Timing and pacing matters

Let’s take a look:

A: Implementing CRM comes with both immediate and long-term benefits. There’s no doubt about that.

One of the things we advise, though, is that you don’t rush into the implementation, and you don’t try to schedule your implementation during busy periods or around holidays or other important activities or initiatives.

If you’re talking about merging offices, I’m going to guess there’s probably a lot going on during that time. The week of the merger is probably not the best time to do your actual implementation and training.

I would recommend you use that time to do what you need to make the merger a success. Get your business culture and processes in line. Then come back and revisit the implementation.

You can do a lot of things remotely these days—in fact, most of our CRM implementations are done remotely! You can still have a successful implementation.

Q: The president of our company has tasked me with buying CRM licensing. I know that the acquisition of the software will be quick, but how much time should I allocate for the implementation for 10 users? I’ve heard of other companies taking anywhere from one week to a year to get CRM in place.
– Timeframe Tony

A: That’s a really good question. A lot of people out there, unfortunately, have been led to believe that you just buy the CRM, turn it on, and then you’re going to immediately start seeing benefits. That is definitely not the case.

Other people have talked to consultants, and they find that their implementations will take a year to two years. That also doesn’t need to be the case.

We’ve done hundreds of implementations, and our process takes five to six weeks to get you up and running successfully with CRM. You’ll be fully trained, and your CRM will be fully implemented and working the way you need it to be working.

That’s for an implementation that’s being done from scratch. If you need to migrate data from another system, like SalesForce for example, that will take a little bit longer—but not too much longer!

If you’re interested in more information about our process, click this link to learn about our OnTrack CRM Success System. Or, you can contact us directly and we’ll be happy to answer any questions.

Q: We’re implementing a 20-user system. One of our managers wants to make sure security is place so people only see what they are supposed to see. Do you have any advice on putting security in immediately?
– SecureSteve

This is also a very common question. Often, we see people with the best of intentions get a new system and want to do everything right away. They want to make everything secure. They want everything and the kitchen sink in the system. That’s because they want to create immediate benefits.

Our recommendation, especially for smaller companies, is this: start simple. Start as simply as you can while still delivering value.

When it comes to security, it’s better to err on the side of openness at first. You can always add restrictions later. What you don’t want to do is restrict things to the point where people can’t see what they need to see to do their jobs, or make things more complicated or cumbersome.

A restrictive, complicated, or cumbersome system won’t deliver the value you need. It might even drive users away from the system before you really get going with it.

That’s it for this CRM mailbag. Thanks for joining us, and hopefully we’ll see you next month for some more CRM questions and answers.

If you have questions, please send them to us. We’re always happy to help out, and we might even feature your question in a future episode!

Set your CRM implementation project up for success

CRM is not a magic wand. It takes planning, focus, and buy-in to ensure your CRM project is a success. And although CRM is much, much cheaper up-front today than it was ten years ago, you still want to get the most from your CRM investment as soon as possible.

That’s where the OnTrack CRM Success System comes in.

The OnTrack CRM Success System is a structured approach to CRM implementation, training, and adoption built upon a proven methodology more than a decade in the making:

Plus, OnTrack is a fixed-price service with a 100% money-back guarantee, so you won’t get blindsided by any nasty billing surprises!