Customer relationship management software is designed to help companies and their customers communicate effectively. The primary goal of any CRM is to earn and keep customers’ loyalty and trust by effectively managing business touchpoints. A well-tuned CRM secures long-term revenues and underpins company operations.

1. "Opportunities don't happen.
You create them."
--Chris Grosser
CRM
Implementation
Strategy
Increase your sales with the right
CRM software
THE BUYER'S GUIDE
GUIDE HIGHLIGHTS
CRM SELECTION
7 STEPS OF EFFECTIVE
CRM IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGY
WHAT’S A CRM SYSTEM?
HOW DOES IT WORK?

2. How does it work?
CRM software provides companies with tools and strategies for successful customer interaction
and growth. It also collects business intelligence data that allows for consumer trends to be
monitored and sales strategies to be adjusted in order to take companies to the next stage.
CRMs often automate repetitive workflows, which eliminates a number of pain points in
business operations.
WHAT’S A CRM SYSTEM?
Maintaining customer relationships can be difficult. Some companies will often be better at it
than others, whether they have a CRM system or not. Maintaining positive relationships isn’t
something that just happens. It’s not something that can be fully automated.
A CRM system, on the other hand, would make it simpler and more structured to manage your
relationships. However, in order to get there, the company would need a strong CRM
implementation strategy. CRM success begins long before any users log in. To ensure the
system’s effectiveness, the whole company should be involved.
The following seven steps are here to illustrate, in broad strokes, each phase of the process that
we walk our own clients through when doing a new CRM implementation.
Before taking this deep dive, let’s talk about several basic things first.
Customer relationship management software is designed to help companies and their
customers communicate effectively. The primary goal of any CRM is to earn and keep
customers’ loyalty and trust by effectively managing business touchpoints. A well-tuned CRM
secures long-term revenues and underpins company operations.

3. Project manager (leader)
Systems developer (installation)
Data analyst (data migration)
QA engineer (testing)
Champions (representatives)
Step 1: CRM Selection
Step one of your CRM implementation strategy is choosing the right CRM system for your
business. Choosing a CRM system simply because it’s the cheapest, or because it was rated the
highest on G2 Crowd this year, is not going to do you any favors.
To properly pick a CRM system, you must first assess and document your business needs, then
make a decision based on which system best suits those needs.
If you have a lot of complicated needs and requirements, you may want to go with Salesforce. If
your requirements are simple, a system like Zoho, Insightly, or even HubSpot can be the answer.
Step 2: Set the Goals, Priorities, and Metrics
You will find processes that need to be streamlined the most after learning about your
employees’ needs. All projects should be tied to the core business goals when you start looking
for ways to improve. Sales force automation features, for example, should be at the top of your
priority list if you want to increase sales and expand into new markets. As a result, you will have
a prioritized set of the underlying functionality for your CRM system implementation.
Furthermore, defining concrete and measurable goals at the company and department levels is
highly recommended during this process. You would want to keep track of things like average
deal closing time, customer retention rate, and overall ROI. These measurements will help you
confirm whether the new system is living up to your primary expectations as you move forward
with CRM platform integration.
Step 3: Select a CRM team, with department champions.
You can mobilize the creation unit once you’ve chosen the CRM platform that best fits your
company’s vision. This requires a specialized team to complete daily tasks and steer progress.
The team should include these members:
You can need more than one person to fill each position, depending on the size of your
company and the CRM implementation. Alex Haimann, partner and head of business
development at Less Annoying CRM,recommends a team of champions to vouch for the
product and act as intermediaries between upper management and its daily users.
“At least some representation on that small, exploratory team should be an end-of-the-line
salesperson,” he said. Your CRM champions are the well-respected representatives of each team
that will be using the CRM the most. They are one of your best assets in fostering CRM adoption
among your entire workforce, some of whom might be hesitant to change their everyday habits
and processes, according to Haimann.“It needs to be communicated that the CRM is a tool that
will help all levels within the organization,” Haimann said.
7 STEPS OF EFFECTIVE
CRM IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGY
CRM doesn't just keep your contacts organized – it offers a bevy of tools to help you boost
sales and execute more effective marketing campaigns.

4. 7 STEPS OF EFFECTIVE
CRM IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGY
CRM data migration is most effective when you have a clear plan.
What you need to migrate and how it will be used in the new CRM should be covered in a
migration brief. You will start figuring out how to do this once you have the high-level brief. The
most common methods of downloading and uploading data using Excel or CSV are still in use,
but they often fail to deliver the desired outcome.
Manipulation of the data after it has been uploaded can be difficult, as the new CRM
sometimes uses the data in a completely different way. Most CRMs may have apps to help, but
depending on the degree of customization, the process could be manual.
It is a good idea to cleanse your data of any out-of-date information before migrating. Consider
it a “spring cleaning” exercise in which you want to declutter and start over.
Step 4: CRM data migration
System testing
Functional testing
Stress testing
Performance testing
Usability testing
Acceptance testing
Integration testing
This can be delivered in various ways. Face-to-face, online, practice, and getting supervisors who
can advise their staff are the most effective training methods. Having teams out of the office for
a day, in my experience, is critical. It not only gives trainees mental space, but it also sends the
right message: that training is critical!
System testing is best left to the IT staff on your implementation team as they will know what
they’re doing. Consult with them and schedule in time pre go-live for:
Step 5: CRM user training
Step 6: System testing

5. You’ll need to create a dashboard that pulls out the important details, set goals, and monitor
your progress toward those goals. Determine what performance looks like by going over the
main metrics in great detail. Below are a couple of key metrics which are often used:
System activity: Examines how many discrete acts a person has performed on the system. This
can be used as a quick check to see whether users are logging in and using the device. It’s
shocking how many users fail to properly upgrade the system or, worse, continue to use the old
CRM.
Record updates: If inputs are being made, the next step is to conduct an audit to determine
the quality of these inputs. Consider the inputs with the greatest amount of consistency
variation. On a sales CRM, a reason for losing a job is a good example of this; reps sometimes
skip over this, so if they are adding good data, this is a good sign.
Quality of inputs: If inputs are being made, the next step is to conduct an audit to determine
the quality of these inputs. Consider the inputs with the greatest amount of consistency
variation. On a sales CRM, a reason for losing a job is a good example of this; reps sometimes
skip over this, so if they are adding good data, this is a good sign.
Business metrics: Looking at wider market metrics is challenging because it’s difficult to relate
them to a single factor, such as your shiny new CRM. It’s a positive sign if a sales team’s revenue
has risen by 40% since the new CRM was implemented; obviously, the causation cannot be
determined, but these success metrics should prompt more investigation.
It’s even better if you can connect the output to the CRM, for example, revenue has increased
by 40%, but we can also see that call to appointment conversion has increased by 30%, email
reply rates have increased by 22%, and sales meetings have increased by 30%. Then we’ll have
more confidence that the new CRM is beneficial.
Good luck with the CRM implementation strategy! Remember: it’s hard work but it will pay off
if you’ve planned your project correctly.
Step 7: Evaluate the success of your CRM implementation
7 STEPS OF EFFECTIVE
CRM IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGY
Final thoughts about CRM implementation strategy

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