Choosing the CRM Champions of Your Office

Are you singing “We are the Champions” by Queen in your head yet? Whether you’re singing it out loud or not (no judgement here), we should probably clarify what we mean by a customer relationship management Champion. The CRM Champions of your office are the people on staff who receive more extensive training and can answer questions internally. Are you unsure who those people should be in your office? Let’s dive in a bit further.

 

If you’re serious about implementing a CRM system in your office—and you should be—then you’re going to need to have several CRM Champions: one per department. Without them, implementing a customer relationship management system and successfully using it will be far more difficult than it needs to be. Your in-house CRM Champions’ responsibilities include: managing client side projects, scheduling meetings, creating and maintaining buzz about the system, conducting weekly check-in meetings to discuss progress, and signing off on projects before they move to next steps. They’ll provide status updates to managers and essentially act as the go-between for the customer relationship management system provider and staff members. That gives them the power to make the whole experience more enjoyable.

 

How do you choose the people for such a role? Implementing a CRM system takes planning, strategy, and great execution. Without great champions from each department, you won’t have the most efficient system. You need people that are organized and can successfully get your whole team on board and properly trained. Because you’ll be working with software technology, you need people who are comfortable with technology and can speak the lingo. They’ll be more efficient, and it’ll be easier for them to explain the system to their respective departments than others who aren’t as tech savvy.

Are your CRM Champions great communicators? They should be. They’ll be working with every department, so they should be comfortable and familiar with all the departments and what everyone does. They’ll be teaching their respective departments how to operate the CRM and will be able to help troubleshoot issues, so if they can’t effectively articulate, your staff won’t understand the system. It goes without saying that your CRM Champions should be leaders. In fact, it’s one of the most important qualities they can possess.

 

If your CRM Champions don’t think strategically and love a challenge, it might be time to consider someone else. If they don’t love the challenge of figuring out how the system can effectively work for everyone, they will get frustrated very easily. Which brings along another important quality: are each of your CRM Champions patient? No? Then choose someone else.

 

Are you struggling trying to find the right CRM Champions for your office? We’d love to talk you through it. Give us a call at 320-245-7955.