How Defining Your CRM’s Purpose Strengthens Decision-Making and Impact

Does your organization simply have a CRM where data is stored, or do you have a true database of record that streamlines workflows and serves as a reliable business intelligence tool? Wherever your organization falls on that spectrum, one thing is clear: defining the purpose of your CRM is essential to ensuring it functions as a strategic tool that supports day-to-day operations while advancing your organization’s mission and impact.

Why is it Important to Define the CRM Purpose?

Without a clearly defined purpose for your CRM, the risk of underutilization and failure increases significantly. The most common reasons that CRM initiatives fail include:

• Lack of internal user engagement and buy in as staff are unclear on the ‘why’ underpinning the CRM
• Disengaged leadership who don’t champion the CRM as a tool for operating better as an organization
• Accumulated technical debt because the CRM has been poorly managed

Implementing or simply having a CRM is not enough, but knowing the why that underpins it empowers you and your team to leverage it as a robust business intelligence tool that guides strategic decision-making, helps staff prioritize enhancement and work requests, and keeps the overall focus on how the CRM can support your organization’s big picture goals. Clarity around the CRM goals also provides executives a framework for valuing the tool, helping them justify investment and guide how future resources are deployed.

It’s common for teams to view the CRM as being department or process specific. With clarity and a clearly defined purpose behind the CRM, leadership can help team members shift their perspective to focus on the ways that the CRM serves the entire organization, rather than just a single department.

When is the Right Time to Clarify the CRM Purpose?

In an ideal world, the right time to clarify and document the purpose of your organization’s CRM is during the selection process, or at the very latest, during the discovery phase of the system implementation. That said, it’s never too late to put this important element in place.

You’ll know that it may be time to take a step back and consider the overarching goals of the CRM if you notice that user engagement and staff buy-in is diminishing and/or staff are using the CRM in a siloed way without considering how the system is meant to support and serve the entire organization.

Other signs that defining the CRM purpose may be helpful include:

• Data is being managed outside the CRM
• New users aren’t taking to the system
• Frequent complaints are surfacing about system usability or relevance to staff needs.

Another clue that it may be time to clarify the core purpose of the CRM is inaccuracy in data entry and outputs, especially in regard to reports and tracking of engagement activities in the system. Leadership needs to be able to rely on the accuracy of the data in the CRM to guide strategic decision-making, and if there are issues with that data, it’s a sign that the team’s relationship to the CRM system is failing in some way.

How to Clarify the CRM Purpose: Create an Impact Statement

Now that you know why it’s important to clarify the purpose of your CRM, let’s explore how to do that. The most effective way to clarify and document the CRM purpose is with an impact statement. This simple yet highly effective document clarifies the purpose of the CRM for the entire organization.

For system admins, the impact statement provides clarity on how the system should be used and managed. Leadership and staff can use it as a framework that helps guide strategic decisions, program stewardship and organizational growth. And for consultants it will be a helpful resource that sheds light on priorities related to system enhancements.

Creating an impact statement is a collaborative process that should involve executive stakeholders, power users, program heads and Salesforce admins.  Impact statements are working documents that will evolve as organizations grow and change. Because of this they should be revisited often to ensure their continued accuracy. We recommend organizations review the impact statement at least annually and give the CRM (and technology in general) the same priority as strategic plans and other annual planning activities.

To help you get started writing an impact statement that will clarify and guide how CRM technology is used and managed at your organization, we’ve put together this free, downloadable template for you to use.

You Created an Impact Statement, Now What?

Once you’ve created your impact statement the next step is to request feedback on it from all staff who use the CRM regularly. Be sure to clarify that this is the guiding statement for how the CRM is to be used and invested in for the entire organization. Once approved, you can begin using the impact statement in the following ways:

• Use the impact statement to guide and prioritize system enhancements
• Reference the impact statement when training new staff so they know why the CRM is important for your organization.
• Consider putting in place a steering committee to help guide enhancements, general CRM management, and technology selection. This team would be tasked with ensuring the system is evolving in smart ways that support the goals laid out in the impact statement.
• Utilize the impact statement to set context for high-level communications with board members, executives and other leaders around the CRM, and technology in general.

Defining the purpose of your CRM can help transform it from a simple data repository to a strategic tool that drives engagement, supports decision-making and advances mission impact. With the help of an impact statement, organizations have in place documentation that clarifies how the CRM can be leveraged as a tool to align leadership, empower staff, and ensure the ongoing investment and evolution of the system, in service of broader strategic goals.

Next Steps

If your organization would benefit from support around creating an impact statement or setting up a steering committee to guide technology initiatives, check out our Managed Services page to learn more, and contact us to get started.

We also have a recent webinar that you can watch on this topic: Strategic Governance: The Key to Long-Term CRM Success, and we will be presenting virtually on this same topic in March at NTEN’s Nonprofit Technology Conference.