How to Select a CRM System

change any business processes that have either worked for them or have been in place for so long that it could be damaging to undo them."

Working closely with the vendor certainly has its pluses, and there might be more companies can do on their own to bolster their CRM systems than they could have done five years ago. However, there is a lot to gain from turning to industry professionals, such as independent consultants. Since consultants have worked with various clients, the insight they've accumulated allows them to extrapolate what they've learned from those other companies' mistakes—or successes.

Maintain Your System

It's suggested not only that companies prepare properly for the initial selections and implementations, but also that they monitor the system with regular scheduled maintenance and other forms of consultation. This way, they can influence growth in the long run and make it less likely that they will have to replace the systems they've invested in. There are several steps to take in this process:

6. Set reasonable goals and expectations.

It's important to keep in mind that a CRM system is just a tool, not the ultimate answer. "So whenever people are looking to make things better, it always comes back to how [they are] doing things now. Where are the bottlenecks? What's taking you too long to do? Where are you unhappy with the user experience? The more you get into these things, the more you uncover opportunities," Berkowitz says.

Businesses are advised to take a gradual approach to evolving their platform, setting two to three goals at a time, and conducting regular checkups.

Granted, there are some reasonable expectations that companies should have for their CRM system. For instance, employees should be able to use it wherever they wish, and they should expect that it will improve their work activity in some way. It should fit with their work style, and customers should be able to get help easily.

7. Don't give up just yet.

Even if the selection and implementation processes go smoothly, companies shouldn't think that operations are going to be seamless from the get-go. Even for those who are happy with their systems, a number of challenges are likely to come up along the way. This is no surprise, since customer expectations are constantly evolving, and CRM systems need to keep evolving with them. "No one's going to stand still with where they are on their current CRM platform and stay successful," Estrada says.

While Pozil points out that there are certainly cases where shareholders blame the technology for failing them, most of the time the issue is that there was something that came up after the fact that influenced how useful the technology was to the company. He calls these "deal breakers," mishaps no one could have anticipated. Fortunately, the steps outlined above can be applied to amend such problems.

8. But if all else fails...

Though it's an uncommon situation, it might be the case that a company is forced to reconfigure its entire platform. But this conclusion should be reached logically, following careful consideration.

Fortunately, all hope is not lost for companies that decide to abort ship, experts suggest. If a company has done enough preparation to begin with, the replacement process shouldn't be terribly difficult, Estrada says. "Once that determination [to wipe a system] is made, a company needs to decide how it's going to proceed from an overall perspective," he says. One question larger businesses might ask is whether or not each business unit will need to implement its own separate CRM system. "You need to decide [whether this is going to be a holistic overhaul]. Is it going to be a centralized perspective on CRM and deal with the individual business units as an extension of the core CRM, or [is it going to treat each] individual business unit essentially as its own implementation?"

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Associate Editor Oren Smilansky can be reached at osmilansky@infotoday.com.

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