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CRM Strategy
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is not technology; it is a business strategy that must permeate throughout your entire organization in order to be effective. CRM technology simply enables and supports this strategy. A well developed CRM strategy can dramatically affect the way in which you communicate with your customers at every level and ultimately help you develop deeper, more profitable relationships with them.
Plus Consulting develops comprehensive CRM Strategies by performing the following steps:
- Situation Analysis: Setting the Stage
- Level-set expectations
- Identify and document current CRM state as well as future goals and objectives.
- Perform Gap Analysis to determine the appropriate steps to take in order to meet your goals and objectives.
- Opportunity Identification: Find the Benefits
- Develop a clear understanding of what a CRM solution can and cannot provide.
- Identify and document all potential benefit areas.
- Focus on the benefits that are going to provide the most positive results for your organization.
- Economic Justification: True Costs and True Results
- Quantify the "hard" and "soft" benefits by researching and analyzing internal data to develop ROI statistics. Take a conservative approach when dealing with intangible items like incremental revenue.
- Take all aspects of the project into account when developing the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) analysis. These costs can include hardware, software, consulting, systems integration, training, support, change management, additional personnel, etc
- Risk Assessment / Mitigation: Change isn't always good
- There are 3 primary considerations to think about when implementing any organizational change, and CRM is certainly no different.
- People: Assess the skills that you have and the skills that you will need.
- Process: Are your business processes sound? If not, they must be reengineered in order to realize any benefits from automation.
- Technology: The system must meet your current and future needs. Do you have the skills to maintain it in-house, or will you need to rely on a third-party for support? Is it flexible, scalable, etc.?
- Once the risk assessment is complete, a plan for mitigation must be developed. Unmanaged risk is typically the primary factor in a failed CRM implementation.
- Software Evaluation / Selection: We guide, you decide
- There are literally hundreds of CRM applications on the market. Despite what the vendors say, they will not all work for you! A software evaluation engagement will help you choose the best system that is mapped to your specific business requirements.
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