July 23, 2015
7 Questions to Ask a CRM Consulting Company Before Hiring
BY John Paul Narowski IN CRM Software One Comment
Have you decided to use CRM software in your company? Have you started to search for CRM consulting companies? If yes, you have probably noticed that there are many such companies and it is really difficult to choose the most suitable one, which will satisfy your needs and bring value to your organization. Of course, before hiring CRM Company, you have to interview them and just to make your work easier, below we present 7 questions you need to ask a prospective CRM consulting company before hiring.
1. How much do you charge for your services?
When choosing the right CRM consulting company for your business, it is important to find out how much you are going to pay them and whether they are suitable for you. When interviewing, make sure to clarify whether they charge hourly or they have fixed prices, whether they have different packages for different companies, whether there are discounts for loyal customers or not. Try to understand which activities are included in their services and make sure that it is a profitable choice for you.
2. Are you connected with certain CRM publisher/provider?
You may think that this is not so important, as it will limit your potential solutions, but if a specific solution is right for your organization, then such a connection can be an advantage for you. If the CRM consulting company is connected with a CRM software provider, then, of course, they have made efforts to apply the technology for solving some business problems. In this case, they will also be able to provide useful advice for your company’s activities. However, the bad side is that if the consultant has connections with CRM solution, they will always use that solution regardless of the problem.
3. Do you have experience working with a company like ours?
When a hiring CRM company, you need to choose the one which has experience in working with other companies like yours. When choosing such consulting company, you need to make sure that the staff has an understanding of your company’s activities and that they can automate general processes of your business. For instance, if you would like to automate a certain customer on-boarding process, you need to find out whether they have done this before. Thus, if the CRM software is going to work on sales, marketing and customer support, then you should make sure that the staff has the experience in all of these spheres.
4. With whom am I going to have ongoing relationship?
After implementation, you need to find out with whom you are going to be in contact: is it going to be the management team, call center or delivery consultant? In general, the consultants with whom you have already worked are already familiar with your company, its activities and business processes. So, they are the best ones who can continuously help you.
5. How long are you going to be in this business?
How long the CRM consulting company that you are going to hire has been in this business? This is probably one of the most important questions, because the longer they are in this field, the higher is their expertise. Experience is very important here, as if they have already worked with companies like yours, they probably already have the best solutions, and there is no need to come up with them again.
6. Will you be able to transfer your data to the new CRM software?
Of course, it is very important for the CRM consulting company to understand the main processes of your business and as well as customize the CRM software in order to automate these processes. However, does the staff also know how they can take the data from the past system and correctly transfer it to the new CRM software? The consulting company that you choose should be able to handle the whole implementation process, from beginning to the end.
7. How close will the relationship will be with my consultant?
The last things you need to find out are whether the consulting company offers trainings, whether they customize the software to better fit your needs, whether they change the processes after your company grows and whether they help you fully understand the CRM software and implement it correctly. These questions are very important, as it is not only about buying CRM software, it is all about correctly implementing it.
In the end, try to assess CRM consulting company not only by their offers but also by their reputation. In reality, it is quite easy to find a CRM consulting company; however, finding the right one that will understand your needs and will give the right advice is a real challenge. So, keep in mind these 7 questions when hiring CRM company for your business.
