I feel as though a CRM system is an effective vehicle to maximize the benefit of sound business processes – it isn’t, on its own, a solution. We can all agree that platforms such as Salesforce and Dynamics allow for infinite configuration possibilities, but without established business processes in place, the flexibility of those platforms is completely lost on an organisation.
- How do you progress a contact through a structured sales pipeline process?
- How do contacts enter your system, and how are they maintained?
- Does everyone in the organisation have a unified understanding of these processes?
Those are the questions you should be asking first; then you can start to explore which platforms best support your processes. Those processes and disciplines are the difference between having an organisation-wide customer lifecycle platform, and simply having a messy electronic spreadsheet.
