Friday, March 28, 2014

Steps to Making Your CRM Integration Strategy Central to Customer Experience‬



Adopting customer relationship management solutions to better connect to customers is a vital step in establishing a more successful business. However, CRM alone isn’t enough. Businesses today are looking at establishing practices that focus on customer experiences, thus giving a springboard to the idea of customer experience management.

These organizations are looking to CRM integration to assist them in giving their customer experience management a boost. In order to pull it off, the integration process has to run seamlessly. The goal is to offer positive experiences along every step of the way because one misstep can foul the entire experience.

CRM integration pulled off without a hitch will offer full use of tools and applications and the continuation of analyzing data, only more thoroughly. All front-office applications will facilitate smooth transactions that are continuously monitored. CRM integration should include assurances that all the information is flowing in the right direction and without anything to block it.

The unfortunate fact of the matter is that most businesses will look at CRM integration in a step-by-step method rather than how the integration will affect the organization as a whole. When the focus is on customer experience the strategy must keep the organization of the plan in such a way that the importance customer experience is never lost.

When the strategy is carried out hastily and without a comprehensive look at the customer experience, you’ll find integrations that work sporadically. Organizations that have done this have used a variety of technologies to pull it off, which causes a lot of problems later due to bad connections and poor management of the technologies. It also makes the solution inflexible and costly to organize.

Organizations that used effective strategies in their CRM integration for better customer experiences made a road map that guided them to a more complete solution. They had total knowledge of their system and knew how to route their customer journey throughout the entire enterprise. They looked at data elements and determined where the end points would lie and how each element would interact with the various systems and interfaces.

The right strategy includes finding the right technology. There is an abundance of open source tools and commercial tools at your disposal, but it’s your duty to figure out which one works best for your organization and your system. Some of the best CRM integration projects have involved the inclusion of a healthy library of connectors to existing tools and platforms, which support API management and the integration effort.

A focus on the experience of your sales department is something that can’t be overlooked. Too many organizations fail to understand the importance of the salesforce in the CRM integration process, thus leaving an important aspect of the organization out of the loop.

Front Row Solutions has not forgotten the importance of the salesforce in the CRM integration process. We built a mobile solution from the ground up so your reps always have what they need at their fingertips. To learn more, contact us today for a free demo.