How to Instil a CRM Culture

After exploring the reasons CRM projects fail, it is clear ‘culture’ is an essential ingredient for CRM success. A customer-centric business culture will help you to deliver a better customer experience, enabling you to boost customer retention and in turn sales revenue. But the million dollar question is… ‘how is it achieved?’ In this infographic we share with you ways to instil a CRM culture.

Communicate your goals

You understand the value of being a customer-centric business and you know what this will help you to achieve. But, unless you communicate the vision, and the roll CRM software plays in it, no one else will realise the value. From the off you need to communicate the business objectives and outline expectations, this will ensure there are no grey areas and everyone understands what is required of them.

Get buy in (from everyone)

To get everyone on board, it might not be sufficient to explain the benefits for the business. You’ll need to translate this into how it adds values to your people as individuals and the roles they perform – think about what is important to them. i.e. tell your salespeople how it will help them win more customers.

Don’t leave anyone out

When it comes to CRM projects it is important to consult the people that will be using it. Ultimately, they will be able to tell you what works and what doesn’t in your existing system and help you to shape a solution that helps them to be more effective, whilst achieving the broader business objectives. What’s more, by involving them in the process they will have a vested interest in the project and be more likely to adopt new ways of working.

Appoint CRM champions

A CRM champion is a designated team member assigned to help drive your CRM project by assisting with the implementation and onboarding other users. CRM Champions will help you to increase engagement and share information, because they are closer to other users. When selecting champions it is a good idea to have representation from each department as they will be able to provide representative feedback and aid their colleagues.

Reinforce, reinforce, reinforce

Once your new CRM solution is in and everyone is live the hard work isn’t over. To keep everyone on board you need to reinforce your new culture – managers need to lead by example and KPIs should reflect goals. You might even want to consider introducing incentives, this will stimulate competition and celebration of accomplishments will help to spread the word.

For more tips on how to ensure your CRM Project is a success, download our free CRM Buyers Guide.