If you’ve already invested in Salesforce, or are considering doing so, then you probably already appreciate how CRM capability is extremely powerful to grow your business.
You can…
✔️Accelerate sales
✔️Increase revenue
✔️Have a single view of every customer and every interaction
✔️Automate tasks and messaging
…and much more.
While it may be tempting to try and piece together your own CRM capability with free tools, this has several disadvantages.
Such as…
❌ It distracts you from delivering your core business and serving your customers
❌ It eliminates the opportunity for expert guidance and industry knowledge
❌ It limits how you might integrate CRM with other business systems that are important to you
❌ It brings hidden costs that mount up over time
If your business is fairly established and entering a period of expansion and growth, it makes sense to build in the right customizations and integrations that will support your ambitions into the future.
You can quickly realize the benefits of CRM in your business, without the headaches, by working with an implementation partner who will bring the skills, scalability, strategic thinking and solutions to suit your needs.
What tools do you need?
Spreadsheets and free CRM tools may be OK in a small business.
But as soon as your business begins to expand and your team grows, spreadsheets and CRM tools that are not integrated properly quickly become unfit for purpose.
Data is duplicated, scattered, or siloed. Processes are ‘Heath Robinson’ at best according to the limitations of the tools. And in amongst it all, security is compromised.
Sorting out these problems on your own can take an inordinate amount of time that would be better spent focusing on running your growing business.
An implementation partner will typically carry out an assessment of your current environment and processes and offer some recommendations about how to migrate from spreadsheets and apps to a more integrated and secure environment.
You can then be guided to the tools that are the right fit for your business, as well as reengineering processes to be more streamlined and fit for purpose.
Integrations can be set up to eliminate data duplication, and security issues can just be handled.
Customer Experience
Ribeye is a British manufacturer of Rigid Inflatable Boats and high-spec Super-yacht Tenders. They called on Performa IT to help them level up their Salesforce deployment in their manufacturing process.
Martyn Ruskin Ribeye’s After Sales and Customer Experience Manager says: “The business has grown from a small team of boat builders to a small manufacturer aiming at a top end market.
“We were moving into a manufacturing world where high-end customers look at the business from every angle – and want to know if we’re as high-end as they are.
“Our ‘cottage industry’ approach to design and manufacture was unsustainable at this level.”
By working with a knowledgeable implementation partner Ribeye has gone from making small leisure boats for a small audience, to attracting high ticket business from the super-yacht market at the Monaco Boat Show.
[Read the full Ribeye Case Study here.]
What’s involved in implementation?
For a thorough implementation experience you need your CRM delivery partner to guide you through the following stages:
✔️Assessment
✔️Specification
✔️Customization
✔️App Creation
✔️Testing and Refining
✔️Training
✔️Support
These steps call on a variety of skills, expertise and knowledge that it is difficult to acquire on your own, even with an in-house CRM team.
Your implementation partner also needs to listen well and engage properly with the business to win hearts and minds and drive adoption. Once you’ve made the investment you want to make sure the business drives value from it – and this can only happen if people use it!
Customer Experience
British grant-awarding body Energy Systems Catapult engaged Performa IT to resolve information duplication and process inefficiencies. Charlotte Adkins, ESC’s Commercial Support Officer says: “Whenever we have a new requirement Performa IT attend meetings with the users to understand what they wish to achieve.
“They engage with the business all the way through the development process and help with training in new functionality.
“Everyone in ESC is aware of Performa IT and what they do for us, and this helps ensure good engagement from the teams.”
How to get up and running
Your chosen implementation partner will help you get up and running quickly, whether you need a basic installation of the Salesforce CRM or a more sophisticated strategic approach.
Giving you direct access to consultants, developers and administrators, your implementation partner seamlessly steps into your environment and becomes part of your team.
No matter what your entry level with Salesforce you can count on commercially aware, jargon-free advice and guidance that is tailored to your requirements and takes the long view of how CRM fits into your operation.
Here at Performa IT we offer a “Right Start” service to ensure you are investing in the right tools at the right level to maximise the value and potential of Salesforce for your business. This will get you off on the right foot, enabling you to control costs and accelerate investment return.
Customer Experience
Describing his experience of CRM implementation with Performa IT, Stewart Boraston, IT Manager of Property Services company Veritas, says: “The team helped initially in road mapping where we wanted to get to. They took a close look at our existing set up and quickly got to know and understand how we operate.
“As developers Performa IT work in a very agile manner, quickly translating business requirements into system functions that are very test-driven.
“This means that we got moving quickly and didn’t get bogged down in traditional waterfall releases which might no longer satisfy shifting business requirements.”
[Read the full Veritas Case Study here.]
Talk to us today to discuss your implementation needs. We can help determine the best way to get you up and running with the world’s most powerful and successful CRM tool.
