The CRM Marathon – and the Data Dash
by Raquel Lewis, CRM Success Consultant and Chris Fritsch, Client Success Consultant
Along the CRM implementation route, data quality issues are a common hurdle for every organization. Here’s why: during a law firm CRM rollout, thousands of shared contacts quickly flow into the system from users. Some of these records contain incomplete or outdated information. Others are shared by multiple users, which will create a considerable number of duplicate records.
Attorneys are trained to notice errors, so if bad data is not addressed promptly, it will lead to distrust of the system.
The CRM Marathon: Training for the Race
by Raquel Lewis, CRM Success Consultant and Chris Fritsch, Client Success Consultant
If you want to win any race, you have to train. For training to be effective, you need to start well in advance of the race and don’t expect quick results. While inadequate training won’t get you to the finish line, pushing too hard can end up being painful.
CRM training is essential for all users and requires training plans customized to the needs of key groups and individuals. Marketing users need to focus on essential tasks such as contact categorization and segmenting,
CRM Marathon Coaches
by Raquel Lewis, CRM Success Consultant and Chris Fritsch, Client Success Consultant
It’s impossible to win any race without a good coach. Not everyone has had experience rolling out a CRM system before. Many firms also lack adequate internal resources or have limited bandwidth. As a result, asking for help isn’t just smart… it’s essential.
There are a number of resources you can turn to for support and assistance. Your CRM provider can be wealth of information. Colleagues at other firms who have rolled out a CRM in the past are also frequently willing to pass the baton and share tips and help you train.
The CRM Marathon Cheerleaders
by Raquel Lewis, CRM Success Consultant and Chris Fritsch, Client Success Consultant
CRM should be a team sport. Trying to go it alone in implementing a CRM is not only painful, it’s impossible. A number of key stakeholders should be drafted to help ensure success.
The Marketing team is critical for defining a CRM strategy and assisting in the planning, communication and training. They should work with CRM users to ensure the system provides value, helps build relationships and enhances business development efforts, rather than being perceived as a glorified Rolodex.
The support of the firm’s IT department is also essential.
The CRM Marathon: Plotting Your CRM Course
by Raquel Lewis, CRM Success Consultant and Chris Fritsch, Client Success Consultant
Before embarking on your CRM marathon, it’s important to plot the best course. To do this, it’s helpful to determine where you are now. Successful CRM implementations begin with a comprehensive assessment of your current situation. Think about the reasons your firm needs a CRM in the first place. What problems are you trying to solve? What processes are you trying to improve? What are you trying to accomplish?
With the information you gather from your needs assessment,
To Succeed with CRM, Try a Bigger or Better Hammer
By Chris Fritsch, Client Success Consultant and Meghan Van Dalinda, Client Success Consultant
The Evolution of (X)RM
To succeed with CRM, it’s helpful first to have some background. Law firm business development is all about relationships. So it is not surprising that there has been a continual and ongoing search for technology and tools to assist firms in discovering and leveraging these crucial relationships.
For over a decade, the relationship technology tool of choice for law firms was CRM (Client Relationship Management). A large number of firms attempted to deploy these systems to enhance client communication and service and gain relationship intelligence.
The CRM Marathon
– by Raquel Lewis, Client Success Consultant & Chris Fritsch, Client Success Consultant
CRM is a Marathon, Not a Sprint
When considering a CRM system, you may think that this is a technology that simply needs to be purchased, installed and implemented… but, in reality, that couldn’t be further from the truth. CRM is not a project, an initiative or a rollout. Rather, it’s a fundamental change, and an improvement, in how your firm manages and leverages its relationships. These relationships are critical to the success of the firm – which makes CRM essential for firm success.
CRM Is A Marathon, Not A Sprint
by Raquel Lewis, CRM Success Consultant and Chris Fritsch, Client Success Consultant
When considering a CRM system, you may think that this is a technology that simply needs to be purchased, installed and implemented… but, in reality, that couldn’t be further from the truth. CRM is not a project, an initiative or a rollout. Rather, it’s a fundamental change, and an improvement, in how your firm manages and leverages its relationships. These relationships are critical to the success of the firm – which makes CRM essential for firm success.
It can actually be helpful to think of CRM as a marathon – a continuous and integral part of your marketing and business development efforts.
Winning the CRM War
by David Whiteside, Director, Client Growth & Success and Chris Fritsch, President & Client Success Consultant
There is an old military adage that goes, “No battle plan can withstand the first confrontation with the enemy.” This references the fact that war is often unpredictable, and no amount of planning can account for all possible outcomes. And yet, to even have a chance of winning, planning is critical.
To try to account for this vast uncertainty, the military uses war games. War games allow military leaders to test the myriad possible outcomes that may result based on different factors inherent in a battle.
The Dollars and Sense of Cleaning Up Your CRM Data
Few people will disagree that good CRM data is essential for effective marketing. Despite that fact, bad data has become endemic in marketing databases everywhere. Not only does this result in frustration for many marketers (and overtime work for many data stewards), it also has some significant hard costs associated with it. In fact, a few years ago, research from leading research and advisory company, Gartner, indicated that poor-quality data was costing organizations on average $14.2 million annually. On the other hand, clean, correct and complete contact data can positively impact your bottom line and lead to return on your marketing investments.
How Are You Using Your CRM Tools?
by Dave Whiteside, Director of Client Growth & Success and Chris Fritsch, Founder & Client Success Consultant
The Swiss are known for inventing some pretty interesting and cool stuff: Velcro, Cellophane, the Helvetica font and, a favorite of many people, milk chocolate. But probably no other invention is so closely associated with Switzerland than the venerable Swiss Army Knife.
If you ever owned one of these multi-purpose gadgets, you can appreciate the fact that even though the knife may contain a number of useful tools, most of the time only a few get used.
Data Quality Do’s & Don’ts – Part 2: The Missing Pieces of Your CRM Success Puzzle
The holidays are long over and the scramble to send out holiday mailings seems like ancient history. But don’t close the book yet! How successful was your mailing? One measure of success – or failure – is your bounce rate. If you haven’t taken a close look at your mailing performance metrics, now is a good time to do so to gain some valuable insights about your CRM data quality.
If your mailing performance was less than stellar, one common cause is missing pieces of contact data in your CRM. Without complete CRM contact data, it can be challenging or impossible to communicate with your contacts – which is the whole reason most organizations invest in a CRM system in the first place.
Data Quality Do’s and Don’ts – Part 1: Degrading Data Quality
In today’s highly mobile market, up to 30% of a firm’s CRM contact data quality can degrade each year. People get hired, fired, promoted and change jobs; they move and change addresses; they get married and divorced; some retire and a few die. Adding to the problem is “garbage” aka typos, misspellings, transposed numbers and personal contacts. All of this potential for bad data means that if you don’t pay attention to data quality, your end users will begin to distrust the data and, by association, the CRM system. It’s also important to appreciate that your CRM data represents a very important asset – relationships,
CRM Plumbing
Once the outside structure of your CRM is solid, it’s time to think about the infrastructure within your CRM system. How will the information need to flow within the system and externally? What types of connections or integrations will need to be installed to pipe the information where it needs to be? Failure to think about proper information flow during the construction phase can throw a wrench into your CRM plans later, leading to potential backups. When putting together plans for your CRM ‘plumbing’, here are some things to consider:
What systems should connect with your CRM System?
The CRM Framework
Once you have a solid CRM foundation to build upon, it’s time to begin building out the CRM framework for your system. Of course, the building blocks for every CRM are the contacts, including both people and companies.
CRM Contact “Building Blocks”
There are a number of considerations you need to think about related to your CRM contacts:
- Where is the information now?
- How much of the information should be moved into CRM?
- Will additional fields or notes be needed to capture information related to contacts?
- How will the contacts be related to each other or to entities?