The Complexities of a CRM

My work this week has focused a lot on our CRM. On Monday I had our quarterly review meeting with the CRM management company and we talked through some issues around reporting that we would like help with.

It is great the amount of information we can capture in the system but sometimes getting this back out for reporting is not quite as simple; we have spent a lot of time over the last few months talking to staff and trying to work out possible solutions.

On Tuesday there was an upgrade to the system, which led to a few issues afterwards. It’s interesting how developers view systems differently to users, for example, a save and done button has been removed which they believe caused ‘clutter’ but for me, it was a really useful confirmation step in the events set-up process. Other issues were quickly resolved and the communications system used by our CRM management company is fantastic — so easy to use and transparent to keep up to date on issues, I love it!

On Wednesday morning we had an interesting training session with our first small group of staff. There are so many different ways to access the CRM and input information; we have found these staff sessions tend to lead to more questions than answers sometimes! The purpose of the training is to ensure a consistent approach to the CRM but this can be tricky depending on the different ways in which people work. We came away from the session with a few more suggestions to clarify.

The CRM is a vital system for us and one that I think we need to keep investing in along with staff training to ensure we get the most out of this very important resource for DCA.

I am hoping Spring will make an appearance this weekend; it’s about time!