How To Implement eSign in CRM

SFDC is so broad, I can safely say one could spend their entire career learning, modeling and signNowing themselves for various aspects of the platform.  There's just basic  SFDC (Salesforce.com)   and then there are other areas;   Service Cloud, Sales Cloud, Heroku, Data.com, etc.The best advice I would give before even attempting to do anything "real" is to do the following;1.   Sign up for a developer account (it's free - forever)2.   Go through the http://wiki.developerforce.com/p... - examples by examples.   It's basically all there - The problem I find is that people with software developer experience try to "beat into submission" their current experience to the SFDC platform.That, IMHO why SFDC is seen as "hard to learn" - it's not that it's hard. it's just hard to mentally ditch your previous experience (or at least tweak the heck out of it).Some For-instances - *. The APEX language, even though it's "java-like" is simply not Java.*. The Visualforce language, although "HTML-like" is simply not HTML or javascript.  Further, the architecture of how it works is completely different from how thing work in typical web server environments.*. SOQL/SOSL Data queries are not SQL.   The typical scenario is, many companies that have big expensive development staffs that try  to just "pick up" SFDC, run into huge problems.  Usually involving large licensing fees (upwards of $65/month/user to $250/month)  and some completely befuddled developers....And then in come the consultants - billing out at about $250/hour (and up)Soon companies can be hemorrhaging money.   SFDC has a lot of advantages - multi-tenant architecture, guaranteed availability, mobile apps, APIs, great, friendly user interface, internationalization, JSON/RESTful interfaces, lots of extensibility, a great user community.... and lots more.  BUT- Learning the SFDC platform is infrastructure programming, pure and simple, with a lot of "clicks-not-code" activity.I've found it hard to convince  java programmers, for instance, that (s)he can implement a workflow and/or Validation rule to do what they need to do, rather than sling a bunch of lines of code into a trigger or anonymous APEX to have things done.To learn Salesforce, throw your java/SQL/HTML (well most of your HTML) experience away, and just make it through the workbooks in the link I provided above....  THEN - determine if it's for you.There are so many specific tricks to learning how to build a really robust SFDC implementation, that it can seem daunting at first.... however, it's absolutely amazing to me how many people simply have not gone through the workbooks.... It's usually my first question:   "have your developers gone through the Force.com workbook?"

Real Answer: A LOT OF TIME. Instantly? Not a chance.a) Practically, every single CRM from the market is not as simple as plug and play. Don’t be fooled, it doesn’t work thats way. Proof: the amount of developers, consultants and specialists.b) Let’s say that Dynamics CRM fulfill your needings, then you mustb.1) populate with data. You could do it manually but it will take a lot of time.b.2) train your personal.b.3) customize your experience. And its here where every pre-made CRM fails. People say, you don’t need customize if you aren’t doing any special. However, PRACTICALLY EVERY SINGLE BUSINESSES HAS SPECIAL NEEDINGS, no two businesses are alike. For example, let’s say that you have sellers, sellers could earn a commission. How you calculates the commissions?. This point is vital to a CRM but it changes from business to business. For example, something as simple as to have special sellers turns every pre-made CRM is a challenge.Answering the question: No less than a couple of months, and, depending of the scale of the business, it could takes a year of spending money, consultants, frustrations.. and still has a crm half baked (like most companies). In average, it could takes from 3 months–1 year. Some companies are even spending a couple of years and im not kidding.

The first thing to ask yourself is, "What would we ike to track or manage with a Social CRM?  Social CRMs will allow you to manage communication with your customers. Some Social CRMs allow you to manage all your social networks from one location. This may be more efficient than managing each one separately and it makes it much easier for an organization to offer a unified voice to customers and to monitor social network activity. I work for a funded startup and for our first mobile app (http://app.net/bitstories), we knew we would want to track how customers used our app in alpha testing and where it failed for them. We needed a CRM to help us manage and aggregate our alpha users' path through our app. We reviewed over 30 CRMs and decided we needed one with more analytics than social network management.  (I *do not* work for a CRM company. We chose Flurry as it offers what we needed. Nimble is a CRM with more of a Social Media Management focus.)I hope this helps! Best of luck,H

I am not sure that it is clear what you are asking. Are you talking about a list of CRM users, that could be used for marketing campaigns, or about the list of users in your CRM software?As for the first option, I can imagine such a list would come in handy if you are that CRM’s competitor and want to access potential customers. In that case, be careful and make sure you comply with GDPR (if there are any European users on the list).If you are talking about users in your CRM, it is one of the functions of CRM to clarify the communication among members of a team. You can for example share your calendar with them, distribute tasks etc.Hope some of this was helpful.

Since rolling out a CRM to a new org is something that requires a lot of time and resources, it’s an undertaking that really needs to be prepared for. There are cases where it’s too late and you have to start troubleshooting where to nip the implementation and start backtracking. Here are some tell-tale signs of a doomed CRM implementation:Only a few people are worried about the CRM implementation not going well  If you are one of the people tasked to spearhead the CRM implementation and the “worry” lies flatly on your shoulders and only a handful other people, it’s likely that your implementation is heading to the dumps. Why? If the goals were clarified at the beginning of the implementation, all stakeholders would feel the urgency and importance of having the CRM rolled out and adopted. But, alas, it seems like no one else cares.It’s taking time for IT to get you up to speed with the requirements  One of the most common reasons for a failed implementation is when IT and the team owning the implementation is not on the same page. Implementtng a new system that cuts across different departments will fail if the IT implications are not sorted out.Increase in stakeholders’ complaints that data is dirty or they’re confused with the new system  Oops, here’s another one. Many companies roll out CRM without cleaning up the data before migrating it to the new system. This causes a lot of headache—from deal flow for sales to attribution for marketing, increasing reports of data complaints is a symptom that something is really going sour.These are just some of the symptoms of a failed CRM implementation. It’s best to arrest these issues as they emerge and decide the next best step.  It’s important for the IT department to be on the same page with the rest of the org and CRM implementation is just one of those undertakings that highlight that.Check out this ebook we’ve put together to see if you’ve been overlooking some aspects of IT that directly impact your bottom line: IT’s Underappreciated Influence on the Sales Process.Hope this helps!

This is probably one of the most frequently asked questions in regards to CRM. I remember this instance where I was telling my friend about CRM because her company wanted to start using one and her first question and concern was that how long does it take to implement CRM Solutions. To understand how long it would take to implement a CRM would require you first to know how is it implemented. Here are steps for how one might implement CRM Solutions.How to implement CRMThe implementation of a customer relationship management (CRM) solution is best treated like a five steps process-Figure out what you need from your CRMClean your dataMigrate your data into your CRMSet up automation and integrationsTrain your teamStep 1: Figure out what you need from your CRMWhat gaps do you need your CRM software to fill? This might look like:Your marketing team doesn’t know what kinds of prospects to targetYour sales team doesn’t have the information and tools they need to convert leads from marketingLeads take forever to close – or always stall at the same place in your sales cycleCustomers churn after just a few monthsMarketing, sales, and customer support work in silos without clear communicationWith these gaps in mind, you can create a feature wishlist and set your CRM goalsIf you don’t know what you need from CRM, get your stakeholders in a room.These stakeholders should include management from:SalesMarketingCustomer supportWhat problems does each team deal with? By the end of the meeting, you should have a list of things you want your CRM to help with.Now you’re ready to find CRM software with features that solve those problems.Estimated time for your CRM needs analysis: Two to four weeks.Step 2: Clean your dataSales and marketing departments lose approximately 550 hours per year because of bad data.Don’t let that happen to you — clean up your data before it goes into your CRM!As technical as ‘data cleaning’ might sound, it just means:Making sure your data is accurate and organized nowNot having to deal with inaccurate or missing data laterIf you’re a brand new business, this won’t take long at all. Since you don’t have much data to clean, figure out what kind of data you want to collect via CRM. What do you want to know about your contacts and their interactions with your company?If you do have a whole bunch of data to clean, it’s time to take stock of:Where you store dataHow data gets into your systemHow accurate your data isHere’s how to audit your data:Locate and gather all of your customer informationOrganize the information according to your needsPrioritize the customer information by value to your businessRemove any duplicate and incorrect informationAdd any information that is missingCreate a uniform system for data entryRepeat the audit process at least once a yearEstimated time to clean up your data: 1 week to a year — the more data you have, the longer it will take to clean.Migrating clean data into your new CRM system can save you hundreds of hours of dealing with messy (inaccurate) data later on.Step 3: Migrate your data into your CRMSome CRM providers help you migrate your data — or even do it for you. Centra Sales CRM offers migration services to help you get everything you need into your new CRM:Subscriber listsContact informationTagsCustom fieldsMarketing automationEmail campaignsEmail templatesOpt-in formsAutomation workflowsSpeaking of custom fields, use them! They keep your data organized and accessible in your new CRM. Staying organized keeps things moving along quickly (a theme that you’ve probably noticed by now).Custom fields make it easier (and faster) for your sales and marketing teams to adapt to new CRM software. Using the same naming conventions and field names that your team is used to makes for a smoother transition, whether you’re new to CRM or migrating from an outdated platform.Estimated time for migrating your data: A manual migration can take anywhere from one to three months. Migration services can take up to a month. The more data you have, the longer this takes.Step 4: Set up automation and integrationsEvery CRM system has different integration capabilities. For the smoothest transition possible, make sure your new CRM software works with your other sales and marketing tools. Often, this involves integrating each device with your CRM.How long each of these integrations takes depends on what type of integration you need: direct/native, third-party, or custom.Direct/native integrations take the least amount of time. These connections have been pre-built by the company who built your CRM or other tools. You can use these integrations from within your CRM, often just by linking your accounts.These take a little bit more time than direct integrations — you need to tell the middleware what to do with the information it gets from each platform — but a lot of the backend work is already done for you.Custom API integrations take the most amount of time. You need to have some vendor like Centra Sales CRM who can build this integration from scratch based on their technical knowledge of both your CRM software and the tool you’d like to integrate with.In addition to setting up integrations, take the time now to automate how your CRM shares and receives data. Doing this upfront can save you up to 23% of your day later on.By automating the way your CRM records and shares data, you can see how your contacts:Engage with your marketingMove through the sales cycleConvert (or don’t) into customersInteract with your customer support teamMuch more!Estimated time for native or third-party integrations: One hour to a few days. The more combinations you need, the longer this will take.Estimated time for custom integrations: One week to a few months, depending on how complex the integration is to build.Step 5: Train your team55% of sales reps think ease-of-use is the most critical CRM feature. And if they don’t find them easy to use, they won’t use them: 79% of opportunity-related data gathered by sales reps never gets entered into their CRM software.Why? Are CRMs that hard to use? Well, some of them are. But what makes an even bigger difference is CRM training. Give your sales and marketing teams ample time and resources to get comfortable with how they’ll be using the new software specific to their roles.Teaching best practices up front softens the learning curve and saves time for sales and marketing teams who will be using the CRM system every day.Before you start using the new CRM, figure out how you’ll deal with:Naming conventionsTaxonomyDuplicate dataMissing dataUnknown data scenariosBuild out documentation and user guides for your new software. If your CRM software offers one-one-one trainings or office hours, take advantage of those resources.Estimated time to train your team: Half a day to one day per employee.How long does it take to implement CRM ?When you're in the early stages of investigating CRM software or starting out on a CRM project, you need some idea of how long the project is going to take.Unfortunately it isn't that easy to give a quick answer. To provide a realistic timescale, your CRM business partner will need as much detail as possible on what you're looking to achieve from your new CRM system. Your business partner will need to talk to you about your business, your aims and objectives, the software you're using and the complexity of your project. Unless you do this, the answer to "how long does it take to deploy a CRM system?" will probably be "it depends!". For larger projects in particular, you'll need to work with your business partner to properly scope your project and define your requirements before they will be able to provide you with a realistic estimate.However, you need to know what you're getting in to before you begin a CRM project. So, what defines how long your project is going to take?Factors that decide on the timesclae of implementationHow organized and clean your current data isAnalysing your business requirements, internal processes, project objectives and the scope of the CRM projectCompany size and number of CRM usersSoftware installationData cleansing and data formattingImporting the dataThe number of contacts and automations you need to transferTesting the systemAdministrator trainingWhether or not you currently have naming conventions, taxonomy, and data processes in placeUser trainingSystem reviewsThe number of stakeholders involved in implementationThe number of integrations you need to set upThe above steps are not exhaustive and will usually involve your business partner, project managers, administrators and end-users. And because CRM is a cultural shift for many businesses, other factors such as getting user buy-in, availability of internal resources, support and effective project management are as critical to the success of the project as setting up the software. These can all add to the length of the project. You also have to factor in 'thinking' time, plus the time it takes to get agreement and sign-offs for each stage of the project within your business.Not all CRM projects will involve all the above points, but you should give consideration to them as they will influence the amount of time the project will take. Using an agile, systematic approach with a defined project methodology will reduce implementation times while at the same time reduce risk and rework. A project methodology will also increase the chance of the long-term success of your CRM project.No two CRM projects are the same, but to put some figures on how long it takes to deploy a CRM systemCloud deployments are generally quicker. One such cloud CRM vendor that would help you ease through the process of implementation is Centra Sales CRM Software.