Today CRM is just another bite in your platter, you just need to take a pick but by just picking up can you get your business the reliability you are looking for. No it might not in some case it might be the worst nightmare you don’t want to be in. One has to prioritize the most critical evaluation factors in the CRM selection process. Various critical factors have to be evaluated before making a CRM a part of your life and business. I have tried to focus on some critical check points here upon which one can focus to get rid of one of the unwanted CRM’s and choose a CRM Product which would have all the key ingredients to one’s business.
Vendor Viability
In techno savvy world vendor durability both in terms of Strategic and Financial is perhaps the most difficult factor to measure and impossible to accurately predict. To summarise there is plenty of due diligence and prediction based on combination of the most salient business points.
▪ Profitability
For the most part unproductive businesses go away and productive business sustains. History shows that the volume of emoluments does not correlate well to uninterrupted entity, simply that the organisation delivers accumulation on a consistent basis.
▪ Nugatory Contingencies
A Startup or Cultivating organisation cannot withstand a lawsuit. You have to be very sure with any CRM company being considered if they have any existing suites and any pending or anticipated litigation or other known or unknown contingencies.
▪ Reliability
Prominence has proven to be a measurable indicator of success. For Startup’s companies, the company’s reputation is generally a pass through of the owner’s predicament.
Overall brand promise belief and confidence in the integrity, reliability and fairness of a person or organisation.
Software Depth
▪ Resilience
As they say, the only constant is change. Recognise that you will impose new changing dimensions of business environment. CRM which require programming or customisation take a clear and distant back seat to those systems which demonstrate increased flexibility via configuration or customisation performed with visual tools and by non-technical resources.
▪ Physiognomy
A business solution that includes open standard support and pre built application utilities and components dispensation as services. Also, distinguish that the systemisation component provided by the vendor vary effectively in terms of increased agility, shrewd and smart decision-making, greater productivity, inexpensive, and an enhanced ability to innovate.
▪ Functionality
Unfortunately, CRM is acquired based on what was shown it can do during the selection process and what the CRM cannot do is generally not recognised until after procuring. For every lacking feature or insatiable functionality requirement that CRM cannot accommodate, the client is tented to resort to hand – operated efforts or a supplemental system. Missing features and CRM functionality has failed many CRM implementations. A modern solution can quickly and safely gain productivity advances with a modern user experience and cutting edge technologies.
▪ Foundation
The inability to identify present or antiquated technology is possibly one of the most missed evaluation factors and subsequently results in far more limited system utilisation than anticipated. According to analyst firm, the technology substratum for CRM is critical to the organisation’s ability to personalise and tailor it, symphonies it with existing resources.
▪ Automation
Importing data into a business system is one subject, however, using the system to incubate business processes is quite another. Information tools flimsy on business process automation deliver the lowest ROI (Return on Investment).
▪ Access to Information
There is no cutthroat advantage to transferring data into a system. There can be significant vying advantages in getting information out of the system. Getting the correct information to the needful users at the correct moment drives user acceptance and a gain in your return investments. In complex columnar chronicle is nothing much to value. Aim for formative reports, online manoeuvres down scrutiny and conjecturable (what-if) modeling.
Implementation
The implementation effort is the most missed critical CRM evaluation constituent. There has to be an implementation which must be subsequent to CRM subscription or acquisition. While the implementation duration may be a fragment of the erstwhile client/server interface epoch, it nonetheless exists and is predominantly the critical success factor (CSF) most overlooked and the ultimate cause for most project failures.
▪ Make sure your CRM vendor understands the implementation process importance. Validate the CRM vendor has an implementation approach, methodology and blue print outlined proposal. Authenticate the implementation resources are professionals and well trained.
▪ Verify that your vendor recognises that CRM implementations are less about CRM and more about business strategy and organisational change.
▪ Categorically avoid those pitchers who attempt to marginalize the implementation process and are simply looking for a rapid sale.
Support
The very first initiative in building your support strategy is ensuring that your perception, mission, and prejudices are alienating with the organisation’s goals. Service or operational level agreement is a vital component of the ideal support planning, as this is where the level and type of services provided are agreed upon by the CRM customers
▪ Client Support
While customer support is getting better in the CRM industry, there are still major differences which dramatically affect user adoption, implementation success and ROI. Development and implementation of product support arrangements should be a major consideration during strategy development to assure achievement of the desired performance outcomes.
▪ Dedicated Key Account Manager
The objective of the Key Account Manager is to define strategy to achieve operational readiness outcomes based on optimising the Integrated Product Support (IPS) elements that comprise the support strategy. Look for or ask for a named account manager person who will coordinate all tech support and other requests.
▪ Multiple Access Methods
Look for direct (live) support as well as customer self-service options. Determination of support management can be acquired from the CRM Support Integrators or CRM Support Providers using an aftermath – or transactional based procuring methodology. Reconciliation (s) are validated or made using a best test for value analysis.
▪ 24X7 Availability
This may or may not be a requirement based on your organisation’s working hours.
Hoping motto behind this Blog could be accomplished by a part and a small amount of knowledge sharing for our existing client and future partners can be derived legitimately.
