Last month, I talked about how the corporate website strategy was an essential element of CRM implementation because it is a major touch point of interaction between a company and its customers.  Today, I came across a post that triggered another important component to a company’s CRM implementation; that of the company IVR.
As CRM moves [...]

I cannot stress enough the importance of detailed, thorough, and complete documentation when it comes to CRM implementation projects (or any project, for that matter).  A project I was recently involved with on a periphery basis went through a significant amount of pain because of the disconnect between sales and the implementation team in regards [...]

One of the most common pitfalls in any CRM implementation is poor change management.  While true of any software implementation, the impact of poor change management on CRM (or ERP for that matter) is high due to the pervasiveness and importance of CRM in the organization.
Earlier in my career, I learned the relative [...]

It happened to me the other day, and it’s happened many times before.  I’m in a needs analysis meeting with a new customer, reviewing their processes and working to implement a CRM strategy that makes sense for their business.  When discussing process with a project management group, I came across the fact that there was [...]

All too often, when doing a CRM implementation, my customers will request dozens and dozens of email notifications from the system, for every event from a new lead being assigned to a scheduled activity being due, to a note being updated on an account.  I once had a sales manager request an email notification every [...]

One of the larger causes of CRM implementation failures in small businesses is over-engineering.  Small businesses have a need to be agile and flexible, and many a CRM implementation tries to put too many restrictions and enact too rigid a process to make the tool useful for a small business.
Several years ago, I was involved [...]

CRM is focused primarily on relationships with customers for the purpose of driving revenue and profits.  As such, in typical instances of CRM implementations, Sales Force Automation typically becomes the central focus, with all other aspects of CRM becoming secondary.  Indeed, in most of the cross-departmental CRM implementations that I have been involved with, Sales [...]