How to implement CRM in the work of a company: step by step and with examples

According to a joint study by GFK Ukraine and Bitrix 24, in 2018 only 6% of companies used CRM systems in Ukraine. 2% are implementing them into work and 4% are at the planning stage. The situation is gradually improving, but the figures remain low, especially when compared to other European countries.

It is widely believed that CRM is a tool for large companies with many employees and great turnover. However, it is not. In practice, with the implementation of CRM, positive results are achieved for both small and medium-sized businesses.

CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. It is software used by company employees to set tasks, easily access information, manage requests from acceptance to closure, time tracking, and communication.

The main goals that are achieved through the implementation of CRM in the work of the company:

• sales increase by automating interaction with the customer;
• optimization of marketing campaigns;
• improvement of the service level through the collection and use of information about customers;
• improvement of business processes;
• improvement of the staff efficiency.

Let's understand what stages the implementation of CRM consists of.

Implementation of CRM

Stage 1. Preparation and creation of a preliminary map of the processes digitization

At the first stage, it is necessary to draw up a document that will display all types of interaction with customers, banks, as well as the exchange of information between employees. This usually includes social media, email, courier services, mobile and landline phones, and of course face-to-face communication.

Now imagine that an account manager goes on vacation and hands over cases to another manager. He/she provides phone numbers or email addresses of customers. “Communicate with this one in WhatsApp, with another one in Viber, with the third one in Telegram, this one will only answer by phone, and this one in the mail.” Nightmare! Employees also communicate with each other through different channels, sometimes it can be very difficult to find the necessary information, and a lot of time is wasted.

It would be much easier if all customer data, employees, work papers and other useful data were stored in one place, right? Here would be registered channels of communication with customers. In the same environment, it would be possible to keep a count of the materials spent / time records of employees work/ call statistics and automate access to all data important for your company.

Thus, at the first stage, you need to understand which processes and interactions can be accelerated, improved and optimized. Ask the main question: "Why are we implementing CRM?". The answer will depend on which departments are going to use CRM and tasks performed through it.

Stage 2. Implementation of the CRM system and employees

After the system is deployed and customized to the needs of the company, you need to move on to sales. The first of these is the internal sale of CRM to own employees.

Realization of the goals set before the implementation of CRM will be possible only if all participants in the process understand the benefits and know how to use properly the resources provided. Why? Because the first stage of accepting all change is denial.

The team usually perceives the introduction of new software, and even more so CRM, as a new whim of the boss. Argument: "It used to be normal, we earned money, we worked somehow. And now they’ve come up with it.". This reaction is absolutely normal, the fear of doing something in a new way is inherent in every adequate person.

What to do? Communicate the benefits and goals of the innovation. Tell that you can get rid of problem areas (repetitions in the databases, lost contacts in the mail, routine letters). Appoint an implementation manager to ensure that every employee starts using CRM.

The next step is — anger. "It doesn’t work, there is no such function, it’s not suitable for my tasks!", — Employees complain, realizing that they still have to get used to it.

What to do? Implement step by step. For example, from the first day - we correspond and make calls in CRM. From 15th - we set tasks. From 30th - we make updates to the database.

Next is bargaining. Some of the team, reluctantly, have already transferred work to CRM, others are still in denial, trying to “bargain” for themselves some room to maneuver.

What to do? Pay attention to employees who are bargained to the last. Usually, these are those who will not benefit from task control.

We move on to depression. It will be only for those who are still dissatisfied with the innovation. The rest have been working for a long time.

What to do? Show the results, use the data that was obtained through CRM to increase profits and, accordingly, encourage employees.

The end is acceptance. Everyone who stayed with you complete tasks through CRM. Ideally, the process will take about 2 weeks.

Stage 3. Training and testing

First, You will need instructions for employees. They can be handled by a responsible employee, or you can resort to the help of companies that integrate CRM into the business.

After the instructions are ready, you need to conduct a demonstration for employees. If the company is small, you can bring everyone together, if there are many people, you can prepare training videos and send them to executives for review by departments.

After employees have an idea of the possibilities, you need to test. Entrust executives to test with colleagues the functionality that their department needs.

During testing, it usually turns out that something needs to be added, and something needs to be reworked or removed. Based on the feedback received, start a phased transition. When the system is running successfully, you can create knowledge bases for new employees.

CRM Performance Metrics

1. Increasing staff efficiency

Based on the experience of companies that have implemented CRM systems, the time spent on working with a client, on average, is reduced by 20-30%. This is due to the acceleration of access to information, the automation of routine operations and the reduction of time for internal communications and workflow.

The economic effect after implementation can be calculated using two algorithms, depending on the main goal that was set before implementation.

Reduce costs

First, it occurs to reduce the number of people in the state by 20-30%, respectively, you will save on: part of the cost of salaries, including taxes; resources for the organization of the workplace.

Increase profit

And no one can be fired. Then it turns out that the volume of work performed by employees will increase by the same 20-30%. With the same input, the number of calls and transactions will increase, respectively, we get a proportionally larger income.

For such a scheme, the economic effect is about 20-30% of the turnover, but remember, that the costs of manufacturing products / providing services, logistics, as well as the motivational component of managers will increase.

If you make calculations, the amount by which the profit will increase will be several times greater than the savings from cost reduction.

EXAMPLE

• You have a sales department that employs 10 people, and each of them receives 10,000 UAH, as well as 5% of sales. On average, tax deductions are 5,500 UAH, average office expenses per employee are 2,000 UAH.
• Today, the turnover of your company is 1 million UAH.
• Costs for the production of goods and logistics — 50%.

Your expenses consist of the following items:

• For a team – (10,000+(100,000 * 5%)+5,500+2,000)*10=225,000 UAH.
• Production of goods and logistics – 1,000,000 * 50% = 500,000 UAH.
• Other expenses for managers, other departments, advertising, etc., are not taken into account in this example.

Cost reduction strategy (passive):

• We fired 2 sales managers. Turnover and costs for the manufacture of goods + transport remained at the same level.
• Each of the team now makes a turnover of 125,000 UAH. The payroll fund and taxes have also increased.
• Taking the formula above, we consider how much our 8 employees receive: 192,800 UAH.
• Thus, with the "passive" strategy, we saved 225,000-192,800=32 200 UAH.

Profit increase strategy (active):

• No one was fired, but the turnover increased, and each team member brings 125,000 UAH per month. Employee expenses amount is 241,000 UAH. The turnover has grown to 1,250,000, and the costs of production and transport — up to 625,000 UAH.
• Now we substitute the numbers into the formula and find out that the active strategy allowed us to increase income by 109,000 UAH.

2. Reduce of customer losses

The average company loses from 10-15% to 30-40% (crisis / high-load markets) of customers per year. The reasons may be following:

1. Operating. Poor quality goods / long deadlines / unprepared documents / communication problems.
2. Assortment. Dissatisfaction with the product / needs have changed / relevant services are not provided
3. Marketing. Lured by competitors

And what about CRM?

• Operational with the implementation of the CRM system are reduced by 50%, and in half of the cases they are eliminated completely.
• With the CRM, you can track which products are promising, which ones need to be removed from the assortment, and what is currently in demand.
• The data obtained by the marketing department after the implementation of CRM allows you to increase the effectiveness of marketing campaigns by 3 times.

3. Increasing customer acquisition activity

Analytical CRM tools reduce the cost of preparing projects to attract customers. The costs of implementing these projects are also reduced.

4. Management

Having a CRM system, you are able not to hold meetings where announced information is available to each manager in two clicks.

Sales department and CRM

The work of sales managers is much more convenient to control with a CRM system.

Assigning and checking the status of tasks

The system clearly shows how many tasks each manager completed and overstayed. This speeds up communication between executives and subordinates, allows you to review their tasks based on the monitored workload. If it is necessary to expand the staff, this will immediately be seen by an increase in the number of applications and a delay in their processing with the same workload of employees.

Analytics

In a CRM system, most of the functionality is devoted to data analysis. It is very easy to track the dynamics of the implementation of the plan and notice the bottlenecks in the execution of requests. At the end of the period, you can easily download a report on the work and productivity of the team for yourself or executives. Thus, it will help planning and work with personnel.

Request status

The life cycle of a request, its speed of transition to a successful transaction can be monitored. It is immediately clear which orders are more difficult, a separate strategy is developed for them. The manager sees which of the clients is waiting for the manager's reaction, and with whom they are working right now. If the client is complex, you can quickly connect additional employees. Together with the manager, he develops a strategy for complex transactions.

When the conversion drops sharply at the “Agreement of the offer” stage, we can conclude that communications are ineffective and there is inability to complete transactions. In such situations, you need to figure out what the reason is: the product, its price or the skills of managers. Next, you need to eliminate the cause to make it as easy as possible for your customers to make decisions.

Summing up, it is impossible to say that every company needs CRM. Any organization is unique, perhaps your processes are ideally built and there is no need. However, we can definitely say that with the implementation, any sales become traceable and manageable, which significantly simplifies the work.