Once you’ve completed your initial CRM implementation, you’ve checked a crucial task off your CRM setup checklist. While the initial implementation is the heaviest lift in the process, to make the most of your CRM system, you’ll want to continue monitoring and improving your usage of it over time.
Why continuously monitor and improve your CRM system?
With CRM, “set it and forget it” isn’t the best approach. Why? In business, nothing stays the same for long. You may see changes in:
Customer behavior due to changes in the market, competitor activity, or consumer trends.
The way your team uses your CRM; they may start using it less, start relying on it more, or find new ways to use it as they work with it.
Your business needs, requiring you to update your processes.
Opportunities to improve your CRM system, such as new features or integrations.
In order to adjust to these kinds of changes, you’ll need to monitor your CRM system so that you’re aware of them and then take steps, if necessary, to improve your system.
So, how do you monitor and improve your CRM system? Here’s what you need to know.
Measuring the success of the CRM system implementation
Measuring the success of your CRM implementation tells you what works well and what areas could use improvement, so it’s essential for making the most of your CRM system.
It’s important to measure the success of your initial implementation once it’s complete. It’s also a good idea to regularly evaluate how successful your CRM strategy is over the long term.
How do you measure CRM implementation success?
Tracking progress against established objectives
To help with measuring success, refer back to your CRM implementation plan. What key performance indicators (KPIs) did you identify for your CRM system? Which metrics are you aiming to improve with the help of your CRM?
It may be helpful to look at usage metrics like adoption rate. You can also look at technical metrics like system uptime, which is the percentage of time the system is on and available.
If your CRM implementation is successful, you should see improvement in performance metrics you’ve targeted, such as:
Marketing and lead generation metrics such as customer acquisition cost and lead volume
Customer support metrics like time to resolution and net promoter score
Customer engagement
Customer retention
Gathering user feedback and adjusting processes as needed
Another essential part of measuring CRM implementation success is gathering feedback from your team. Request feedback from your team and ask questions such as whether they:
Feel it’s helping them achieve their goals
Feel comfortable using it
Enjoy using it
Have ideas on how to improve the system and processes
Based on this user feedback, you can make adjustments such as updating your workflows, providing additional training, or adding integrations.
Want to learn more about measuring the ROI of a CRM system?
To keep your CRM system performing at its best, you’ll want to continuously update and optimize it. This will help you get the most value possible from your CRM.
To identify areas of potential improvement, conduct regular assessments of your system.
Monitor performance metrics across sales, marketing, customer support, and more. Changes in metrics or underperformance are signs you may need to make changes to your CRM process.
Evaluate your sales process. If you notice you often lose leads at a particular pipeline stage, for example, you can then adjust your pipeline by providing more guidance to your sales team or requiring they take additional steps to engage leads.
Ask for feedback from your team on the CRM system and how they use it.
Review data quality to ensure data is accurate, up-to-date, and organized.
It’s also helpful to keep an eye on new features your CRM offers, as these additional capabilities can help you optimize your system in new ways.
Once you’ve identified areas for improvement, take action to implement the necessary changes. This may involve updating processes and workflows, providing additional training, integrating new tools, adding new features, or resolving technical issues with the help of your CRM’s customer support team.
Overcoming challenges and mistakes in CRM implementation
When implementing a CRM, it’s important to be aware of common challenges. When you’re aware of these challenges, you can account for them in your plan, take steps to avoid them, and be better prepared if any issues occur.
Some common CRM implementation challenges include:
Lack of direction
If you don’t know what you want out of your CRM system, implementing it can become disorganized, making your system less effective.
This is why it’s so important to create a CRM implementation plan that lays out your strategy for rolling out your CRM. You should also create a CRM strategy that defines your goals in using the CRM and how your team should use it.
Data issues
Without relevant, quality data, you won’t get nearly as much value from your CRM system. Focus on collecting data that will help you reach your goals and have a data governance system—a set of standards that define how your team will manage your data— in place.
Low user adoption
Low user adoption is another CRM challenge businesses often face. Getting your whole team on the same page with new software can be challenging, but asking your team for input before beginning implementation, providing plenty of training, and regularly asking for feedback about the system can help.
Flexibility and scalability
As your business evolves and grows, you’ll likely need to make changes to your CRM system and processes.
Accounting for these potential future changes is crucial, so it’s important to choose a CRM that’s flexible and makes it easy to scale up if you need to. Also, it’s important to regularly evaluate your system and make changes to your CRM strategy as needed.
When it comes to these challenges and any others you might face, your CRM’s customer support team is your best resource. They can answer questions, offer recommendations, and help you fix any issues that come up.
Get more from your CRM system with Nutshell
To get the most value from your CRM, it’s essential to monitor and continuously improve your CRM system and processes.
It’s also important to choose a CRM that offers powerful features, makes it easy to customize your system to your needs, and provides free, helpful customer support.
Nutshell is a powerful, easy-to-use CRM that can easily be tailored to fit your business’s needs. Plus, we have a world-class customer support team who can help you throughout your entire journey, from implementation to monitoring to improving your CRM system as your business evolves and grows.
