Purchasing consulting services is key to a successful implementation. I am not talking multimillion dollar Accenture engagements (amazingly there are still those still going on) but a reasonable amount to help jump start the project. You should expect to budget about $0.5-$2 of services for every dollar of product. This will vary whether you have chosen an on-premise or hosted solution.

For end-users the key services you should not skip on are configuration and training. You will get your biggest return here. You do not want to spend time drilling through manuals trying to figure out what all the different parameters are and how they interact. Having someone with you to ask the right questions about your business and take you through the configuration process will save you a lot of time and money. And do I need to say anything about the importance of training other than don’t make it the first thing to cut when your budget is low. Getting users up and running and feeling confident with the solution is cornerstone for success, Cut somewhere else.

If you are using an on-premise solution then IT would need to know how to maintain and support the system. While a class is great, IT folks are very good at drilling into manuals to find what they need. Also software support is kind of universal. The backing up, archiving, security, etc… are consistent items they deal with on all the software they support? The technical manuals are usually all they need. For hosted solutions very little will be needed from your IT staff.

A programmer will probably need to get involved if you are integrating other backend system data to CRM. Depending on what the goal is it might be cheaper and certainly much faster to contract that service out. If you see this as an ongoing requirement then sending a programmer to class will be worth it.

When budgets are tight, carefully evaluate what will give you the most for your dollars but also what the true cost will be if you did it yourself. The extra hours people spend trying to figure it themselves might offset any savings you think you are getting.

Tags: Add new tag, Consulting, CRM Basics