Ok, you need a CRM, excellent, but who, what, how, when? Let’s go into a bit of detail on these core questions that you have probably asked yourself if you’re thinking of a new CRM, or for some organisations your first CRM.
It’s a scary world out there, with buzz words and terminology that everyone who is in the know expects everyone else to know – all you’re sure of is that you’re fed up with not being able to report on the simplest of things e.g. why can’t I see when a renewal is coming up?
Who
It’s CRM galore out there, all of them great in their own right but which ones should you be looking at and how do you identify them?
The best answer to this is word of mouth – talk to other membership organisations who you know, discuss which platforms and tools they use. Then reach out to the vendors themselves or a partner if you can find them (Google really is your best friend).
Investigate and evaluate those products via YouTube, documentation, online testimonials – anything that gets you some answers and eventually, you’ll get a short list of 2-3 products to assess.
What
Part of your evaluation process and identifying the product that suits should be what you want to do with the product, and can it do what you need out of the box, with some lightweight configuration, or does it need a full-blown implementation.
Do you want an on-premise solution (servers physically located in your office) or do you want a cloud based solution? Both have pros and cons, but the biggest:
- On-premise has a cost associated with the hardware and maintenance but you have complete access control of that server (however you’re also responsible for it!)
- Cloud based solutions are accessible anywhere, but you pay an ongoing subscription. However, you don’t need to worry about hardware or maintenance costs – including disaster recovery.
Now that you’ve identified the who and what you need, lets drill into some more detail in what the next steps typically are.
How
For some organisations this is really easy – you identify the product you want to work with, then reach out to either the vendor themselves for implementation costs, or a selection of partners that have either been identified by yourself, or the vendor and you buy it.
For others it’s months of preparation and due diligence and budget planning before you can even start identifying the product, create a tender for the work and invite the products/vendors/partners.
Personally, I have seen this latter process work really well, and …not so well.
From a partner’s perspective we understand that a tender process is a necessity for a lot of organisations. Here are a few tips that make everyone’s lives a lot easier:
- Be as specific as you can with your requirements – high level is great to understand the scope of what you’re asking for, but the more detail you can provide, the more accurate the responses will be
- Set realistic timelines – don’t ask for responses a week after the ITT is released, and give yourself more time to review the responses – too often do we see ITT’s go months beyond the proposed deadlines because the evaluation/selection process takes a lot longer than anyone anticipated
- Be quick to whittle down a short list of responses and provide feedback to all parties
As part of the MemberWise community you should also be making use of the Recognised Supplier Directory right here to find potential suppliers – one such supplier could be found here ?
By the end of the whole ‘How’ process, you should now be happy with the product and the partner/organisation who will implement it. You are ready to start the implementation and the majority of the hard work is now over!
When
This is always a difficult discussion internally and with the implementation team. If you’re using a separate implementation partner they may have a lead time which you need to consider – no one really has a project team on standby just in case something comes up!
But you also have deadlines and busy periods with quiet periods. Do you have a hard and fast deadline that requires a new CRM in place because existing licence costs are due for renewal. Is there a key event you need the CRM to manage, etc?
These are all key discussions that are needed, Ideally, you’re able to identify your ideal timeframes as early on in the process as possible but don’t forget that just because you need a system operational by a certain date, doesn’t necessarily mean that every requirement and every element of the system has to be ready by then.
Phasing. Let’s identify if you can go live and start benefiting from your nice shiny new CRM system as quickly as possible – after all, you’re paying for it! Lets get your users in there with the absolute minimum that is needed for them to operate. Then, let’s look at the next phase, that mass mailing tool you want, that could come in after you have all of your data and users utilising CRM, that cutting edge portal area that you need your members to access? Sure, it would be amazing to have that day 1, but perhaps phase 2 or phase 3 might make more sense?
By phasing the deliverables of the project you’re able to focus more intently on smaller sections of the wider project and get return on your investment much quicker than waiting for everything to be ready. A phased delivery can also hugely reduce the risk associated with a “big bang” approach and speed up the “time to value” of the system.
Work with all parties to draw up a sensible project plan, which meets your deadlines and that all parties are happy with and will commit to – use these conversations to identify what your internal resource requirements are and when they need to be made available whilst trying to maintain business as usual.
Before you know it, your new CRM will be operational and you’ll quickly identify future phases, new changes, and elements that you want to enhance – after all, your CRM should grow with you and not hold you back.
Silver Softworks is an implementation partner within the Salesforce ecosystem who have delivered some of the UK’s most complex solutions on the Salesforce platform to date. Primarily working with organisations with less than 500 employees we have implemented over 300 successful projects with our excellent in-house delivery team and have been recognised as experts within the non-profit sector.
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