Success Factor 4: Processes and Procedures
The fourth issue to consider when gauging the success of your CRM is its ability to align with, streamline, and support your organizational processes and procedures. A successful CRM implementation will integrate seamlessly with your existing processes and support any new processes you plan to add.
For example, if you run quarterly reports on the current state of all client relationships and then tailor outreach to specific relationship states, your CRM needs to be able to support that process. Without effective reporting capabilities, the CRM won’t enable the comprehensive view of clients you need for effective outreach.
How do you gauge the effectiveness of your CRM to support processes?
To determine if your CRM is successful in supporting processes, ask these questions:
- Does the CRM adequately support our critical processes?
- Is our CRM platform able to adapt and evolve with new processes
- Does the CRM make processes run smoother, or present roadblocks along the way?
What's next?
If your CRM can’t support critical processes, you may want to explore upgrades. Adding new features might help support certain processes. If upgrades are unavailable or cost prohibitive, moving to a different solution could be the answer. When exploring a migration, be sure to keep your processes in mind and ensure the new solution supports them.