Looking up at the sky on a clear night, you can see hundreds of thousands of stars, comets, planets and other astral bodies in the sky. To the untrained eye this has no discernible pattern or form. But to an astrologer or astronaut this is their playground, a world to explore, visit and understand.

A CRM solution offers a similar challenge. With an ever expanding galaxy of modules, functions, features, add-ons and more, making your CRM more sophisticated by the day.

With this in mind, it is important to not lose sight of the fact that that your CRM remains as straightforward to use as it ever was. This message becomes blurred when certain CRM providers insist that their systems are less rich in features so as to not confuse the client.

At OpenCRM, our modules are built using common concept and on-screen display and this means that tasks such as creating and editing data in the various modules run on same principles throughout. It’s like navigating a ship that has one set of controls – the basics are easy to grasp, and with confidence and experience you can start making more complicated manoeuvres as well as finding the shortcuts.  Instead of making CRM complicated, the entire range of features come within one package. So for companies and workers on the learning curve, mastering one area before moving to the next does not entail buying your way up the product.

Successfully piloting the ship entails more than being able to use the controls - navigational skills are also required. This is also reflected in a CRM solution. Successful implementation requires concept, planning and training. The concept is created when CRM provider and user work out the best way the CRM solution can be implemented to work to the specifications required. This can mean rearranging the screen design, turning fields and tabs on or off, ensuring that the customer has the important data right where they need it. The planning and training stages are similarly a team effort, as the CRM provider gets to learn the user needs and can establish a best course of learning to maximise the benefits new users will get from their system. Not only does the user become familiar with the controls, they also get the opportunity to customize their control panel to make the ship work even better for them.

With learning comes familiarity, and with this understanding, those enticing “outer limits” of the CRM solution are suddenly within easy reach and offer an ever growing range of possibilities.

Are you ready for take-off?