New to CRM? Best practices, tips, and resources to get up to speed quickly!

New to CRM? Best practices, tips, and resources to get up to speed quickly!

Being new to anything can bring uncertainty, nerves, and frustration, especially when you do not have the resources you need to be successful. Being new to CRM (customer relationship manager) software is no exception to this! We have all been there, putting learning a new technology on the back burner while the squeaky wheel gets top priority.

Let us look at quick and efficient ways to bring this back up as a priority so your overall workday becomes more efficient through the use of your new or underutilized CRM software.

Tips and Best Practices:

  • Prioritize:
    • Priorities without a plan go nowhere. Make sure to sit down with a knowledgeable partner to decipher what is most important to learn in your CRM database to make your day and your business most efficient. With this phased approach, learning pieces of your CRM database will feel much less daunting than learning the whole thing.
  • Plan:
    • When it comes to time, everyone wishes there were a few extra hours a day to get things done. Start your week with a plan to block off dedicated time in your calendar to learn the next thing in your CRM database based on its priority level discussed above.
  • Support:
    • Making a valiant effort to figure something out on your own is not always a bad thing. What is important to think through is the unintended consequences of what trying something on your own could do. For low-risk changes, why not give it a shot on your own? For higher-risk changes that could have domino effects on your business processes or system functionality, leave it to the experts.
  • Patience:
    • If you are anything like me, it can be hard to give yourself some grace when it comes to making mistakes and having to go slowly. Allow yourself to make mistakes and learn from them moving forward. The more you free yourself up to learn from those mistakes, the more you can focus on taking steps forward instead of dwelling on the past in frustration.
  • Cost:
    • There is always a cost to decisions whether that is monetary, time, or otherwise. You want to weigh the costs when deciding the best course of action to get up to speed with CRM. Does that involve choosing the opportunity cost of time in your day and doing the research yourself? Or does that involve the monetary cost of hiring an expert, so you are saving on your time?

Resources:

  • There are plenty of online resources, social media groups, and community threads that offer collaboration and advice for those that are new to CRM. While these can be helpful, you want to take into consideration the cost mentioned above. For those that have a full plate and cannot sacrifice the hours it takes to research, verify information, and troubleshoot continuous issues you should consider bringing in experts in the field!

If you are new to CRM or looking to integrate a CRM into your business practices but don’t have the time or resources it takes to be fully informed on the best fit for you, contact us at TopLine. We would be happy to walk you through how we can best help through our customized options that can work with any budget and give you back time in your day as well as efficiency in your business!

There are several tips, best practices, and resources that we can share to get you up and running with your new CRM software, so you feel more confident and work more efficiently.


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