After months of planning and preparation, the go-live date is finally here. However, the implementation process of a CRM doesn’t end at the go-live date. As an organization begins to sustain the system, and continues to drive adoption, it’s important to know if users are satisfied with the CRM. Is your team really committed to the new CRM?

Check out these 7 tips to lead your team to success after go-live:

1.  Review List of Revisions and Improvements
Reviewing the list of revisions and improvements that appeared from the pilot or early adopters is a kick off point for developing and releasing the improvements needed in an agile manner. After go-live changes and improvements arise, mostly based on user’s feedback. The overall objective is to determine if the CRM does what it is supposed to do. Does it really support the user in an effective and efficient manner? A successful CRM implementation is measured based on achievement of the organization’s objectives.

2.  Allow Steering Committee to Review Phase II
Allowing the steering committee to review the roadmap for phase II and planning ahead is necessary.  Budgeting and scheduling the next wave of processes that will assist in generating profitable revenue will help streamline sales operations. Also, it is crucial for the committee to pay close attention to the idea of management submissions and larger tasks to stage expansion and refinement of the CRM. If you do not have the support of a steering committee, it is crucial you build their trust. Executives have a systems perspective and understand the need for an exceptional CRM.

3.  Connect User Experience and Customer Experience
Connecting user experience and customer experience while your communications plan is in action is imperative. How are users going to receive the support and guidance they need after-go-live? Exposing certain information and providing easy access to information will help users when needed. Whether the information is online, or via phone or chat support, there are various ways of enhancing user and customer experiences.  Also, connecting user experience and customer experience helps evaluate how well tasks are being performed, gain insights to experience satisfaction, and determine if current processes can be simplified even more.

4.  Perform Data Governance and Data Quality Management
Performing data governance and data quality management helps improve and maintain the quality of the data. As effort is put into data cleanup aspects of the transformation of ETL (extract, transform, load) the legacy data may have duplicate contacts, accounts and addresses. Also, there may be an abundance of missing dependent child records, null values in important fields, or nonconforming values in other fields. In addition, assignments, territories, and account hierarchies may need to be researched and added.

5.  Provide Ongoing Support and Communication
Providing ongoing support and communication for all users after go-live helps establish a successful CRM implementation. Ongoing support is vital for user adoption and process improvements, and as issues emerge they will need to be resolved quickly. In fact, ongoing support is forever because users continue to learn, processes are simplified, and new users need training. Also, ongoing communication is key, as system updates and changes keeps users from reverting to the old methods used.

6.  Shut Down Existing Systems
Shutting down non-enterprise, competing systems and data sources as trust is acquired for success and adoption, is important after go-live. This will help stop users from using non-sanctioned work methods. Also, creating enforcement points that require data management for users to receive resources can ease the process after go-live.

7.  Create Reports and Disseminate Data
Creating reports and disseminating data may help gain a clear view of users who are not maintaining the data properly. In the case that the data is not being well sustained, managers and directors may need to enforce a more unified data management process and shared responsibility procedure. The reports will expose data anomalies and good dashboards will quickly become depended on among users when the data is maintained.

Final Thoughts
These 7 tips serve as a guide to ensure the implementation process is a success after go-live. A well-established CRM helps dissolve barriers between critical business platforms so you can leverage data in different ways. Through shared databases and connecting all the data and processes together, your team will be enabled to eliminate information silos.

Therefore, after go-live, system improvements should continue, and there may be some complex situations to address. If you are struggling to make CRM a success in your organization, contact your partner and search for other resolutions to reach your organizations objectives.

About the Author – Kjell Kahlenberg

As Director of Customer Engagement Solutions of Indusa, Kjell is a subject matter expert on Microsoft Dynamics CRM with deep experience across sales, customer care, and marketing disciplines. He has led large enterprise CRM deployments across various industries and business models. Kjell focuses on solution advisory, consulting, architecting, project and program governance, and overall customer engagement.

Contributing Author: Liliana Garibay

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