Customizing your new CRM to fit your firm’s size and goals is the first step to making it work effectively for your firm. Here are some ways to optimize the CRM:
1. Tracking prospects – You will first need to set up parameters for what you will call a “prospect” (for example, if they requested a meeting, or you might have met at an event). Once you have set up these parameters, then you will need to add the prospect into the CRM and add the potential of obtaining the prospect as a client to ensure you are tracking them properly.
You might want to set up parameters of when you should follow up with the prospect, adding them to your social, or marketing communications to keep them in the loop of what is happening at your firm. Also, this might trigger you to send them an invitation when you are having a webinar or an event that might be of interest to them.
2. Onboarding Clients – Depending on how your firm operates, you might have different on-boarding forms to send the clients to ensure you capture all the pertinent information to set up accounts at the custodian or in the planning system. Using a form company like PreciseFP, Jot Form, AirSlate or other companies that integrates with various CRMs will help you collect the information from the client and update your records automatically.
3. Creating Workflows – Creating workflows in your CRM will help notify your employees when something needs to be done. Also, this will help make sure that employees are following the correct process each time. This is a great place to keep track of your workflows and you will be able to review them from time to time to ensure they are still relevant and update as needed.
4. Creating Dimensions – Depending on your CRM, you can add dimensions to the system to customize it in a way that works best for your firm. You can add a dimension to track specific types of clients, add additional information about a client, or calculate something off another dimension such as calculating net worth or making sure the information being added to the dimension is relevant such as dates. Some CRM companies might have a feature like tags that allows you to track where employees work, type of client, etc. This will help you sort clients by different filters and send them specific articles or changes to the tax code that might be of interest to them.
5. Integrations – There are many different integrations you can use to automate your CRM to cut down on the work needed to: keep it updated, send out client communication, update your financial planning software, keep track of client communications, or other ways to cut down on time spent on repeatable tasks. Putting in the time to research the different products and integrations is critical in making sure the information flows freely between your CRM to your other tools to help cut down on time.
In conclusion, ensuring your CRM data is correct is critical in enabling it to work for you and not the other way around. If you do not ensure the information is up to date, it will become very cumbersome, and the system will be nothing more than a lot of client information that your firm can’t use effectively. The old adage of garbage in, garbage out holds very true for CRMs and staying on top of your CRM is critical to your firm’s success and client satisfaction.
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