How to implement CRM - from Excel to the current system. Our case

CRM is a program for accounting for customer interaction. If you have more than 10 customers, then it is difficult to mention all the details of interaction with each. It is even more difficult to contact them on time at the right time (a spoon is on the way to lunch). In this article, I will talk about our CRM implementation path...

Why do I need a CRM? CRM is a program for tracking customer interaction. If you have more than 10 clients, it is difficult to remember all the details of interaction with each of them. It is even more difficult to contact them in time at the right time.

It's good to have mustard in time, not after dinner!

In this article, I will tell you about our way of implementing CRM. We don't have a Sales department. We do not have a large flow of clients, because large projects take o lot of time and resources. I am the only salesman in our team, and I don't see any point in creating a Sales department. The classic seller doesn't know enough about IT.

Also, at the time of sale, not only does the client evaluate us, but we also evaluate the client: how ready they are for the project, how serious they are, how much they understand the specifics and complexity of their project.

If this is left to the seller, it probably won't bother them at all. He will sell by any means, and we do not need this, because the sale is only the beginning of the relationship, not the end of the transaction.

So, initially we just had to keep a record of all customer contacts and key information about them in the system.

The best program in the world is perfect for this. This is normal Excel.

The implementation of a CRM database to Excel

Create a file, mark up columns, enter clients - CRM is ready. Implementing such a CRM will require only 1 hour of your time and no expenses.

This CRM performed its Key functions well, but there were nuances:

• It was Difficult to plan activities for clients. Here, in conjunction with Excel, you could use Google calendar, but then you get a certain duplication of information.
• Complexity of maintaining statuses and filtering. Of course, Excel has its own filtering tools, but we can't, for example, track frozen clients.
• Complexity of entering information. You can only enter information from a PC. This is not always convenient. Especially if you got a phone call when you were out of town.

In General, Excel certainly has advantages, but I wanted something more. And considering that we are programmers, we decided to create a CRM product for ourselves.

Implementation of the new CRM-Ruden AS CRM

As part of our Ruden AS system, we have made a basic CRM.

This is, in fact, a table of clients, a client card, the ability to maintain client statuses and comments. Also, we could create a reminder about a future activity by the customer.

It was convenient, it worked quickly, and it was possible to work from a mobile phone.

A Little later, you can get a lot of metrics for clients. The fact is that in Ruden AS we also conducted projects, project costs, this allowed us to make reports on clients-accounts receivable, what LTV and the average receipt for clients.

Later, I will write a separate article about our relationship with metrics, in which I will outline brief conclusions so that you can start collecting useful data on your business system.

Overall, I was completely satisfied with the system. But the world does not stand still, new technologies and opportunities are emerging. I wanted to try more, so we decided to do an experiment with Bitrix24.

Samples with Bitrix24 CRM

I will say Right away that for 0 rubles, this system copes with its tasks very well, and, clearly, it has value for small businesses.

It has a lot of features that you can put on your weapons. We never used most of the features in this system.

We have been leading it for a year. I will tell you about a few points in connection with the use of Bitrix24.

1. Integration with mail is good, but you always have to deal with a lot of unqualified leads. We receive a lot of spam (primarily from Bitrix24 itself). As a result, you don't need to qualify each email as a lead. I have to spend time sorting through this pile of unnecessary emails.

2. In General, I consider the concept of leads and Deals to be unsuccessful. The deal is essentially an extra entity. There is a potential client and just a client. Everything else is an extra complication. Especially considering that the lead and the deal have their own statuses.

3. Stupid search. Task - you need to find the lead in the system by name. Not looking for! Just find out if the person is in the database or not. We need to remember where we are looking-in deals or leads? or maybe in contacts? Why is there a lot of entities for a regular sales Manager? Quick search is one of the main mechanisms on the site. It should work simply and without additional obstacles.

4. Slowness in simple operations. They have the ability to add a comment. To do this, click on the field, and this field expands into a wide field. And this is where the animation brakes start and, apparently, some subheadings. Why is this necessary? After all, this is the basic and most frequent operation - add a comment. It should take place almost on a subconscious level without turning on the brain. And here every time there is an irritation when you see the brakes on nothing.

5. IP-telephony. We used internal IP telephony from Bitrix. My subjective opinion: an incoming phone call is evil (maybe that's why I have a very negative attitude to telemarketing).

We don't have a sales Department, and we have to take the call anywhere, for example, in the gym on a treadmill. A person begins to tell the essence of their project, but I do not have the ability to record comments and pass the necessary links to them during the call. An additional factor is extraneous noise. All this does not contribute to effective work. Later, I will write about how we solved this problem, and what option we are currently using.

6 Notifications. Bitrix24 creates a bunch of notifications. However, most of them do not make sense to me. How quickly to disable them is unknown. As a result, you simply stop using notifications at all. Notifications must be rare and spotty, otherwise the person's sensitivity to them decreases.

7. Duplication of information. Any call or email creates a new lead. As a result, the system creates duplicates that are not easy to combine. And this is also an additional problem for processing the response from potential customers.

We did not use the many rich features of Bitrix24, mainly because they are not easy to adapt to our needs.

Probably, such a CRM makes more sense for full-fledged sales departments, where you need to control managers, etc.

But for me, this system was more annoying because of the resulting brakes and extra complexity and bulkiness.

Sometimes 'a lot'doesn't mean 'better'

Meanwhile, we were already creating a new platform, Falcon Space, which significantly accelerated the process of creating systems with personal accounts.
Previously, creating a single form or table required 8 hours of fullstack time for a programmer, but now it can take 1-2 hours for a specialist with a narrower stack (SQL+Bootstrap).

And, of course, creating your own CRM based on the platform was only a matter of time.

Falcon CRM

In the beginning, we needed demo solutions for our platform. And one of these solutions is Falcon CRM. This is, in fact, a repeat of Ruden AS CRM, but with some special features. You can view the demo solution here - https://demo.web-automation.ru

Due to the problems of Bitrix 24, it was decided to make a system based on Falcon CRM for working with clients.

At First it was a customer table and a customer card.

Then additional features began to appear, fields:

1. % transaction probability
2. Network Switch. We try to keep in touch with good, constructive leaders, even if the project did not take place.
3. Lead categorization. ABCD. A-they all pay attention, this is a functioning business (not a startup) with a good understanding of what they need and adequate management. D is an individual who wants to make an AVITO for 50 thousand rubles.
4. System of offers and reasons for contact. I often drop off books on the subject to my clients. It is important for a person to get an authoritative source of the necessary information. This is a good reason for another touch. However, it is important not to accidentally send the same message twice. We have a list of what we can send to Lida and what we can send to the client. This is recorded in the system, and thus the risk of error is minimized.
5. Quickly add a lead via the quick actions panel. Adding should be as simple as possible, otherwise it will be avoided or delayed.
6. Simple property search. The system has a universal search that searches for a given business logic, for any objects in the database. You just type a text and all the results that the system found in your customer database appear.

The last thing we implemented was creating a CP and creating a request for a CP.

When a client is interested in a project, we send them to the form for creating a request for a KP.based on their request, we create a preliminary estimate and generate an Excel KP based on the specified form.

This unifies the lead processing process.

The main advantage over previous forms of CRM is flexibility and the ability to quickly change the system to meet new ideas and needs

We can add and change anything in the system. We can make new integrations with other systems, and we can add additional entities and blocks.

We can create a client account where they can perform certain useful actions.

We can also quickly change the system's usability, improve the appearance and logic of each form of the system, in fact, right in the course of working with CRM.

We do not plan to use IP telephony in our new CRM (this may change over time, but it is not relevant for us yet).

At the moment, we have chosen this option:
the site has a Replay chat widget (Replay chat is integrated into the platform). The main incoming receipts go through it.

This is less problematic for the user - you just need to write to the chat (it is more difficult to communicate for several reasons-noise, call fees, the complexity of transmitting text data and documents), the alternative option is to write/call to vacap.

Of course, there are old believers who want to communicate by voice over the phone. They can do this either by calling vacap's phone number or from the Contacts page.

In General, there will be a call in any case, but it is much better when both sides are ready for it, and the conversation is on the essence of the project with the opportunity to immediately exchange all the necessary materials and documents.

In other words, General questions are solved in the chat, and the specifics are already worked out in calls.
This is about how we 'avoid' the need to introduce telephony. Of course, this is not suitable for everyone, but our client's profile is such that he is quite savvy in technology, he has a vacap, and he is able to conduct correspondence in a chat, and not sit on the phone.

Chats and coordinated calls are good, sudden phone calls are evil

What we plan to develop next in Falcon CRM

First, it is more tightly integrated with various means of communication such as the Replay chat, so that you can immediately create clients via the API in the CRM (at the moment, I add them manually via the quick actions panel).

Second, calculating the unit economy and detailing the process of how the client gets to us, tracking sources. I will write a separate article about this moment. Now we have already done the basic integration of the platform with Yandex. Metrica, we track the funnel of lead movement to us in numbers.

But there are still a lot of white spots on this canvas: where they come from, what path they took on the site, which page convinced them to contact us, how much it cost to attract this lead (we still don't know!). In General, there is still a lot to do in terms of Analytics.

Third, this is the client's account/lead, through which they can get additional services. Probably, this will be some useful tools for its work, as well as key information on our interaction (estimates, KP, backlogs, and so on).

This is the position of our CRM system as of may 1, 2020.

The current demo for Falcon CRM lags far behind the CRM we currently use, but still gives a General idea of its use. You can view the demo at https://demo.web-automation.ru

P.S. 

If you liked the article, see How to create an atypical CRM with the possibility of further expansion.

If you are interested in creating a personal account for your clients, please see < a href='/blog/kak-sdelat-klientskiy-servis-v-vide-lichnogo-kabineta-klienta'>article about creating a client service.