CRM 1080

CEO’s Best Practices

1. Business executives must “own” CRM projects, from identifying goals and objectives to defining supporting business processes and metrics to ensuring adequate funding for implementation  

and support. Upper management buy-in and leadership is critical to the success of any CRM initiative.    

2. CRM projects need governance – not command and control. Recognize the dynamic and interdepartmental nature of marketing campaigns, sales interactions, and service calls, and manage CRM deployments accordingly – by a representative team or governing body. Get input from all major areas that make up a CRM initiative, including sales, marketing, and customer care, early in the process.   

3. Establish a customer-focused culture throughout the entire organization.    

 4. Ensure seamless integration with your back-office applications so critical elements of other third-party applications help provide a true 360-degree view of the customer.    

 5. Get expert advice from technologists who have mastered the art of successful CRM implementations.    

6. Design and implement employee buy-in programs that help your team understand the value of CRM.    

7. Review, update, and implement automated business rules throughout the organization and report on the efficiencies and effectiveness of their use.    

8. Implement a system that is highly open, robust, and scalable as the amount of information you gather and manage will grow with the organization and increase over time. Make sure your corporate IT is responsible for the integration strategy, maintenance of master data, and adherence to technology standards in connecting these new applications.    

9. Identify your most profitable customers and provide products, services, and promotions that keep them as happy, loyal, customers.    

10. Identify tangible and measurable links to business performance before implementing a CRM project. First identify the processes that require change, the current level of performance achieved, and ongoing improvements.    

CEO

To ensure the success of a CRM initiative, upper management must have a clear vision and establish a customer-focused culture.

Organizational issues are just as important, if not more important, than the technology behind a CRM implementation. It is well-known that people resist change. The introduction of a new system may be perceived to challenge the balance of how things are done, who wins, and why, and can have dramatic operational implications. Because of this, it is critical that new-system implementation has organizational buy-in up, down, and across, with strong leadership from senior management. The fundamental changes involved may be perceived to have far-reaching impact for your representatives, as well as the business processes and technology that support them. Forethought, coordination, and skill are required for a successful CRM implementation.

For a CRM project to succeed, it is critical that senior management understand that CRM is a business strategy to which they are fully committed, and that they are realistically cognizant of CRM’s many facets and ramifications. At the head of the charge is the CEO, the one person the organization looks toward for company direction and philosophy. It is the responsibility of the CEO to win the support of key groups within an organization – from the board of directors to financial analysts to direct reports – all the way down to the customer.

The CEO must realize that CRM is an initiative for major organizational change and, to this end, must have a clear vision of what he is trying to accomplish. The CRM project requires commitment and leadership and should include organizational objectives that are measurable by specific success metrics and criteria.