CRM implementation notes

As I posted last month, we are currently implementing Goldmine as a CRM tool at our company. We have it installed now. Making it ready for use is the real task. Some commentary on the experience so far:

In such a 'flat' organization, I'm not used to asking permission to do what I need to do, so it seems I forgot to talk to the manager in charge of IT. I talked to our IT support/consultants and they were willing to help, but didn't suggest I talk to the manager. I wouldn't have known exactly what to ask for until we were installing the software. Turns out that admin access for an outsider is a big deal, I guess I should have expected that. Also a big deal is enabling remote access to the server, both for the admins, as well as my remote users. Until VPN is authorized, we did cheat and use WebEx to get some needed work done remotely.

The best news so far is that the company president has asked if he can have a Goldmine account so that he can 'peek in'. The promise of real-time forecast data has to have him excited. Cool!

We have imported customer data from our ERP system, but will start fresh with a blank system for 'prospects'. Too many of our current prospects are also listed as customers, and too many of our listed prospects aren't worth uploading. We can upload them individually, as needed.

One of our larger tasks will be to create a completely new quotation system. We will be using QuoteWerks, which integrates with Goldmine nicely. QuoteWerks integrates a price list, which will be one of the major benefits over our current Word template system. The biggest challenge is being able to present all the product information we currently do in a quotation format that is usable by clients and acceptable by our salespeople.

Populating Goldmine with useful fields and drop-down menus is surprisingly hard. It's hard to imagine how process-related fields will be used and how the data will be used. How is an 'appointment' different from a 'call' and how many categories for appointments should there be? While having a consultant helping is great, we haven't had a chance to discuss these things yet.

One complaint about Goldmine so far: its customer look-up method is poor. You have to select the field you want to search from a pull-down menu. It can be set to default to 'contact' or 'company', but by 'contact' it is starting with their first name, which can be a hard thing to search on (is it Mike or Michael?). We must have been spoiled with our software from 1996 that allowed you to search company and contact simultaneously. Holy-mackerel, there isn't a short-cut to pull up the search screen, either! When I'm in a hurry to look up someone on the phone, I'm sure this is going to frustrate me every time.