How to Transform from an All-Paper Process to an Online CRM System?

Customer relationship management can help nurture great customer relationships and track all communications within or outside the organization. Any organization will need a sound customer relationship management system to maintain a healthy relationship with existing customers and create new customers. It completely takes care of all the interactions with the customers. After all, the working of any organization is dependent on their customers. CRM determines the growth of the organization.

Introduction to Online CRM System

Gone are the days when businesses used old traditional and manual ways to process customer information to conduct a sale.. Until  the mid-1900s', businesses across all kinds of niches depended on paper and manual processes.

 

With technological advancement, systems evolved and there is a wider adoption for digital systems that can replace repetitive human tasks. Whenever any enterprise uses an online CRM system for their overall business management, it lowers support costs and empowers customers with better customer service and greater customer satisfaction.

What is an Online CRM System?

Online customer relationships systems act as a real-time bridge between an organization and customers. It covers the lapse between the two parties. It assists businesses in managing their activities, including customer data, customer interaction, tracking leads, marketing, customer support, etc. Any business is dependent on communication with its clients. It is the most crucial part of gaining and establishing business relationships. CRM systems can be integrated with other back-end systems. The software is data-driven for improving the interaction with your customers. 

 

CRM software makes all your tasks much more accessible. It simplifies even the complex of processes. 

 

Characteristics of a CRM Software:

When your company is expanding and growing in size, it requires software or a tool to manage its extensive customer database. CRM software changes the entire working mechanism of any business. A survey depicted that 47% of CRM users said that with the help of CRM software, they got a significant response from customers. CRM is one of the fastest-growing markets in today's IT sector. It will reach $80 billion by 2025. 

• It stores all your data at one easy-to-access location.
• Easily accessible customer data.  
• Improved coordination between teams. 
• A deep analysis of business performance and customer behavior. 
• It provides a better customer experience. 
• It helps you find new customers and build strong relationships with them.
• It collects customers' websites, email, telephone, and social media data.
• It synchronizes with document signing, accounting, billing, and surveys. 
• Administrative tasks include data entry, service case routing, and making better predictions about what customers feel. 

CRM software serves companies of all sizes, irrespective of company sizes. It finds ways to do more things with fewer inputs. CRM software gives an overview of your entire customer database. It is a simple, organized, and customizable dashboard that can display the whole history of that particular organization, the status of their order and any outstanding customer issues, and more. You can find everything in one location. 

 

A CRM platform gives you an automatic outlook into customer & Business management. Traditionally, any organization will start with Twitter and then switch to email or telephone to resolve issues in private. A CRM gives you all in one option to control losing track and offers sales, service, and marketing a customer's profile. It brings convenience to your doorstep.

Components in a CRM Process Cycle: 

There are 5 important stages in the Customer Life Cycle:

1. Finding a potential customer 
2. Customer acquisition
3. Conversion 
4. Customer retention 
5. Loyalty 

 

CRM Process consists of following steps:

1. Create brand awareness
2. Target leads 
3. Convert leads into valuable customers
4. Provide external support 
5. Drive upsells  

 

How to Migrate from Traditional Method to CRM Software

When you are migrating from a traditional system to CRM software, you can sit down in front of a big whiteboard or piece of paper and map out all existing loopholes. Then working on each listed out point one by one. The most important step to begin transferring to new CRM software is cleaning up of data. Clear up your system from stale contacts from your database.

There are 7 steps involved in CRM Migration 

1. Bring Stakeholders Together

Before starting anything, you need to plan according to the mindset of different CRM end users and decision makers. So, you need to bring different leaders together. Then everyone can discuss common expectations from the new CRM system. Discuss the entire situation along with new modifications, what data is critical and what data can be deleted. 

2. Consider Requirements & Target CRM Systems

Firstly, determine what type of data and fields are necessary for the new CRM model. Then compare your current system and analyze whether all current data can be transferred into a new one. If the data can be easily transferred into a new CRM system, then migration is possible. 

3. Prepare the New Data

Consider your data formats and types, how it is organized and what all CRM data needs to be migrated to a new system. This is the step when you remove redundant data. Then create a rough data map which shows which data should go where. This is the most important step. 

4. Recovery of Data

You know the importance of CRM data for your business, therefore, taking up a backup of your data is essential. Anything can go wrong at any time. You must be prepared for any circumstances. There are some companies that offer data recovery but relying only on them is not a good idea. But with your own venture, you can rest assured of any data loss. 

5. Customize the New CRM System

Now you can customize the target CRM system to make migration from customized fields possible. You can also discard the fields that you are not going to implement in the future.

6. Generate a Migration Script or Tool

You need to create a script tool that does all the working for you. You can switch to some organization which provides assistance in CRM data migration. Even a small mistake in the code can cost you heavily. Therefore, you need to focus more on this stage. 

6. Testing the new CRM System

Testing any new system is as important as creating a new one. So, you must also not forget to test the new CRM migration tools. First you can start with a trail round. Try migrating one set of data into the new model, and if it occurs successfully then you should go for the rest. It can give you a clear picture of the prepared data and its structure. Here at this stage you can spot the format incompatibility with the target CRM. 

Some quick tips on successful CRM Migration:

1. Pay keen attention to customized fields 
2. Be careful of the attachments 
3. Double check on transferred data 
4. Choose reliable experts

Conclusion

Even your competitors might be dwelling on some good CRM software since it saves time and drives up sales. CRM helps improve business relationships with a better communication process. A CRM system assists in building a connection with customers, streamlining operations, and improving productivity. It helps develop better relationships with individual people such as service users, colleagues, customers, or suppliers. CRM software helps find new customers, win their business goals, and provide support and additional services throughout the relationship. 

 

If you are still stuck on old conventional methods such as spreadsheets to enter your data manually, then now is the time to start looking for a good CRM software tool for your organization.