According to the industry research giant, Gartner an average MCA CRM project for a small and medium-sized business takes 10 months. Managers responsible for Merchant Cash Advance CRM business applications spend a considerable time selecting, implementing and upgrading their online data management technology itself, which most often also includes integrations with or replacement of legacy applications.
However, no matter what CRM you select as your Merchant Cash Advance software and irrespective of how impeccably is you strategize; roadblocks are too common on the CRM implementation highway. Since these barriers mostly in MCA CRM implementation often boils down to human-related issues.
The CRM market has seen a steady growth in the recent past. For this reason, its value is estimated to stand at $19 billion. - GoalCast (2017) Click To TweetIn this article, we have gathered such 10 most common CRM implementation defying factors that we collected working with our Cash Advance customers, those that cater to the alternative funding industry.
They say that there are no better means to get attention than using the word Free. If that really be so, then why don’t businesses take the advantage of free software trials before implementing their customer relationship management software.
It has been often noted that with the anticipation of rolling out a new solution, decision-makers in small organizations mostly starts implementing the CRM software without extensively evaluating the product.
The initial planning before an implementation of MCA CRM software is crucial says Manash Chaudhuri the CSO of ConvergeHub Merchant Cash Advance CRM, he says, “the front end is about 60-90 days of fully understanding what the strategy is, and what the business needs are, and what you want your CRM to supplement. The technology piece is relatively simple from that point.”
To test the effectiveness of any proposed CRM initiative, you need to use a small-scale working model of the software, as by doing this exercise; management can better gauge the likely rate of adoption of the software and view what needs to be altered while going live.
Now it is time to put the conference room to use. Therefore, even before you think about buying an MCA CRM solution, organizations must get down to the basics, involve key stakeholders, and discuss pain points and objective. Although the CIO and the management are often the ones for finalizing decisions, nevertheless they must also involve their front-end colleagues (people who will actually use the CRM), right from the start. Since neglecting this step will only lead to incessant difficulties, once the solution is rolled out.
Per say, management may desire for a reporting tool for better visibility, but the marketing staffs and the front-line sales reps are the ones who will have to feed in the data into the CRM system. Since, without enhancing the CRM database , management cannot know which capability fits their business processes.
This common chasm costs a lot both in expenditure and in missed opportunities. Therefore, a buy-in signal from both the management and the front-line staffs is the true foundation of a successful MCA CRM initiative.
When you design the scope of any CRM implementation, do as little as possible, since throwing too many functionalities while implementing a software, could lead to failure. Therefore, it always prudent to develop a strategy to phase in new features and functionalities, since doing so provides the users of the software application to adapt to the functionalities and then get prepared for the next wave.
For an example, initially, rolling-out several functions like sales, campaign, financial management all at once is never a wise decision while implementing a CRM platform. Hence, do as little as possible when designing the scope of MCA CRM implementation for your alternative funding business.
“Change management is always understated,” says Manash Chaudhuri the CSO of ConvergeHub. “While it is absolutely necessary that CRM implementation must deliver results, a step-by-step implementation approach is always prudent for the smooth functioning of the MCA CRM platform.”
Therefore, by thinking big but starting small, users will become comfortable using Merchant Cash Advance software and if something does not work, users will find sufficient room to fix it.
Do not try to fit an oversized couch into a tiny room. Since, irrespective of how many times you move the furniture around; it will remain still too big for the apartment.
Similarly, in the case of CRM software, you can always customize some functionalities and codes for your MCA business, but remember the more you customize, the more you risk developing unforeseen issues.
Therefore, make sure that any customization is always done within your businesses’ known limits.
In order to leverage CRM functionalities, it is most essential to set up systems as close to the ‘by-design’ way the software vendor wanted you to do. For the more, you stray, the more expensive and harder it becomes implementing the Merchant Cash Advance software.
Do not fall a prey to fancy software services. Stay away from shiny things with their newest bells and whistles, which may seem appealing as cutting-edge technology, at a first glance.
With more than hundreds of installations, ConvergeHub easy to use MCA CRM developers believe that small and practical functionalities in Merchant Cash Advance software are of real importance.
Regardless of how hip, new, or innovative a technology may be, remember, if your employees do not find benefit in a new software implementation, they likely will not use the CRM effectively and bring no measurable CRM ROI. Therefore, you should probably hold-off before considering any spiffy new technology for managing your thriving alternative lending business.
Even before a customer or a borrower becomes an evangelist of your MCA firm, you need to make your employees evangelists of your alternative funding business.
Likewise, in terms of MCA CRM implementation, you need to find and build a project sponsor team within your organization, who can articulate the essence of what your software is trying to accomplish and who also has the authority to make sure that your Merchant Cash Advance software is properly implemented.
You sponsor does not have to be one from the higher management in your organization, but just someone who is passionate about the CRM implementation undertaking and will not lose his or her good intentions while implementing the process.
A CRM really becomes nothing more than a Rolodex machine if you do not incorporate add-ons to the software. Therefore if there is a chance that you alternative lending organization might feel dissatisfied with a plain-vanilla MCA CRM platform, it is during the implementation phase that you should start thinking about potential future add-ons that you can integrate with the software.
Always remember the Pareto Principle (the rule of 80/20) while implementing the add-ons. Therefore, never stray more than 20% from the way the Merchant Cash Advance software was designed.
If you are a user of ConvergeHub Merchant Cash CRM solution, we recommend you to use QuickBooks integration along with our award-winning small business CRM software, for accounting and booking purposes.
Using our cloud based CRM system, which offers QuickBooks CRM integration free, ConvergeHub QuickBooks CRM is one of the best CRM for QuickBooks online, which makes your accounting processes easy and fast and also help in avoiding duplicate entries into multiple silo software platforms.
You can never guess where you have gone wrong in you Merchant Cash Advance CRM implementation strategy if you fail to record the genesis. You always need to inspect what you expect out of your CRM solution. Easy to use CRM software like ConvergeHub gives you several vital metrics to measure your progress.
Therefore, agree on milestones and metrics before the go-live date of your CRM application, which will make your auditing easier, by which you can assess basic adoption stats that are capable of providing the health of your solution right away.
This way, if you audit the MCA CRM solution on a continuous mode, you can put a hold on data-quality issues (as and when they arise) and also tweak the solution as any problems arise.
Although it can hurt a little (in some instances may be a lot), however, if a lot of time has gone and your CRM solution has not worked up to your expectations, it might be the right time to call it a quit.
It often happens if you roll out a functionality or a process that does not completely hit the mark, the efforts you expected to contribute to the overall success of your CRM initiative begins to gum up the works.
Now, if you do not want to shut down your CRM solution completely, which you have painstakingly taken through the implementation process, there is no harm in eliminating those little sub-processes and lay-off certain functionalities and add-ons in a more realistic scenario.
If you ever have to deliver value to an older generation of employees, you need to get over their stigmas and doubts. Remember adapting to a new software, with tons of functionalities, where each click matters takes time to learn.
Therefore, it is most important to deploy change management techniques and ease fear of your employees using the Merchant Cash Advance CRM solution by re-framing the project as mere business transformation.
Takeaway
For smooth implementation of your MCA CRM initiatives “You have got to work the way they work”, says Manash Chaudhuri the CSO of ConvergeHub, and by ‘they’ he means both your employees and customers.
