Almost 100% of companies with more than 11 employees use CRM tools on a daily basis.
These CRM technologies make brand-customer relationships easier to manage and more effective, but they can be very difficult to use and come with an expensive price tag as well. With these often comprehensive and advanced tools comes the need for a solid team behind your CRM platform.
The team at Caspio outlines two of the main concerns with implementing CRM software: “Many software vendors such as Salesforce, SAP and Oracle offer enterprise CRM systems, but there are two major problems with their out-of-the-box solutions: difficulty in implementation and inflated costs.” We complied a few tips for building a CRM from scratch top get the most out of your efforts.
Your CRM software is nothing without an A-team
A Forrester study revealed a 47% failure rate among CRM strategies, due to the fact that organizations tend to focus too much on their CRM technologies and not enough on the personnel manning the technology. In other words, many brands use CRM tools as if it is the sole ingredient to a successful retention strategy. Without the human touch, this approach isn’t effective.
Bank of America once used a tool to handle their social media customer service during a protest. BOA’s tool generated an automatic response to customer’s tweets with something along the lines of “Hi, we’re Bank of America, how can we help you?” As you can see in the image screenshot below, their robotic replies didn’t get them very far.
Your CRM software is nothing without an A team ensuring it does its job effectively and efficiently. Managing relationships with customers is a joint effort. The machines collect the data and make the process smoother, but the humans can adeptly respond and solve any kinks.
The team chief
Every great team has a leader, right? 83% of organizations say it is important to develop leaders at all levels. You need an expert on your CRM team to give instructions, guidance and coordinate the efforts of other team members. But how do you identify the right team lead?
This person, ideally, should know the ins and outs of your customers and your CRM platform(s). She or he should be approachable, agile, and knowledgeable. The team at UpCurve Cloud (a CRM tool) put it this way: “The system admin (team lead) is the person who will be the guiding light for the CRM team. They will be the reference for all CRM questions and issues and know their CRM system front and back. They will understand how to do everything from creating reports for managers, automate processes via workflows, and do mass updates to the system…. In our experience, if you don’t have anyone else on your ‘CRM Team’, you must at least have an admin.”
Bring in employees from all relevant levels into your CRM team
Senior Director, Banking & Wealth Management at Silverline, Pamela Hannett, explains why a mixture of employees at different levels in a CRM team is ideal: “The gut reaction for a senior leader in an organization is to draft players of like mind and status. In practice, that team would consist of ~10 senior executives that have one centralized view of how the [company] runs day to day from approximately 36,000 feet.
This would liken to your baseball team consisting of all 30-year-old skilled athletes that have been playing the game at a high level since college. The views, opinions, and processes of the C-Suite are different than those that are actually out there standing at the plate or playing on the field. This is not to say that having senior leadership on your team is not important, but in order to transform an organization from product driven to relationship driven, your day to day relationship experts must also have a position on the team.”
You need experts who can see your overall CRM strategy from different angles. The C-suite contributes from a high-level perspective and is able to give quick sign-offs when needed. Other team members from marketing, sales, customer service and other relevant departments would chime in with their expertise. In the end, you have a CRM team consisting of different people who can provide relevant expertise to build the best CRM strategies.
If you’re able to build a great CRM team, your retention rate will be healthy and soaring. You’ll maximize the value of your existing customers, keep them happy, and use the platform as a means to empower your customer-facing employees.