Building a business case for CRM has to be clear, well thought through and persuasive. It needs to be honest and can be used to get people to buy into CRM. A CRM Plan has to be one of the most important considerations of any software implementation.
We recommend to start with the question “Why”, why do you need CRM and what should your plan include?
- Why will it help my organisation
- Why will senior managers and end users buy into it? What benefits can CRM generate?
- Why now? What isn’t as efficient as it could be? What are the pains or problems?
Commence your CRM Plan with an executive summary which should be written last. The executive summary should be short and punchy. A concise couple of paragraphs to showcase the reasons and benefits of CRM.
Where are you now
The next section should be a background, where you are now. How you do things today and where the processes time hungry, inefficient or simply not working. Is there anything that is left to manual intervention that often falls down and costs you in terms of sales or repeat business? Do also consider customer satisfaction.
The background could include reporting, data inefficiencies, inability for sales and marketing to work together or perhaps a manual procedure that can be automated.
You should include data that is available such as the amount of time spent doing tasks that could be automated, time preparing reports, time spent looking for information and perhaps customer churn. Also look at the reports currently and use these figures. How can you “better” them?
CRM changes
The next section of your CRM Plan should put forward the proposed changes. Would anyone’s role change? Would there be additional information that isn’t currently available? Would there be a better focus on sales targets or marketing return on investment. This section should talk about what will change and why the change can be beneficial.
CRM Planning brings CRM Benefits
The benefits now follow. What benefits will you realise when you use CRM?
- Hours / time saved per annum
- Better focus on sales figures
- Truer picture of good sales practises
- Clear marketing value against spend
- Slicker lead management
- Opportunity to easier cross sell / up sell
- Ability to manage annual contracts automatically and the retention opportunity
- Better customer satisfaction
Recommendations
You should now state your recommendations of your CRM Plan, including how quickly CRM can be up and running, the cost of the solution and opportunity for ROI.
If you have chosen a solution include figures like how many users worldwide, any case studies or competitor information
A good business case can be a great start to get your senior management teams and end users on board. Their buy-in is critical to the CRM success.
Did you want any more information? Check out our FREE CRM Plan guide – How to Get Buy-in When Building a CRM Business Case : A guide to enable an effective CRM Plan with key tips to build a strong business case and compelling CRM strategy.
For more information email us at George@caltech.co.uk
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