How We at ADINDEX Implemented a CRM System and Our Life Hacks

The acronym CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management.

For understanding, imagine an improved excel table with your client base, where one click displays all information about the client with detailed information about him (his name, phone number, website, estimated transaction amount, and much more) in chronological order.

What is the advantage of using a CRM system?

• The ability to view all project events: sending SMS, email distributions, monitoring tasks, and managers’ comments, even if there were involved several different specialists in the project.

That enables any employee with the necessary access rights to quickly grasp the essence of working with a client, and Team Leader, Project Manager. And everyone else will be able to see all the changes and the progress of work, which significantly reduces the time for their communication with each other.

• Automation of routine tasks, such as entries in a diary or on the back of a business card, drawing up reports, reminders of an upcoming call, or the need to send an email when a client moves to a new stage of the sales funnel.

That makes it possible to reduce the influence of the human factor on entering information, speed up the work of the manager, and increase the client’s loyalty to the company.

• Optimization of information entry: signed fields in the client’s card with the possibility of flexible settings: from prescribing in manual mode to choosing from a drop-down list or the ability to mark only Yes / No.

This option makes it possible to optimize the process of collecting and recording customer information, introduce standardization for this process, and reduce confusion when filling out a customer card.

The above are the main advantages of CRM systems for solving the most common business problems. But their functionality is much broader. Indeed, in addition to all of the above, CRM systems help in:

• task and project management;
• communications within the company;
• communication with the client from a single window;
• process automation;
• financial management;
• preparation of reports on performance, KPI;
• accounting for transactions;
• in creating and working with an internal knowledge base and much more.

Do you need a CRM?

Implementation of a CRM system is impractical if … unless you already have a working CRM system.

In all other cases, the company should think about implementing it because growth and cost reduction are still a goal for every business and, sooner or later, you will need it.

CRM implementation in ADINDEX

Stage one. Preparation, implementation, and difficulties

In connection with the growth of the company, an increase in the volume of work, and the emergence of new clients in ADINDEX, the question arose of systematizing information about appeals, transactions, and new contacts. Google Sheets could no longer meet all the requirements for data capture and provide the ability to obtain information about customers quickly, so we decided to develop data accounting tools. So we came to the implementation of a CRM system.

Stage two. Choosing a CRM system

Before the implementation of Bitrix24, the ADINDEX analytics team analyzed the CRM systems on the market. First of all, we were interested in cloud versions because they have a definite advantage in the form of data safety on the developer’s external servers. That allows you to reduce the operating costs of setting up your server room and finding a system administrator.

The top three for implementation within the company were the following CRM systems: amoCRM, Bitrix24, and OneBOX.

We also studied highly specialized systems with a bias in sales, marketing, and other areas, but they did not meet all the stated requirements, so they are not considered in this article.

What criteria did we use to evaluate CRM systems:

• the convenience of the interface;
• ease of integration with IP telephony;
• linking to sites;
• ease of setting up and using e-mail;
• single communication window;
• the quality of the mobile version;
• convenience and ease of planning, integration with calendars;
• completeness of analytics tools;
• variability of reporting;
• building and automating business processes;
• internal communications;
• import/export of data;
• integration with 1C;
• cost.

CRM systems were assessed on a scale from 1 to 5, where:

1 – the complexity of self-configuration and further use of the functionality;

from 2 to 4 – ease of use with the help of an integrator;

5 is the most convenient use for any employee.

As a result of a joint discussion by the sales, analytics, and marketing departments, we decided to implement the Bitrix24 system.

Stage three. Testing the Bitrix24 system

The first impression is quite good. The second is the same. But, as always happens, we wanted a little more and a little better. What are the solutions without extra costs? We will use the example of two types of difficulties.

Difficulties in implementing a CRM system often faced by a business

The first difficulty, which can be easily solved on paper, but in reality, is more complicated, is the optimization of business processes within the company.

For those who thoroughly know and understand the essence of the ongoing processes within the company, it will be much easier to decide on their optimization. The rest should turn to integrators who will do it for you.

A small lifehack – all CRMs are designed to improve the quality of work to one degree or another. So, having studied the specifics of the system that you are going to implement and superimpose it on the existing processes of the company, you will not only simplify and speed up the integration but also discover weak and strong sides in communications and the inner workings of your business.

The second difficulty is the rejection of innovations. Such phrases as We are already comfortable, We write everything down in excel, and this is enough, and Why? Everything works anyway can be heard quite often.

What are the ways to soften the edges?

There are many guidelines for solving the above difficulties. To deal with them in ADINDEX, we have chosen the presentation option for employees who will work with CRM. We have shown the employees the main pros and cons that can be encountered while working with the system, after which they began the integration from the most simplified version. That made it possible for managers to quickly learn, get used to, and evaluate the convenience of working with the CRM system. To further expand the functionality and interaction with it, it was much easier to adapt and start using CRM daily.

Demonstrating the convenience of using a CRM system to colleagues immediately will speed up the implementation process.

A small life hack – if you immediately demonstrate to your colleagues the convenience of using a CRM system, this will speed up the process of its implementation.

The simplest example is an optimized customer card with the required fields. Reduces time spent on routine work and provides employees with the opportunity to do other tasks.

Conclusion

Of course, the integration of CRM with the current business is a laborious and slow process. But, it will help to increase or take a high bar in sales, will give an understanding of the effectiveness of the ongoing processes, without the need to hire additional people to complete reports, and will help increase conversions while reducing flow costs for inefficient time work.