CRM

UNIT-4

BY
HARSHITHA G
  Managing CRM project

Organizing and Publishing Project Documents

Even before the project begins, best practices call for storing, publishing, and organizing the
project's documents online. Put them in an intuitive hierarchy, with all the project-related
documents in one place that is scanned by an internal search engine or a desktop index (such as
Google's free desktop search or X1's indexer) and is backed up regularly.
You can store these documents in a shared folder on a file server, but even better is to have them
in an intranet site. Best of all would be a wiki that's accessible to all team members (including
contractors). Your top-level wiki "article" should include pointers to the project schedule, the
current phase's goals and non-goals, project personnel, news, discussion forums, blogs, and user
tips on the system. The wiki should also provide a hierarchical library that includes all of the
requirements documents, discussions, rationales for priority calls, and the project requirements
phasing spreadsheet.
Prioritizing Requirements
One of the toughest tasks throughout the life of the project will be understanding the
ramifications of requirements and making priority calls among them. With a system of any size,
some requirements will have to be delayed or may even have to be abandoned as too expensive.
Making these decisions can get interesting when interdependencies among the requirements
exist, and things get even juicier when political overtones and competition among the
requirement sponsors complicate matters.
Although this complexity sounds scary, there's a counterbalance. The overriding principle of
prioritization for any SFA/CRM project is that it doesn't matter how many requirements you've
delivered on if the users aren't adopting the system in droves. This is because the value of an
SFA/CRM system—to sales, marketing, support, and executives—grows in proportion to the
amount and quality of data the system holds. Make priority calls that cause users to get quality
data in the system sooner and that persuade users to get on the system more often . . . and the
rest will follow. Instill this overriding principle in the project sponsors as much as you can so
everyone pulls in the right direction.
One way to guide prioritization discussions is to use the short list of the specific business
problems that the executives defined earlier in this chapter. These specific improvements should
be specific, unambiguous, and quantified—"reduce customer support response times by 20%,"
not "improve brand value." Estimate how the major features will affect these business goals,
and from that calculate the return on investment (ROI) for the feature: lowering of costs,
increasing revenues, or both. This overview page will help keep things in perspective as you try
to make priority calls.
Prioritization Tools
No matter what the order selected, use the ordering to help prioritize requirements.
Requirements coming from teams that will be coming on board early should be treated as
having a higher priority (so they get done early).
A key issue in prioritizing requirements is the "squeaky wheel" phenomenon, where a noisy or
politically powerful proponent causes great emphasis to be placed on a requirement that isn't
really critical. All too often, a significant proportion of the effort in large projects is devoted to
requirements that are "nice to haves" but that ultimately waste time and effort. Consequently the
highest leverage thing a project leader or business analyst can do is identify and deprioritize the
uncritical. While avoiding confrontation, smoke out dubious requirements using gambits like
these:
"How much of your budget would you be willing to dedicate to solving the problem?"
"Can you quantify how much waste this problem has been causing for you on a monthly basis?"
"How much profit increase would the company see if this were done?"
"How much more productive would you be if the problem were solved?"
"Which other department needs this feature?"
"How have you been able to succeed without this so far?"
"What's the forcing function—the deadline beyond which we can no longer do business the
current way?"
"Which of your other requirements would you be willing to put on the back burner to get this
one done?"
Avoiding Happy Ears
Whenever a new system is being developed and people are interviewed about what they need,
users start to hear hints about how things will work. Nearly everyone will assume that if they've
heard about an issue, it's going to be solved by the new system. They'll even extrapolate,
imagining all the wonderful new features that will become available to make their job easier. It's
human nature to be optimistic, and that goes double for sales and marketing folks. But this
"happy ears" phenomenon leads to spiraling expectations and scope creep that can kill a project.
Project leaders and especially project sponsors must continuously push to lower these
expectations, even if they yet haven't seen overt signs of happy ears. The project goals must be
simple—even minimalist—for the first phases, and "great ideas" must be explicitly pushed off
in time. Even when things are going okay, undersell and be tentative about making the schedule.
Even if the team has a way of delivering "something great," consider delaying it (ironically, see
"The Art of the Quick Win" later in this chapter). When you do deliver this great thing, do not
publicize it until it's delivered, so that you can provide pleasant surprises to users.
The challenge for the project leader is to keep one (and only one) priority list that encompasses
everyone's needs, while clearly limiting the number of items that are "must do's" for each phase.
Even so, maintaining a consistent, clear, tightly enforced requirements priority list is an
invaluable tool for the project leader, and its existence will help fend off countless arguments
during the project.
When Requirements Should Bend
It is common for requirements to be stated as absolutes, with intricate detail being provided
about the way things must be done. But these "requirements" are often an interpretation of a
business need, or an executive's preference, or even a legal regulation. Sometimes, the literal
requirement is a poor interpretation of the underlying business need. It's important to be as
creative as possible in requirements statements so that you don't over-specify or get locked into
one particular approach. Identify alternatives and different ways of achieving the underlying
goal.
For example, the Finance department may have an edict that an order cannot be shipped without
a manual approval. So the requirement is stated as a mandatory human approval cycle. But if
the approval cycle is there only to apply a set of strict rules, maybe the manual approval cycle
isn't the real requirement. By restating the requirement as "no shipment will be made without
applying the following rules," it becomes possible to have a fully automated approval, saving
time and cost on every order.
Look for opportunities to restate "requirements" that are over-specified or arbitrarily complex.
Requirements should be statements of business goals and criteria, rather than strict step by- step
procedures.
Knowing Your Boundaries
One of the most important issues in requirements setting is determining the "edges" of the
system—that is, the boundaries beyond which users must log in to a different system if they
want to do something. All users would like the system to encompass all of the things they need
to access for their particular jobs, but it's impractical to deliver a single system that cover every
business function for every employee.
When Other Problems Must Be Solved First
In large organizations, the political drivers for installing or replacing the existing SFA/CRM
system will be executive visibility, customer reporting, or uneven execution of business
processes. Unfortunately, merely upgrading to SFDC will not help in many of these situations.
In large organizations, other problems need to be solved before the new system will function
properly, let alone resolve any deep issues.
The project manager should analyze the requirements and problem statements to understand
which of them are actually caused by bad data, disconnected systems, unclear business rules,
inconsistent business processes, and other "environmental" or infrastructure issues. These
problems are typically scattered across several databases or applications, and fixing them will
be a prerequisite to any successful SFDC deployment.
If you discover this situation, it is important to get a project team started on analyzing and
remedying those external problems even before your SFDC work starts.
https://searchcustomerexperience.techtarget.com/feature/Managing-CRM-project-requirements

 Planning CRM Programme

1 – Build a Project Team

It’s essential to secure CRM buy-in across the business, starting at the top with board level
management support that will filter through to the teams on the ground.
Most departments are certain to have an involvement with at least one or more CRM process so
it’s essential that they are involved in the early planning stages. Ongoing cooperation and
acceptance will be crucial to ensure success.
Use these resources to build a project team who will shape your strategy and define its goals. A
recommended CRM project team will include an executive sponsor, a project manager, a CRM
administrator and key users for each team.
2 – Define your CRM Vision
Why do you want a new CRM system? What will CRM success look like?
Set high level goals that will be your benchmark for the project before determining how your
key success metrics will be measured.
Based on projects that Preact has worked, on these objectives frequently include:
 Creating a complete view of each client relationship in a single application
 Improving the quality of management information reporting
  Developing more efficient business processes
 Increasing lead generation
 Improving account retention and service delivery
3 – Prioritize your CRM Goals
Rather than attempting to tackle all of your CRM goals in a big bang single implementation we
recommend a phased approach that focuses on quick wins.
Some goals will more important than others so it’s important to prioritize them and ensure that
your plan is realistic, both in terms of your budget and the resourcing that is needed to deliver
your CRM implementation on time.
Once early success is achieved CRM momentum will be maintained by focusing on the next
phase of your project plan.
4 – Map out your Processes
What pain points in your business processes does CRM need to fix?
We recommend mapping out the flow of each step in your current processes to help define how
they will be managed in CRM.
This presents a superb opportunity to gain clarity on how well your processes are currently
working and identify how CRM can improve their efficiency, often by removing duplication of
effort and applying greater process automation.
A specialist CRM consulting firm will provide a wealth of expertise to help you re-engineer
your processes by utilizing CRM functions to improve their efficiency and achieve your goals.
5 – Consider Reporting Outputs
Having defined your CRM success criteria these, targets should be specific and measurable.
Think about the information that CRM will need to track specific to each of these goals and
what reports, charts and dashboards you’ll need to measure progress.
6 – CRM Data Capture
Consider which fields you need to track on each CRM record to achieve your goals.
For example, you may be taking a phased approach by leading with an initial CRM sales team
deployment so consider what fields will need to be tracked on your records for accounts,
contacts, opportunities and leads.]This includes defining what type of fields will be used, for
example the options that will appear in drop-down fields, and which fields should be set as
mandatory to ensure consistent data quality.
It can be tempting to go overboard but remember an excessive number of fields may prove a
barrier to early user adoption and will add to the administration overhead.
7 – Prepare your Data
The resources needed to consolidate and prepare existing data for migration to a new CRM
system is often underestimated. To ensure your readiness consider these points:
 What data needs to be imported into CRM? Where is it currently stored?
 How good is the data quality? Does it need cleansing?
 How far back do you want to go with relationship history data? 1 year, 2 years, or
longer...?
 What duplicate matching rules need to be set?
8 – Integrating CRM
Which applications will CRM need to integrate with? What direction will the data flow?
If one of your goals is to create a single view of each relationship, integrating CRM with an
external data source is likely to be a high priority.
As well as feeding data from other applications, CRM will also push data to other sources, for
example to create a new order in the back-office ERP system when a CRM sales opportunity is
converted.
Other CRM integrations can include email marketing, web forms and SharePoint and
ecommerce platforms.
9 – Managing User Security
Consider how CRM will be shared in your business. Make a list of the users, roles and groups
that will have CRM permissions and define what level of access they should get. For example,
do you want every CRM user to export data to Excel?
Flexible CRM solutions like Microsoft Dynamics CRM enable advanced user permissions
which can include team and territory management to precisely control which records users are
entitled to access and what controls they can use.
10 – Identify the Risks
All projects have risks. Consider the main hazards to your project and how significantly these
threaten its success.
The CRM technology could be a risk if the database isn't flexible enough to adapt to your
processes, or if the system lacks the scalability to grow with your business.
As we’ve already featured, the supporting processes represent a risk if these are poorly defined,
or if existing gaps aren’t identified.
Often, the most dangerous CRM risk can prove to be the people involved…
11 – Create a User Adoption Plan
The biggest risk to CRM success is low user adoption.
Successful CRM projects engage with multiple users at an early stage to consult for ideas and
stimulate interest in CRM.
Visible board level commitment for CRM is a crucial step but often project managers neglect to
listen to user needs and fail to build support from the ground up resulting in challenging user
adoption barriers to overcome.
It’s essential to remember that a CRM project should only be considered successful if it meets
the requirements of its users.
Technology like Microsoft Dynamics is an amazing enabler but without user adoption,
understanding and support, even the greatest system in the world will struggle to deliver the
expected results.
To develop an effective user adoption strategy
 Ensure users know why a CRM system is being implemented
 Listen to user ideas, requirements and concerns
 Measure usage that focuses on positive reinforcement
https://www.crmsoftwareblog.com/2014/07/the-11-step-plan-for-crm-success/
  Implementation issues in CRM

Implementing the CRM system is a tricky process. It enables the use of appropriate information
technologies to coordinate sales, marketing activities, and services, and to enhance customer
experience.
Therefore, the challenges of CRM could vary ranging from the wrong choice of the tool,
technological barriers, the inability to adapt to the current needs of the organization, and the
unskillful process of implementing the system in the organization. It poses a challenge both for
CRM users – individuals and organizations, seeking change in their approach and process
implementation.

Defining Clear Objectives

It is a paramount factor for CRM applications to be closely linked to both the business
objectives and processes. Before proceeding, it is vital to take stock of strategies, including
short-term and long-term goals while addressing the organizational needs. As it will offer, a
better idea to define the scope of features required in the CRM. Thus, aligning the CRM focus
with your company strategy can help avoid CRM implementation challenges.

Choosing the Right System

At this stage, it is essential to note the system’s functionality on whether CRM needs meet the
company requirements for now and future. Also, it is crucial to assess its compatibility with the
existing applications within the company. It is also important to gauge the scope of post-
implementation service scenario.

User Adoption
The level of acceptance for the CRM tool and its use in the organization defines its concrete
implementation. However, any new system experiences resistance from users. Below are some
of the points that will help outline the benefits of the CRM system.
Communicate why CRM is so essential, sharing with them the specific benefits it offers, such as
saving time or increase in sales.
Develop and offer a rewards program for the effective use of the system and apply penalties for
its misuse.
Use the CRM reporting function to help employees see how their actions directly influence
customer satisfaction and their overall performance.

Integrating CRM with Existing Systems

Implementation of a central CRM system also involves migrating or integrating the existing
software and information systems. The lack of support from the vendor staff of the existing
methods for CRM integration will result in a massive burden for the company. As a result, it
may consume hours of productive work time for the staff without possible outcomes. Therefore,
a planned approach to CRM project by considering future needs will help avoid the
implementation overkill.

Training
Even the best of CRM systems will not be helpful if users are not able to use it effectively.
Thus, it is imperative that the users are well trained because the success of the CRM
implementation process depends mostly on this aspect. Further, it is necessary to include the
type of users for the training. It includes regular users, management and administration teams
for the program.

Find the Right Partner

It is vital to evaluate business objectives, strategy, budgets, and customization needs before
choosing a CRM solution. As part of this, it is essential to ensure you have the right partner by
your side. They will help avoid problems with CRM implementation. The partner must offer
consultation with future insights. They must advice on how to address and eradicate potential
risks and challenges for the possible CRM system.
https://www.rishabhsoft.com/blog/5-key-challenges-in-crm-implementation

 Technological Issues in implementing CRM

CRM or customer relationship management has come a long way since businesses started to
enter customer data in logbooks or conduct analog customer surveys and focus groups. CRM
software today provides sophisticated, analytical customer insights that can give your business a
competitive traction.
But first, keep in mind that across the technological evolution, CRM objectives remain
consistent:
 Acquire more customers
 Retain customers
 Build customer loyalty
 Increase profitability
It’s also worth noting the three areas where technology today is having the greatest impact on
CRM:
Customer buying behavior: E-commerce provides small players a level playing field. With
good CRM web traffic analytics and social media engagement campaigns, you can outsell big
competitors online.
Communication between companies and consumers: Social media allows consumers to
demand quick feedback, if not resolution, on their problem. Consumers are so used to CRM-
level of customer service now. Delivering less than standard service, like replying back after a
week or ignoring customer complaints, can spell a Public Relations disaster.
Collection of data: Social media and mobile technology combine to prod consumers today to
reveal tons of their preferences, location, feedback signals and other personal information that
CRM can consolidate to profile a three-dimensional customer with predictable buying patterns.
https://crm.financesonline.com/technological-impacts-on-crm-software/
  Operational Issues in Implementing CRM

*When firms decide to implement a technology solution for CRM, they will have to take
decisions broadly related to
 Product
 Vendor
 Systems Integrator
*Ability to handle the three customers facing functions, namely marketing, sales, and
customer service, very well.
*Product and the vendor related decisions go hand-in-hand. A vendor is generally evaluated for
CRM expertise
*Most product vendors today have tie-ups with systems integrators to be the preferred systems
integrator.

https://prod-edxapp.edx
cdn.org/assets/courseware/v1/767bf17514581effbe8767491035de82/asset-
v1:IIMBx+MK210x+2T2017+type@asset+block/CRM-_Week_6_handout.pdf

 Organizing CRM

Step 1: Define your buyer personas and your funnel

Whether you're working on your own or in a team, it’s imperative that you set clear
expectations about who you’re selling to and how your sales funnel will work. To define your
buyer personas, you’ll need to begin researching your existing customers. Based on your
findings you can then draft descriptions of your ideal customer. Be sure to identify their needs,
pain points, and objections. Once you've mapped this out, define your funnel and what happens
at each stage. Consider how potential customers interact with your company from the first
touch, to the closing.
Step 2: Remove duplicates
Once you have a roadmap set, you can knock a few easy and mundane tasks off your to-do list
like removing duplicates. This is especially important if you have multiple SDRs prospecting or
if you have a CRM that manages inbound leads as well. Work within your platform or hire a
freelancer from a site like Up-work to clean your data. This will ensure that you’re not reaching
out twice to the same person or reaching out with the wrong message at the wrong time.
Step 3: Score your contacts
For this, you’ll need to develop a scoring system that assigns scores to actions that potential
customers take. The number of points given for an interaction also needs to be weighted for
importance to quickly differentiate activities that show little interest in your product to those
that show a lot of interest. For example, within your scoring system, you can give one point for
a social media interaction while signing up for a content offer would garner five points. When
you score your leads, you can quickly see who is very interested in your product and reach out
as soon as possible. On the other hand, you can keep an eye on leads who are getting warmer
and warmer, and you can dedicate time to nurture them.
Step 4: Set up multiple points to gather further information
It’s hard to find someone who’s willing to give up their entire life story right after they first
meet you, so keep this in mind when you gather data. Balance is essential in this step: you don’t
want to ask for too little information because you can’t make informed decisions with it, but
you also don't want to ask too much right off the bat. The best way to gather lots of information
about your potential customers is to build rapport and ask little by little. At first, just ask for
what’s necessary (Name, email), then move on to more information like phone number and
company name and so on until you have a wealth of data. When you collect information slowly,
you’re more likely to get what you want without making people feel uncomfortable. Make sure
to organize this into appropriate sections and columns in your CRM.
Step 5: Set up automations
According to Hub Spot’s State of Inbound 2016, 60% of sales teams in North America are
spending more than 30 minutes a day doing administrative tasks on their CRM. That’s time that
you could be using to build relationships, learn a new skill or check in with leads. Take another
look at your CRM package and start using the automations available. Possible automations
include automated email sequences (or workflows) that are set up ahead of time to nurture leads
or automated scoring that includes or removes contacts from appropriate lists depending on
their actions. You can automate qualifying calls too. When you tap into the power of machine
learning, you’ll be better organized to sell your service better.
Step 6: Train your salespeople to follow your systems
Last but not least, everyone in the sales process should be well versed on the above steps. Since
you’re working with others, they need to understand the importance of keeping your CRM
clean and up to date. Provide training sessions and one-on-one help to teach them the ins and
outs of the CRM and consider providing ongoing support in the form of a CRM master (a
colleague who knows the platform very well and can help others). You’ll be helping them do
their job better, and if they know how to use the system, they’ll surely figure out how to hack it
to do even more.
http://blog.voiq.com/how-to-organize-your-crm-to-increase-your-sales

 CRM Evaluation

User experience
Good user experience is essential to having a business tool your employees will use to the
fullest. Make sure it’s has the social and mobile capabilities they expect.
Budget
Determine how much you can spend on a CRM system, then see what options fit your needs.
There are a number of “freemium” options available, but they may not have the features and
integration options you’ll need as you grow.
ROI
what efficiencies does your business stand to gain from a particular platform? What KPIs will
you use to measure success? More importantly, how quickly will your chosen CRM system pay
for itself?
Adoption
choosing the right type of CRM system for your employees often hinges on what they can most
easily pick up and start using. Choose a platform that’s intuitive and a vendor that can help you
get everyone on board.
Scalability
if you plan to grow quickly, an easily scalable CRM system is paramount. The last thing you
want is to hit a certain level and max out your platform’s capabilities. Choose a CRM solution
that you know has the power to exceed your current needs.
https://www.salesforce.com/solutions/small-business-solutions/crm-basics/evaluating-crm-
systems/#
 Benefits and barriers to CRM
Effective customer relationship management systems can realize the following benefits to an
organization.
Help organizations to determine their most profitable customers and establish a long-term
relationship with them. This can increase the firm’s sales revenue.
Results in reduced churn rate (the number of customers who stop buying or using products of a
company) by enabling the firms to customize and personalize the products according to user
needs, preferences. Buying habits, etc.
Enables provision of better customer service and support across all the touch points, whichever
the customer uses.
https://www.managementstudyhq.com/types-and-benefits-of-crm.html

Improved Profitability
As with most business innovations, CRM is ultimately intended to drive revenue and increase
profitability for companies that use it. According to TechTarget, increased profitability is the
goal of using CRM to enable better targeting of top customers by sales and marketing
departments. This is the revenue-generating aspect of CRM. CRM is also intended to reduce
costs by cutting down on inefficient advertising to less desirable customers.
Better Customer Relationships
An underlying premise of CRM is analyzing customer data to continue to improve the
customers' experience with your organization. This should lead to stronger loyalty and better
profits from core customers. Using CRM database, or software solutions, employees are
equipped with stronger information about customers. This allows front-line sales and service
employees to deliver on the service attributes that customers expect while also helping
marketers to build campaigns that sell the desired value customers seek.

 Barriers to CRM
1. Lack of business case with clear objectives

The company is unclear whether the results will be positive enough to take the plunge into
CRM.
A CRM system is not just an IT solution to be bought and implemented but it is a business
strategy change. By strategy, we mean having ‘a plan for a purpose’ – thus, the first step should
include setting a clear goal (the purpose) and the efforts needed for positive results (the plan).
Appropriately, there needs to be a case showing how this system will ultimately pay for itself.
Thus, setting budgets and forecasting the possible revenue helps in setting a clear vision of the
objectives to be achieved.

2. Failing to see the real value in CRM

“I do not need a CRM system because I personally know all my clients and what they like.”
This assertion is often quoted by people who fail to see the real value of such a system. Such a
statement may be applicable for organizations which have a very small number of clients or
contacts but for the vast majority of business organizations this situation is undoubtedly not so.
With multiple clients, the business may know some perfunctory aspects of the client-base but
there is generally much more than meets the eye. A CRM system does not, as most people
wrongly assume, simply maintain an electronic record on relatively static information about
clients such as name, address, name of spouse and children, product preference, etc.
A CRM system maintains a 360-degree view of each and every interaction of a client with the
business organization, whether over the phone, the Internet or physically in person. Each and
every detail is retained in order to assist in the development of a strong personal profile that
enables hidden aspects of the interactions over time. These could indicate changing interests or
even present cross-selling and up-selling potential that will bind the client even closer to the
organization.
Moreover, one single person, normally the business owner, may be familiar with a client’s
predilections but this may not be the complete picture given that the client may regularly
interact with other members of the organization. The CRM application provides the
infrastructure (sometimes referred to as the ‘glue’) across which every morsel of acquired
information about a client can be collated for general sharing across the organization.

3. Wrong perception about CRM suitability

A CRM application is best suited for mega-organizations who have hundreds of clients spread
across the globe.
Contrary to this erroneous point-of-view, a CRM system is suited for any organization of any
potential size. The central criteria that ought to be adopted when considering the usefulness of a
CRM system should be that which stems from having a client-base of whatever scale – from 1
to multiple millions.
All clients have their personal expectations which, given the impact of the Internet and social
media, have changed dramatically over a short span of time. Consequently, for any business to
get the attention of these customers, much less retain them or turn them into ‘word-of-mouth’
advocates of your products and services, it is today necessary to provide new means of
developing and sustaining relationships in response to changed customer expectations.
4. Changing business approach

The fear of implementing a dead-end solution

Is your business set to undergo a degree of diversification in the coming future? As data might
change, you might think that implementing a CRM solution would become outdated in a few
years’ time but it will not. CRM functions are adaptable to suit many business models so all that
needs to be done is to easily tweak its features and functionality accordingly if this is required.
This will therefore keep data from becoming irrelevant to the end-users.

5. Workforce resistance to change

When certain departments within the company don’t fully understand their benefits from a CRM
system.

CRM is never just about technology; it is about people and processes – supported by the right
technology solutions.
Communication is key in these circumstances where change is forthcoming. The workforce
should be engaged into a dialogue where they are explained what a CRM is and the changes in
procedures needed for the goal to be reached. They should also be given the opportunity to
speak up about their misconceptions and potential issues which may arise during or after
implementation.
Training should also be provided regularly especially to update workforce on additional
functionality.

https://www.imovo.com.mt/common-barriers-to-crm-success/