4 Tips for Utilizing Your CRM With Consistency
Starting a new job can be overwhelming. There is a lot to learn and it can be challenging to get up to speed quickly. However, conducting your own research can help you integrate into the company and start off on the right foot. The best place to start is with your CRM. It is the central hub for all your operations, including contacts, tasks, pipeline, and reports. By familiarizing yourself with the company's CRM, you can hit the ground running and make your transition as seamless as possible.
When your CRM is not being used to its fullest potential, it can lead to confusion within your team on roles and responsibilities, tasks slipping through the cracks, frustrated clients, and an overall stressful work environment. To avoid these messy situations, try the following four tips for consistent and effective CRM utilization:
Tip # 1: Clean Data
Start by downloading a simple contact report out of your CRM system.
Look for any areas where information is missing. Highlight those and start to fill in the gaps.
Compare your CRM contact list with other databases such as email lists, account lists, and central document storage systems to identify missing contacts or information.
Find and remove any duplicate contact records.
Review each contact's category, type, source, roles, and tags. Determine whether there is an opportunity to standardize the data. Consider eliminating categories that don't make sense or haven't been defined for the team. Assign this information to the contact record.
Remember, it is crucial to use your CRM as a centralized contact management system and define rules for managing information going forward. Check out Redtail’s tips here. Wealthbox also offers a number of how-to videos and tutorials.
Tip # 2: Get Buy-In From the Team
Once you have ensured the cleanliness and accuracy of your data, the next step is to establish a framework for using your CRM. This may involve developing processes, workflows, templates, notes, and categories.
To begin, brainstorm about your most frequent tasks. For simple tasks that require one or two steps by one person, an activity with a checklist may suffice. However, for complex tasks that involve multiple parties and dependent components, a workflow might be more appropriate. Common workflow areas to consider include client management, financial planning, onboarding, and practice management.
After creating the templates and workflows, it is crucial to test them and obtain feedback from the team on how they can be refined over time.
Tip # 3: Training
Transitioning to a new CRM system or utilizing it to fuller capacity can be challenging, especially for team members who are unfamiliar with the technology and functionality. It's important to provide training resources such as videos, documents, and presentations to help them understand how the system operates and how it can benefit your firm. These training resources are particularly crucial when onboarding a new employee, ensuring that they are equipped with the knowledge they need to effectively use the CRM.
Tip # 4: Regular Operations Review Meetings
Having a well-designed CRM system and training documents are great steps towards successful adoption. However, developing good habits is key. As an operations manager, it's essential to review your CRM data, workflows, system connections, and activities at least once a week to ensure that tasks are being completed by your team. For additional guidance on how to structure your meetings for optimal results, take a look at my blog post on "Maximizing Your Business Potential With Core Meetings." Plus, don't forget to download my free meeting template to get started today!
Get ahead of the game by implementing these four simple tips. You'll have more time to spare, better delegation of tasks, less stress, and an overall improved client experience.