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Monday, 24 November 2014

When businesses feel the urge for successful CRM implementation

11/24/2014 02:36:00 pm

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Not many years ago, the educational institutions had codes in their student information system (SIS) to display whose office an admission folder was stored. Office personnel would often run a report to locate the folder and that particular time span, it was a good idea. Knowing who had a particular file helped in saving time during the review process when varied people required access to it.

Many of these institutions had solely focused on an SIS for managing the interactions with the students, but friction between the SIS and technologies of 21st century went up with every passing year. Admissions required a CRM tool for seamless engaging with a complete range of students in regard to the fact they are expected to understand better and also appreciate, track and also manage the involvement, along with using it to improve the shape of the class.

Most of the educational service providers are looking at cloud-based solutions that can offer an intuitive user experience, quickly climb up and also adapt rapidly. Companies need to understand that successful CRM is not just about implementing it but it must be able to complement the people and processes connected with it, which is a challenging task.

It is believed that getting help within the firm is important to take complete advantage of the power and also flexibility of a modern CRM tool. Now, we will take a close look at the lessons learnt in regard to the successful CRM implementation.

- Getting rid of the assumptions 
Lowering the assumptions can be a difficult task, but when the business processes are not future proof, it is time to step out of the comfort zone successfully. According to me, starting the CRM implementation with the tagline ‘let’s assume nothing’ can do wonders and also help in breaking down the concept of doing things in a certain defined way.

Many institutions got rid of all the steps we focuses on for developing a student application, eliminating the unwanted steps that just existed due to the past structure.

Never wait until the actual implementation for evaluating the business processes. Always ensure that the vendors are made to work during the evaluation process, which helps in ensuring that they have the needed expertise in educational domain to offer support and also attaining the necessary project targets.

- Opt for only those features which you need to make your operations successful
Getting everything right such as processing, reporting, integration, communication is an absolute necessity. Never try to achieve everything with the first CRM implementation. In fact, every company should prioritize in regard to their own priorities even if it means getting rid of certain features for a certain time frame.

According to me, the right approach towards CRM implementation is early on in the process, seeing only those details you need to be captured in the CRM tool and what data you require from SIS or other systems. There is a good possibility that the admissions process may crowd the SIS with data points that without the presence of context are not relevant to the rest of the institution. It is better to make a commitment to scalable systems that offer support to every department’s data requirements by selecting wisely what essential data you require to share.

- Permitting staff development 
Stay prepared to use the CRM implementation as a staff development opportunity, by offering the staff members the chance to gain ample knowledge about technology, taking up of methods of change which was previously not available and also apply skill sets to the new areas. The reward for more fruitful work can prove helpful in mitigating burnout in the implementation phase, so comprise of staff in relevant discussions to find out more in this regard.

- Be a team player 
It is believed that a robust collaboration between IT and admissions was essential for attaining success for evaluating and also implementing CRM. The admissions team demand for realistic and focused targets is important and they should not focus solely on vendor for attaining it. It won’t be incorrect to say that a cross functional approach towards integration is key for managing the student lifecycle successfully.

- Offering a much needed spark for innovation 
It is essential to select a CRM tool that permits you to put forth your own preferences on the table and that can be accessed so that support can be pledged to any enterprising staff member’s ‘what is’ situation. That flexibility level can be a tough job but the spark ignited among the staff by providing the opportunity to bring improvement in their daily job is a good idea. It is believed that a good CRM implementation should be developed in advance to offer support to the growing demand of meeting the needs.

- Understanding the available data 
When the available data is well understood, it is crucial for the well-being of an educational institution. Many educational institutions had witnessed the absence of integration and hence they have always been making choices if they want to spent time on staff for recording and bringing modifications in the data points. Many of them used the parallel paper and also electronic processes for carrying out double check on the available details, but it has been found that paper files were causing lot of problems.

The CRM has successfully cleared the slate for us, which helped in exposing the weaknesses and also the overlap in the present systems and forcing the institution to take a close look at the older data model. By owning to the data and entrusting trust in the automated system from start to end, it became possible to get rid of the processes and also unlock meaningful details.

It is believed that by opting for implementation choices that helps in simplifying the processing and also reporting, it becomes achievable to pay attention to the constituents that can make your process success. But at the same time, it is relevant to keep in mind that the CRM implementation should be a process and also an end goal. Taking a decision for CRM implementation only becomes possible only when the process takes up the organizational change and the needed reflection needed to take complete advantage of the power of system that is being implemented.

The article is also available at http://www.basearticles.com/Article/33423/When-businesses-feel-the-urge-for-successful-CRM-implementation.html

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