If you are looking to implement a new CRM, the prospect can be daunting if it’s not something you have done before. Here we outline the different steps to be completed.
Firstly, you should have goals for what you want your organisation’s CRM to do. You will need to consider if you have a team that will be able to support the project or if you need to bring in additional support. You’ll need clear reasoning as to why you are moving to a new solution, and support from the board to start the project.
Once you have chosen your membership CRM software, there are various steps from selection to go live.
- Discovery
These are sessions where the client shares their requirements and what they are looking for in a system. A consultant will ask you about your goals and what you would like your system to achieve. Whilst also providing a chance to get to know the team, these workshops are very important to help set the goals for the implementation project.
2. Licensing recommendations
Many CRMs, like iMIS and Salesforce, need users to have licences. These licences determine the features a team member can access within the CRM. For example, a member services support agent would not need to access the same areas of the CRM as a head of finance.
Your consultant will provide licensing recommendations to ensure the team has the correct balance of licences whilst having value for money.
3. Requirements write-up (including user stories)
This part of the implementation focuses on step-by-step processes of how members and staff complete certain tasks. This is based on how you are currently using your system and how you’d like the process to run in your new CRM.
The result is a multi-tab spreadsheet that covers key user stories in different groups, such as member management, training, and events.
User story example: As a staff member, I want to detect when a subscription has lapsed due to non-renewal and disable the member’s login.
4. System configuration
Your team of consultants will work on setting up the CRM for you. For example, this includes adding data fields, user licences and membership tiers.
5. Third party integrations
If you are using different tools to manage different systems, these will be integrated to feed into your CRM. The aim of your CRM should be to create a single source of truth, where all your data is centralised in one location.
6. System testing
System testing could also be referred to as ‘quality assurance testing’. Your consultants test the CRM’s functionality to ensure it is working as expected.
7. User acceptance testing
After rigorous testing by the consultants, your team then has the chance to test the system. This is your opportunity to test processes and share feedback.
8. Full deployment
Full deployment is when the consultants move all the Salesforce configurations (known as metadata) from sandbox (testing environment) to production. This is the fields, permissions, automation, and code moved over to the real, live, ‘production’ environment.
9. Data migration
Data is then moved from your old system to your production environment a couple of weeks before going live; then, your consultants migrate the final cut of data just before going live.
10. Go live
This is it, the moment you would have been waiting for. Go live is when your new live system is up and running.
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