What Makes a CRM Implementation Succeed

by Brian Wolstenholme

CRM (customer relationship management) systems have been around for decades. Nowadays, there are many software companies in the marketplace such as Zoho, Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, making big promises about improving sales, increasing lead conversion, and motivating staff to perform well.

For every software solution, there are plenty more business consultants who partner with these providers to offer related services such as implementation support, training, technical support, custom development, and other associated services.

Why implementations fail

Despite an abundance of software and consultants to work through these projects, a staggering number of CRM implementations are unsuccessful.

Why is this? Why would businesses invest many thousands of dollars and hundreds of staff hours into systems that are ultimately abandoned? How can these problems be avoided so successful implementation is achieved?

A study conducted by Merkle (Chiu, 2016), a performance marketing agency based in Maryland in the US, found that over half of implementation failures came down to two issues: lack of organisational adoption and an overly ambitious scope. The other reasons mostly related to poor project management and no executive alignment, which can be linked back to poor organisational adoption. To understand these issues, it’s important to first break down the most critical necessities for success.

• Impaired - implementation was abandoned

• Challenged - implementation was not delivered according to expectations

• Succeeded - implementation was delivered on budget, on time, in full

Silver bullet

Some organisations change their CRM every few years. Not only is it time-consuming and expensive to change CRMs, the fundamental problem still exists: a lack of management commitment. What this means is that CRMs are implemented (sort of) as a silver bullet. Once it’s in, the CRM is expected to solve all issues by osmosis. When the CRM fails to deliver, then it’s the CRM’s fault, so another one is tried and another. The basic issue is that the processes have not been documented and touch points with customers/prospects have not been adequately identified and determined. Experience shows that the implementation bottlenecks are often with the customer: getting content for email and SMS templates is slow to come, and automation can’t be used until this is available.

What is needed to succeed?

User involvement from the outset Stakeholders need to be involved right from the beginning, so these are the people and organisations that determine what a new system should include. It should be on the basis of how things should work, not on how they currently are.

Payback

Part of the “what’s in it for me” principle. There needs to be a payoff for everyone involved in the CRM. If there is no payback, the best case scenario is no adoption or, worst case, active resistance to doing “yet another add-on task.” The CRM needs to be part of the fabric of how things are done around here. Payback can be in terms of:

• No need to write separate reports.

• Quicker turnaround for preparation of quotes and other tasks.

• No repetition of the same data in multiple systems.

• No boring dredging through disparate systems to find out what staff want.

• Automated responses and followups to prospects, customers and staff.

Process documentation

If a CRM is implemented without a clear idea of processes, then it is doomed to fail. Processes should include:

• Where do leads come from?

• How are they handled?

• Who should see this information?

• What timeframe is required for a follow-up?

• Who checks that things don’t fall through the cracks? One way to ensure success in this area is by conducting a white board session - an opportunity to sit down with key staff and fully map out a process from beginning to end, capturing all the input and output points along the way. This also identifies areas for improvement, automation, waste reduction and cost savings. Including key staff in this process helps to encourage overall buy-in and participation in the project.

Organisational adoption

Large-scale organizational change must be driven from the top, meaning management needs to be fully invested, lead by example, and be champions of the CRM. Senior management should be much more than just the ones who sign the cheques - they must be proponents of change within the business. It’s the trickle-down theory at work - if the management team is seen to be accepting and embracing the change, then the remaining layers of the organisation will generally follow suit. It’s the same with any change to the way a business operates, regardless of what the change is. An initiative that is not driven by management, rather one that is left to gain traction on its own, is doomed to fail. So, the beginning stage of this kind of change, from a management level, is recognition that a problem (bottlenecks, delays, loss of business among other things) exists. This is generally most noticeable when looking at the time it takes to successfully close a deal; how much time elapsed between the initial lead contact and a successful sale or deal? Depending on the industry, there are suggested benchmarks for how long the process should take. Obviously, the quicker the close, the sooner sales staff can move on to the next deal. Relating to this is the lead conversion rate - how many leads are successfully converted to sales. What are the reasons for the loss of a sale? Once an organization’s leadership understands the reasons behind a less than stellar conversion rate, the chances are good that they will be on board for a change, and a robust CRM can address these issues. In the planning stages, it’s critical that management is aware of flaws in the system, so they can champion the improvements. Often companies implementing a new CRM leave implementation to the external CRM consultant. It’s important to have an in-house CRM champion who can assist users locally - someone who has the authority to ‘crack the whip’ when necessary.

Realistic project scope

Another common reason why CRM implementations are often unsuccessful is that the scope of the project is too ambitious and potentially unachievable. This can be avoided by conducting a whiteboard or planning session, where processes are identified and mapped. This map is then used as the basis for building the CRM.

An example of this is a business selling solar panels. The solar company receives a high number of leads through its website, which are then sent via email to the company owner, who manually enters the details into an Excel spreadsheet to be followed up by the sales staff. The owner then has to let the sales staff know about the new leads, either via email or phone call. Presently, these leads receive no feedback that the enquiry has been received, beyond the generic “thank you for your enquiry” landing page on the company’s website. The first acknowledgement is when the sales staff phone to confirm their interest, which could be up to several days after the enquiry was made.

The sales staff must then enter the same basic lead qualification details into multiple systems, including another Excel spreadsheet, a government application website, Energex’s online application system, a quotation form, and forms for the panel manufacturer. This is an entirely manual process, as there is no integration between any of the systems.

The owner understands the bottlenecks and response time issues and has discovered the company is losing sales because of the amount of time the sales process takes. The owner is motivated to implement a CRM as a way of automating some of these tasks, and integrating these external systems so data is only entered once.

The owner engages a consultant to make suggestions around what CRM to use, and how to obtain the best results as quickly as possible. This is where things start to come unstuck.

The business owner becomes interested in the possibilities for integration, however because of the custom development work required, it’s not going to be an overnight solution. Instead of focusing on getting some early runs on the board with the simple process improvements around making contact with leads and streamlining the initial sales process, the owner spends a disproportionate amount of time and budget on external integrations.

In the time it takes to work through the customization , the company continues to lose business, as potential customers are still not being contacted quickly enough after their initial enquiry and are looking elsewhere for their solar solutions.

The business owner becomes disillusioned with the benefits of the CRM, as the project is taking longer than expected and the company is still losing business at the same rate as before and decides to abandon implementation. In this case, the business owner’s project goals were too ambitious. If the owner had started by fully mapping out the sales process, identifying the most serious bottlenecks and addressing those first, the company could have reduced the number of lost leads and worked on the integrations over time. Do what is important, not everything.

What should a good CRM include?

It’s almost impossible for the uninitiated to adequately compare CRMs pre-purchase: there is simply too much detail to go through, and a comprehensive CRM would take months or years to learn in detail. At least, have the CRM reseller demonstrate the following:

• Web Forms

• Workflow

• Custom Fields and Modules

• Email Campaign Integration

• Social Media Integration

• SMS Integration

• Products and Quotes (if applicable)

• Reporting and Dashboards

• A marketplace, where 3rd party products are demonstrated integrating with the CRM (such as electronic document signing).

Have a list of requirements available so the supplier is not starting from scratch when they arrive for the demo.

What should a good CRM consultant do?

• Work on processes.

• Discuss business requirements and what the business needs are before launching into a CRM demonstration .

• Hand over responsibility to an internal business champion at the earliest time.

• Prepare user documentation based on the business’s specific use of CRM.

Final thoughts

The object of any business is to grow and be as profitable as possible, and the right CRM will make that objective a reality by:

• Removing inefficiencies;

• Making sales and marketing more collaborative;

• Increasing visibility and accountability; and

• Improving turnaround time.

The key to making the most of a CRM is to get the planning right at the very start - the devil is always in the detail.

About the author

Brian Wolstenholme is the Managing Director of I Want That CRM (a CRM specialist company). Brian reviews a company’s methods and procedures and determines the required outcomes. With a business degree, majoring in Operations Management and Organisation Design, Brian is well qualified to assist clients with their requirements. Brian also has a Certificate in Production and Inventory Control from the US, supporting his business analyst activities. Brian comes to I Want That CRM with 25 years´ experience in CRM and more in business process improvement. Web: www.iwantthatcrm.com Tel: 1300 369 268 Email: Brian.w@iwantthatcrm.com