Last updated on November 1st, 2023
Today, I’m going to help you through the CRM implementation process step-by-step so you can get up and running in no time
So, you’ve decided to take your business to the next level by investing in a CRM.
Whether it’s to boost your marketing efforts or you’re looking to get a better handle on customer relations, a CRM is a great way to do it.
But the problem?
Implementation can be a challenge — if you don’t know what you’re doing.
- What Is CRM Implementation?
- Start with goals
- How Proper CRM Implementations Impact Your Business
- Tips for a Successful CRM implementation
- Gather data before you get started
- Configure your basic settings
- Data management
- Configure your CRM sales system
- Migrate your data
- Learn how to use your CRM
- Train your team
- Choose the best CRM
Automate All Your Communications With VipeCloud
VipeCloud is the only Automation tool your small business needs to
be the hero to your customers.
With Email, Texting, Social, Suites, Chat, Stories, Video Email & Sign Up Forms fully built-in, we provide you with the perfect platform to grow your business.
15 Day Free Trial – Get started risk free. No CC needed.
What Is CRM Implementation?
It’s not just a software subscription; it’s a strategic move that can streamline operations, improve customer relations, and boost your marketing efforts.
CRM implementation includes the steps like:
- Choosing your CRM: The first step is selecting a CRM that aligns with your business goals. Don’t just go for the shiniest tool; make sure it fits your specific needs.
- Data migration: Your existing data needs to be cleaned and transferred to the new CRM. This step is crucial; messy data can lead to operational chaos.
Team training: A CRM is only as effective as the people using it. Train your team to ensure everyone is on the same page.
Start With Goals — What Are You Trying To Accomplish With Your CRM?
The first step to getting the most out of your CRM system is understanding exactly what you want from it in the first place.
Define the goals that you hope the CRM solution will help you achieve.
Let’s go over some of the most important goals that you probably want to remember during your CRM system implementation.
Manage Customer Relationships
CRMs are (unsurprisingly) great at helping you manage customer relationships. It’s kinda in the name.
CRM software will help you manage any client relationships you have through organization and various other tools.
So before you implement your CRM, think about what exactly your current pain points are for customer management. What do you hope to accomplish with your CRM implementation?
Marketing — Accelerate Growth
Another great use for CRMs is to boost your marketing efforts.
CRMs are excellent marketing tools because they streamline the complicated process and automate much of the menial work for you.
Which gives your marketing and sales teams more time to focus on the things that really matter.
And speaking of sales…
Sales — Close More Deals
Again, CRMs are great tools for sales teams.
A sales team with a CRM is a sales team that spends less time on data entry, scheduling, and unimportant tasks.
Instead, they can focus more on tasks that deal directly with your prospects and customers.
Grow Your Business
Looking to accelerate your business’s growth without having to hire more employees?
Squaring away and streamlining the internals of your business will help you spend less time in your business so you can work more on the outside growing it.
That’s where CRMs come in — with organization and automation capabilities.
One of the most significant hurdles for any scaling business is the limited amount of time its teams have in their day.
When you hit that wall, normally your only option would be to increase your hiring capacity. With a CRM, however, you can stretch even a small team’s capabilities without burning them out.
Alright, now we’ve gotten the most important goals out of the way and have direction. The next step?
Start implementing the CRM.
But first, some tips for a smooth transition.
How Proper CRM Implementations Impact Your Business
A well-executed CRM implementation can be a game-changer for your business. It streamlines operations, improves data quality, and enhances team collaboration.
Here’s how:
- Streamlined operations: A well-configured CRM eliminates redundant tasks and automates workflows. This means your team can focus on what really matters, i.e., building relationships and closing deals.
- Data quality: A CRM is only as good as the data it holds. Proper implementation ensures that you’re not just storing data, but leveraging it to make smarter business decisions.
- Team collaboration: A CRM isn’t just a sales tool; it’s a company-wide asset. From marketing to customer service, a properly implemented CRM fosters cross-departmental collaboration.
- Customer satisfaction: A CRM helps your team quickly access accurate customer data, resolve issues, or recommend solutions. Ultimately, this leads to happier customers.
- ROI boost: CRM implementation offers a solid return on investment. The efficiencies gained translate into lower operational costs and higher revenue.
5 Tips For A Successful CRM Implementation
The last thing any company wants is for the implementation process to create a bunch of kinks in the sales pipeline.
So to ensure that things go well, let’s cover some tips to smooth out those kinks before they’re even started.
#1: Read & Watch Tutorials.
This one might seem obvious, but you’d be surprised how often this step is skipped.
Before anything, go over the majority of relevant tutorials, and feel free to revisit as more problems come up.
The tutorials should be your starting point, so you at least have some idea of what to do. Then, as you uncover more features and pieces, you can continue to refer back and reference them.
VipeCloud, for example, has a whole help section. Make sure to read through it first thing so you get where you’re going with it.
#2: Take Your Time Learning Your CRM Software — But Don’t Be Afraid to Try Things Out.
Listen, you don’t have to understand the full program immediately. CRMs come with a lot to unpack, and you learn as you go.
But we see many companies that never get the fullest potential from their CRM software purely because they don’t want to try new things out.
Don’t be afraid to experiment with the software, especially in the beginning when you’re first figuring things out.
Don’t worry, the software isn’t going to break.
#3: Implement Your CRM In Parts — Don’t Overwhelm Your Team. Set A Goal And Get It Done.
Another misstep that we see tons of teams make is biting off more than they can chew and getting overwhelmed.
Instead of trying to implement the entire CRM at once, take baby steps. A layered approach is much more achievable.
A good way to do this is by setting single goals and then getting them done before moving on.
Have a newsletter? Make your first goal to import the contacts and send out your first piece.
Sales Team? Make your first goal to get everyone’s scheduling set up through the software.
And once you’ve done those, move on to the next goals.
Take that approach, and you’ll find that the implementation process goes faster than you’d anticipated.
Take the “all at once” approach, and you’ll find it taking longer than it should’ve instead.
#4: Book A Demo And Use Every Bit Of Support To Get Things Done Right The First Time.
This one’s one of our favorites.
Did you know VipeCloud has a ton of support for teams that are just getting their CRMs implemented?
We have a support section, demos, and help teams out with the data migration process too.
When implementing your CRM, don’t be afraid to use all of the support available. It’s there for a reason, so take advantage of it.
#5: Dedicate The Project Manager To Run CRM Implementation.
CRM implementation is a project. So you should dedicate a project manager (or a team) who will run the CRM implementation process and be responsible of successful CRM implementation.
Your CRM implementation project manager (or a team) should do the following:
- Determine key dates of the CRM solution implementation.
- Build a list of tasks for each stage of implementation and monitor them.
- Arrange CRM training for your sales team.
- Answer any questions your employees might have regarding your new CRM solution.
- Look out for any possible CRM adoption issues after implementation.
#6: Set Up A Timeline For Key CRM Implementation Events.
Since CRM adoption can be a complex process, you need to set up a timeline to implement a new CRM successfully.
Here’s the list of common events you need to add to your calendar:
- Backup and customer data migration.
- CRM settings customization.
- Running custom CRM test reports.
- CRM training for all roles that will use a new CRM.
#7: Customize Your CRM For Your Business.
Your business isn’t the same as any other business out there.
A law firm’s CRM is going to be arranged differently than a marketing agency’s.
So your CRM should be able to accommodate your uniqueness.
Don’t try to carbon-copy another company’s CRM process; instead, customize the CRM for your team and business.
#8: Launch A New CRM And Monitor Your Results.
Finally, once you’ve gone through all the steps mentioned above, you should be good to launch a new CRM.
The next best step is to monitor your results and aim for improving your sales and customer retention rates.
Before You Get Started: Gather Your Data
One of the most important parts of this whole process is getting your data from your current system to the CRM.
Gather up and consolidate every piece of data your team has spread across your various programs or spreadsheets and get it prepped in one spot.
That way, when it comes time to start moving contacts, customer and team data, you’re not scrambling around.
Stage #1: Configure Your Basic Settings (User, Email, Social)
Next is the basics for the program.
For this phase, you’ll want to get all of your users set up with their own accounts, your team emails set up, and all of the social accounts linked in the system.
With VipeCloud, getting these setup is pretty easy, you can find each of the respective tabs on this screen:
Navigate there by clicking your name in the top right, and clicking on setup. You’ll find all the tabs you need along the left and right sides.
Stage #2: Getting Started With Data Management
Once the basics are out of the way, it’s time to start getting the software ready for all of your data. And that means customizing your software to fit any necessary fields.
Let’s cover exactly what you need to know to get VipeCloud set up for your team.
Set Up Your Fields
In VipeCloud, there are three CRM items that you can work with.
You’ve got contacts, accounts, and opportunities.
Contacts: Contacts are people, simple as that.
Accounts: Accounts are the businesses you have ongoing relationships with.
Opportunities: Opportunities are the fun part; they’re the trackable events in relation to contacts and accounts that have the potential for revenue.
So to recap where we’re at:
So far, we’ve got three types of fields, contacts, accounts, and opportunities
Next are further classifications for fields: Mandatory and unique fields.
Mandatory fields are ones that can’t be opted out of. When choosing fields, decide what information every contact needs to give you. Things like your prospects’ names and contact info should be in this category.
Unique fields are ones that can’t be repeated by any other contact, ever. This is useful for sorting out duplicate accounts. Things like emails, phone numbers, and similar information should probably be labeled as unique.
Add Pipelines
Pipelines are how you can track opportunities and where each prospect falls along the pipeline itself.
To view pipelines, click the opportunities button along the left side of your screen.
From there, you’ll have a view of either all or specifically your opportunities.
If you’re on a Pro VipeCloud account, you’ll only have the option to create a single pipeline. Enterprise accounts, however, can run multiple pipelines simultaneously.
To add pipelines to your account, click on the customizations tab in the top right.
From there you’ll have the option to manage your pipelines and edit them as you see fit.
Add Products And Services
And funnily enough, this customization tab is also where you add the products and services that your business sells.
From customizations, scroll down until you see products. Here’s where you can add any products or services you’re offering to prospects during your unique pipeline or value ladder.
Customize Your Team’s Tasks
Any of the various main tasks your team covers should go here.
Whether that’s scheduling a call, emailing, or a more general one like “To Do.” all of these tasks go here.
Make sure to tailor your tasks to what you and your team members are doing — whether that’s discovery calls, proposals, team meetings, or whatever works best for you.
Add Your Users
The next step is to add all of the users to your account.
User accounts can be split between admins, managers, and members. Each one sits one step higher in the hierarchy than the one previously.
To add users, you’ll want to navigate over to the manage users tab under admin.
Create Your Teams
Your sales and account management teams have two very different tasks and should be separated as such.
You’ll want to go to the teams tab and create any necessary teams.
From there, you can add users to the various teams from the previous tab.
Stage #3: Configure Your CRM To How Your Company Does Sales
Now that you understand how fields, users, and teams work, it’s time to really get into the nitty-gritty of configuring the CRM to your needs.
There’s no one-size-fits-all here, every team has different needs and this is where you’ll accommodate the software to your own.
To tailor the CRM to your sales process, you can play around with various customizations such as fields, tasks, and pipelines.
Once you’ve got that down, you’ll want to get into migrating your data to the new system.
Stage #4: Migrate Your Data
Depending on the system you’re coming from, migrating CRM data can be a real hassle.
Fortunately, it’s not too difficult to do it with VipeCloud. In fact, we offer free migration service to help you get settled in with your new system.
But in case you’d rather handle the CRM migration yourself, here’s how you add new data to the system and export your already-existing data from other systems.
Add Your Contacts
First, navigate over to the administration tab, and click on the contacts link under “import”.
From there, you’ll need to upload your contact lists as .csv files.
Add Your Accounts For Customers, Clients, & Other Business Relationships
The process goes the same for opportunities, accounts, and other data. Once they’re all in .csv format, you can upload them to VipeCloud.
But here’s our official advice:
At VipeCloud, we strongly recommend you contact us about our migration services. We help you get your data imported for free, and we’ll ensure the process goes smoothly and quickly.
And once all of the data’s been successfully imported, it’s time for the next phase of your CRM implementation.
Stage #5: Learn How To Use Your CRM’s Various Tools & Features
Once you’ve got things set up, migrated your data, and you’ve started implementing pieces of the CRM, it’s time to start making use of the more specialized tools your CRM has to offer.
For instance, VipeCloud has a slew of features to accommodate various teams. From reporting suites to autoresponders and third-party integrations, there’s quite a bit to go through.
Get yourself comfortable with these advanced features so you can be ready for the next step. (hint, the next step is training your teams to do the same)
But remember from earlier, don’t bite off more than you can chew, take it step-by-step while learning them.
Once you’ve got a hang of things, it’s time to bring everyone else on board.
Stage #6: Train Your Teams On How To Use Your CRM
If you’ve done the last phase well, this part shouldn’t be too hard.
Here are a few tips on how to best train your teams efficiently.
Tip #1: Be Patient
You’re likely switching up your workflow pretty significantly during this process.
So practice patience when it comes to team members learning the new way of working with the new CRM software and not against it.
Tip #2: Train Your “Superstars” And Delegate To Them
As one person, you can’t train everyone. Instead, carefully choose who your “superstars” are for each task or process. These will be your managers a lot of the time.
Once your superstars know the new CRM like the back of your hand, you can delegate part of the training process to them.
Tip #3: You Don’t Need To Utilize Every Feature
Don’t feel obligated to use every single feature in the CRM if it’s not applicable.
Training your teams on how to use irrelevant features is only going to waste time and resources. So focus on the parts that matter.
Tip #4: The Most Important Tip — Take Advantage Of Team Meetings
Sending a company-wide email will only help so much.
Here’s the short and sweet:
Any well-operating team in a business needs meetings as much as every week or month to run like a well-oiled machine.
So if your team isn’t already having frequent meetings, start having team meetings. Then, when you create your CRM implementation plan, you can do a team walk-through together.
Team meetings are also exceptionally perfect for getting feedback from the newCRM users themselves — AKA your team.
Common Hurdles During The Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Implementation Stages
If your customer relationship management (CRM) implementation plan involves you doing everything yourself, you’ll probably encounter some common hurdles.
These are the most common ones.
Hurdle 1: Rushing The Process
Realistically, CRM implementation isn’t instant. And trying to rush through the process is a surefire way to mess critical areas of the process up.
If you want things to go well, make sure you’re not rushing through your CRM implementation process.
Hurdle 2: Disorganization
A successful CRM Implementation is a process in and of itself, so you should treat it like one. Assign teams and specialists throughout your company to handle the various areas of the project.
A disorganized implementation effort is one that’s going to waste tons of valuable time, money, and energy.
Hurdle 3: Not Taking Advantage Of All The Available Resources
Implementing CRMs doesn’t have to be done blindly. At VipeCloud, we’ve helped plenty of teams get up and running, so we know a thing or two about implementing the program.
Make sure you’re using all of the resources available, there’s no shame in having experts help out.
How Long Does It Take To Implement A CRM System?
There’s no one right answer to this as it completely depends on your team’s needs. While the process won’t be done in an instant, it can be made much faster by letting us help.
If you’re curious about how long it’ll take to implement a CRM for your organization, feel free to contact us and we can discuss the details.
Find A CRM Company With Award-Winning Customer Service
Don’t leave your company’s fate up to poor customer service.
At VipeCloud, our customer service speaks for itself and it’s got the awards to prove it.
And the program? It speaks for itself too, that’s why we’re willing to offer a free demo to help you see for yourself. Request your free demo with VipeCloud today.
Leave a Reply