this change and business evolution.

The end user experience should be easy when it comes to your CRM system, so you’ll want to consider what this means for each individual on your team(s).

Finally, consider if an integration with other systems is important to your team(s). Do you need to integrate an accounting system, quoting system, lead sharing for your website, etc.?

T o d a y , c o m p a n i e s a r e p u l l i n g d a t a i n t o C R M t o e n a b l e t h i s c o n c e p t o f a 3 6 0 - d e g r e e c u s t o m e r v i e w r i g h t a t a p e r s o n ’ s f i n g e r t i p s , n o m a t t e r t h e t i m e a n d p l a c e .

When it comes to the selection process, you will want to feel empowered by and confident about a CRM system that is accountable for this modern business philosophy.


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To select a proper CRM solution for your organization, you will want to define metrics for success. That helps define the information you’ll need in CRM, and may also help to determine what types of analytics and reporting capabilities you’ll need in your system.

During the analysis and design phase of your CRM project, you will also start gathering key features your teams will need in a CRM system. All CRM systems include basic account and contact management out-of-the-box, but what else will you need?

Consider questions like…

• D o y o u h a v e a c o m p l e x s a l e s p r o c e s s t h a t C R M c o u l d h e l p t r a c k a n d a u t o m a t e ?

• D o e s c u s t o m e r s e r v i c e w a n t t o u s e C R M t o t r a c k c u s t o m e r s e r v i c e s u p p o r t t i c k e t s ?

• D o e s m a r k e t i n g w a n t t o h a v e a u t o m a t i o n d i r e c t l y w i t h i n C R M t o m a k e e m a i l m a r k e t i n g , n u r t u r e c a m p a i g n s , a n d e v e n t m a n a g e m e n t e a s i e r ?

Once you have a list of features, you can start looking closer at how your products will function inrelation to your team’s specific needs. Understand that a CRM project requires a lot of resources on your end, not just on your partner’s. Your team will need to devote their time to CRM while still doing their own job . That balance can be challenging and stressful in the beginning.

In addition to this time investment, CRM also requires a big financial investment for the software as well as ongoing support and partner services. Because it is very difficult to know CRM inside and out, having assistance from an experienced partner is crucial. Without a clear understanding of the product, your configuration and training will not provide the optimal experience for the end user.

Are you ready for this?

Do you have support

from the top down?

Does your team have

the time, abilities, and

patience to devote to

CRM for its lifetime?

Are you ready to

embrace the

changes and

challenges that go along with CRM?


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During the selection process, you will want to consider the features that are important to you. You should have a good idea of key features in CRM that you will need to address your biggest challenges. You may find there are even more benefits to be gained once you learn more about what a CRM system has to offer!

This is important for helping you to define what will help you in the current and future state of your CRM within your company.

The goal is to define what will be your Phase 1 Project through Future Phases so you can continue to address other areas of business that will help you reach your end goal.

That’s why it’s so important to understand what CRM solutions have to offer you…

Brand AnalysisLead & Prospect

Management

Sales Goals vs Actuals Tracking

Quote Management

Opportunity Management

Territory Planning with Mapping

Collaboration

Account Order History Analysis

Activity Management

Back Office Integration

Email Integration

Unified Service Desk

Mobile Access

Sales Calls

Marketing Automation

Dashboards and Reports

Case Management

Competitive Intelligence

CRM Implementation Best Practices

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In the “race” to implement CRM, there are three milestones you must consider. CRM can do just about anything – that’s what makes it so attractive! Once you know what race you’re running, your chance for success is much higher.

5 K :At this milestone, you will select a CRM solution and partner.

H A L F - M A R A T H O N :At this milestone, you will work with your CRM partner to design and configure your CRM solution. This is often where things become more challenging, because it takes more collaborations and commitments to ensure a seamless solution is implemented.

Cross-departmental support is crucial! High involvement from many people across your organization and among your external collaborators is required.

F U L L M A R A T H O N :Once you implement CRM, CRM is forever. It’s not a one and done process. Once you implement it, it should act as a core part of your business and should be used among your team as an every day tool. When you go live with your CRM solution, a big culture shift is bound to take place, and an exciting one at that!

As CRM evolves, so will your team along with it and vice-versa. Go-lives may be challenging and require a lot of time and patience, but it’s important to remember the positive long-term impact and investment of your system. CRM will become a core part of your culture.


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To start your CRM project, you will want to first define your project roadmap.

Start small and look at multiple phases. It’s important to lay out your road map and have it communicated across your organization. Having a clearly defines Phase 2 will help prevent scope creep. This means having a strong Project Manager to lead the process and hold everyone accountable. Use your original project scope as your North Star for moving through key CRM project phases!

When you have solid success in Phase 1, you will set yourselves up to get your project done on time and within budget. You should leave room for revisions as you go and be flexible as is necessary. It’s bound to happen, but the most proactive thing you can do as a team is prepare to respond!

• Data Cleanup

• Initial install of CRM• Forms Updated

(Leads, Accounts, Contacts, Opportunities)

• Views Update• Sales Process• Customizations

• Mobile Devices

• Data Loads

• Dashboards & Reports

• Training

• Sales Process Updates

• Add Quote Process

• Marketing Analysis/ Customizations• Marketing

Automation

• Business Development Customizations

• Updated/Expanded Dashboards & Reports

• Training

• Implement Apps

• Customer Support Customizations• Update Case

Process

• Proceed with Integrations• Integration Tools

• Customer Prices Lists/ Contracts

• Updated/Expanded Dashboards & Reports

• Training

P H A S E 1 P H A S E 2 P H A S E 3

Phased Approach Example:


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As you design, remember to keep things simple. Too often, we’ve come across overly designed systems that lack the adoption they need to thrive because users are overwhelmed and the design and functionality of the system is too complex. Consider what information is really necessary to include in your CRM system and what value it offers to ensure the end user is in mind and will be able to use the system easily in their daily work…

For CRM to offer value from Day 1, you will want to import key information into it. Data quality is a common issue that many companies face. As a result, they spend extra time cleaning data later, but doing it before your implementation saves time in the long run. Devise an ongoing data quality strategy to succeed at every phase.

Many companies start a CRM search thinking they will need to have an abundance of information from their ERP/financial system in CRM, but a phased project and celebrating small wins equals Lasting success time and time again.

In the end, most companies limit Phase 1 to the basics until they see how the end user is adopting the product and move on to future phases. Integrations can be expensive and until you know more about what the end user needs, they may not be needed initially. There are many alternative options for showing external information in CRM without physically having the data there to start.

P H A S E D A P P R O A C H

Throughout these project stages, the first step will include a design stage.

At this point, you need to stay focused on the scope of this phase of the roadmap, and keep it in mind as you navigate in the future to provide flexibility. The point is to limit scope creeping. Always design with the end user in mind.


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The most important action you need to take prior to your go-live is to eliminate EVERY excuse! Plan for your go-live with confidence. Remind your CRM users about why you’re implementing CRM to set them up for success. Get users engaged during the design and testing phases to get their feedback and address their concerns. Their input is invaluable!

Let the end users know how their day to day experience was top of mind during the design phase. Give regular updates and overviews to your team. Have those messages come from the CRM project owner. This way, everyone will become familiar with who their go-to answer person is after your go-live.

This is your time to test, test, and re-test to ensure you’re getting the results you expected!

B E F O R E Y O U R

G O - L I V E

As you’re ready to go live, you will want to conduct your final end user training. Explain how CRM fits into the overall direction of your business strategy. Explain what’s in it for the end user! They should have an idea about this already, but having clarity from the CRM project owner is crucial.

Focus on new business processes and why they are being implemented. Establish real-world scenarios for them to walk through. These can be use cases used during testing that others can use during training.

The process in training should be to explain the process, demonstrate the process, and then let users do it themselves.

> > > C O N T I N U E D

D U R I N G Y O U R

G O - L I V E


23

Make sure everyone knows what’s expected of them during your go-live. Some people will pick up on CRM more quickly than others – that’s just how it goes! You need to hold everyone accountable and provide them the proper training along the way as they need it. Ask each person to have some competencies they can share with others. Encourage co-support!

Even if all employees are not using CRM, make sure everyone is aware of this project – it is likely to impact them in some way, whether directly or indirectly.

After your CRM go-live, you want to have a solid plan to help your users succeed. They need to know who to call when they have questions! In the beginning, this can be very time-consuming for your CRM administrator, but it’s critical to ensure end user adoption.

By providing ongoing coaching and training, in the first few months of your project especially, you will help to increase the confidence of your users and get the adoption you set out to from the start.

Think about ways to review each person’s successes and hold them accountable. Account for different learning styles throughout these phases and adhere to them.

This is where management can be especially helpful. Sales meetings should use the data in CRM for review. Once you go live, your team should live by the motto:

“ I f i t ’ s n o t i n C R M – i t d o e s n ’ t e x i s t ! ”

> > > C O N T I N U E D

A F T E R Y O U R

G O - L I V E


24

P O S T G O - L I V E C H E C K L I S T

✓ Periodically review and communicate how you’re doing on critical success factors.

✓ Communicate top tips and tricks with CRM as you go.

✓ Create a training/onboarding plan for new hires.

✓ Conduct follow-up training sessions, like lunch ‘n learns, for individuals and the team as a whole.

✓ Review your CRM project roadmap to keep pointing towards the “North Star” of your project goal(s).

✓ Start thinking about Phase 2 and get others involved.

Early on, you can already start measuring results and begin communicating some value points to your team to help build support for the direction they’re moving in.

This is the time to focus on ongoing education for your end users!

There are many creative ways to go about this. Lunch ‘n learns are a fantastic idea, tips and tricks in weekly emails, etc. Find the people who are CRM cheerleaders, and let them mentor slow learners or people who are resisting this change.

It’s important to have a training program for new employees – they need to get up to speed as quickly as your original end users did during your original go-live.

Consider…• Are you getting what you expected out

of it? • Does it require any tweaks to the

process(es) to help the user experience improve?

• What lessons have you learned? • What would you do differently?

Take the answers to these questions with you into different phases. If you are completely satisfied with your Phase 1 efforts and results, you can begin thinking about what comes next and who needs to be involved in future phases. Then, repeat the process!

How to Measure CRM Success

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As you move through the CRM project phases, you will want to measure results with your team. There are many that you may choose to evaluate. Some of the most common include:

• Increased customer retention

• Increased visits or orders per customer per year

• Increased average spending per order or visit

• Increased cross-sells or upsells – are customers buying in more categories?

• Increased number of new customers

• Activation of previous customers

• Increased referrals of new customers by existing customers

• And much more!

How to Measure CRM Success

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When you step back to evaluate the success of your CRM project, you need to go back to see what you originally defined as your criteria. Do you remember/know what you wanted to measure? Has that been consistent throughout your project? You don’t measure your success just once throughout your CRM project’s lifetime. You may start looking at your metrics every three months during the first year, then move to every six from then on, for example. It’s up to you and your team to decide what is necessary.

CRM dashboards and analytics will make this much easier for you! It is important for the end user to feel like the tool was meant for their benefit, not as a way to play big brother…

More than likely, some of your measurements will be regarding efficiency and productivity. Each end user should be able to measure those benefits as individuals along with your team.

There are many different goals that companies have for a CRM system. Throughout the years, our experts have pegged the following goals as some of the most frequent:

• T o i n c r e a s e c l o s i n g r a t i o s• T o s u s t a i n y e a r o v e r y e a r g r o w t h g o a l s• T o e m p o w e r s a l e s t o h a n d l e a l a r g e r p i p e l i n e a n d c l o s e m o r e

b u s i n e s s• T o g a i n m o r e h o u r s b a c k i n t h e d a y• A n d m u c h m o r e !

C U S T O M E R T E S T I M O N I E S

“The closing ratio, on

average, in our industry,

is a little under 20%.

Since implementing

Ledgeview’s CRM,

we’re tracking double

chat. In fact, we’re

close to 50%.”

“CRM has helped our company as a whole, contributing to sustained year over year growth of about 8, to 10% per year.”

“There are only six people in our sales department, but since going live with Microsoft Dynamics, those six people have been able to process over $46 million worth of new opportunities through CRM. You read that right – that’s over $7.6 million worth of new opportunities per person!”

The Future of Your CRM –What’s Next for Your Business?

27

Now that you’ve made it through A-Y, it’s time to “Z” the future!

CRM is a living, breathing entity. While it is a tool, in essence, it is always changing. Software vendors, like Microsoft Dynamics and Salesforce, are constantly adding new capabilities to help some of your end users become even more productive as time goes on. It’s important that someone or a team within your company is assigned to support and oversee CRM, which includes staying up to date on new releases and on the pulse of industry news and trends in relation to your system.

Meeting periodically to discuss the potential benefits of new features is highly encouraged! Stay educated to ensure the short and long term success of your business’ relationship with CRM. Revisit your original goals throughout CRM’s lifetime, and take measurements to see that those goals are being met. Enhance your roadmap as your business continues to evolve.

Continue to create an environment of excitement and support around CRM that shows all end users you’re not just in it today, but for the long haul.

Are you ready to partner with a

CRM partner that matches your

business process values and

technology goals?

Ledgeview Partners is a business and technology consulting firm who

partners with organizations to transform sales, marketing, and customer

service operations and processes supported by core technologies like

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Marketing Automation.

Ledgeview Partners’ Experts combine savvy business intellect with strong

technological aptitude to provide business and technology solutions that

extend well beyond software implementations. To us, it’s about building

relationships, transforming business, and delivering phenomenal

customer experiences.

Ledgeview Partners is a Microsoft Dynamics 365 Gold Partner and

Salesforce Silver Consulting Partner.

S A L E S

M A R K E T I N G

C U S TO M E R S E R V I C E

A N D C R M C O N S U LT I N G

Contact Us:

P: 920.560.5571

E: [email protected]

W: LedgeviewPartners.com

T: @LedgeviewCRM

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Business Process First

Technology Second

Additional Resources for Success:

29

Available for Complimentary Download at

LedgeviewPartners.com/Resources

We look forward to

transforming your

business with you.

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crm from a to z - ledgeview partners...all of these pain points happen to a variety of companies...

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