Is it a Successful Implementation? It Depends . . .

What is "success" when implementing a CRM system? It depends on who you are. Depending on your role in or outside of the company, you may have different ideas as to whether the CRM system is a success. Each group is asking different questions to evaluate success. Some examples are:

• Executives – how does it fit in the business strategy, what is ROI? Are there any secondary or concealed reasons for implementing this particular CRM system at this time? Publicity, internal politics, etc.?
  
• Marketing – how does it help with marketing messages? Or does it confuse people by giving different marketing messages from web, email, printed marketing?
  
• Frontline Managers – Can I administer it / get reports / train users (and how easily?) Can I monitor my call center and sales force activity / application use?
  
• Internal Users (Call Center and Sales Force) – how easy is it to use? Is it fast, laid out logically, and does it have a minimum of required fields? Do passwords sync through the whole enterprise or do you need to remember yet another password? How easy to make/fix data entry mistakes?
  
• Field Sales Force – is remote access easy? Will I gain anything from entering my data? This is a huge subject all by itself, you need incentives or people will ignore the system.
  
• IT – how does the system work? Are we confident that our data will be stored correctly and secured? Does the system meet security requirements and fit in with the overall IT philosophy at the company? (Depending on whether the system is on-site or hosted, the answers may be quite different.)
  
• Customer Users (if web or telephone self service) – user interface design is a whole field of study by itself. Don't be fancy unless you have good reason, use graphics and Flash elements carefully; not everyone has fast broadband. There are some "best practices", conventions that people are accustomed to – use them! (Note that these conventions may be different in different countries; if you are doing business across international borders you will probably need multiple sites.)
  
• Customers (entered by the Call Center or Sales Force) – is data likely to be entered correctly, de-duplicated successfully, and are marketing preferences honored?
  

A failing grade in any one of the groups listed above (and there may be others) will bring much grief or even doom the system. Not everyone has to love the system, but they have to use it, or use the data in it.

So implementing a CRM system is a juggling act (you knew that) and identifying the success drivers for each group, before you get very far, is one key to a successful system implementation.