I was recently interviewed by Nataliia Matsyk (Marketing Manager) of Data2CRM, who asked some interesting questions about my experience of working in the CRM industry.

Here's a short excerpt from the interview: 

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Nataliia: Today, CRM is the essential tool that assists various organizations with creating and maintaining the customer experience. Being a CRM expert, would you mind sharing a few hints on how to build a successful CRM strategy to increase business performance?

Vanessa: Anticipating your customer's future needs is fundamental and having talented resources to enable you to fulfil them is critical. There are many excellent CRM solutions available, but it's the application of that CRM solution to meet real customer needs that transforms your business and gives you a competitive advantage.

There has to be an appetite for change at a senior level, and a readiness for change at an operational level. 

Companies have to be clear about why they're implementing technology and how that equates to an improvement in customer experience. 

I've seen numerous projects fail because of lack of senior buy in.

I'd always recommend devoting budget to validating that a business is culturally 'ready' to adopt changes in technology before throwing money at it. I believe you need a clear vision of how your customer experience needs to change and a commitment at an executive level to delivering that change. This needs to be supported by a communication strategy that informs everyone in the business of the vision and transformation required, so they can understand and commit to it too. I think there's huge demand right now for employees who are quick at learning, adapting and innovating. So a core part of your CRM strategy should also be to attract and retain skilled employees who will enable to you to implement your digital transformation.

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Please visit Data2CRM's CRM blog for full details of the interview.