Saving Time Through Workflow Automation & Streamlining Our Processes

Introducing a new Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool to any organisation can be a complicated task. However, with the right tool, you can streamline your business processes and improve relationships with your customers. At CEIS we have been working on our own internal Business Improvement project and as part of this, we have introduced a new CRM system to help us streamline our operations and improve our team’s performance.

When implementing any new business process change, it is important to bring colleagues on the journey with you. Taking onboard their perspectives and ideas not only helps to increase adoption rates, but also helps keep those effected by the changes invested in the new tool. This part of the process is crucial because it assists us to identify the wider organisational benefits such as reporting, real time project progress, and capacity. As well as colleagues it is important to recognise the needs and requirements of your clients in this process. Try to conduct a survey to see what communications your clients expect, and at what touch points.

To ensure we adopted the right system for our organisation we took a step-by-step approach and gathered input from all team members to help us to fully scope out our system requirements.

During this process we identified several key features that our team members and the company required and categorised these into ‘necessity’ and ‘nice to have’ to enable us to develop a detailed features list when moving onto step two – identifying the correct system.

Finding the Right CRM

There are numerous CRM systems out there, all with similar features and support. The next step in the project was to identify cloud-based systems which matched our requirements and we eventually opted to use Citrix Podio, a highly customisable cloud-based CRM, which allowed us to tailor the system to our operational needs in the most cost-effective way.

Introducing our new cloud-based platform has enabled our team to work together on projects and tasks from anywhere at any time. Podio offers a customisable platform for managing customer data, projects, and workflow automation.

It also offers the ability to create custom applications, automate workflows, and provide our management team with real-time analytics, which will help our managers to make informed decisions about workload capacity, financial planning and staff resourcing. As a result of these features, our new CRM has allowed us to streamline our business processes, improve our customer service, and increase our productivity.

Before putting the new system to use it is important to conduct a trial, ensuring all your new apps and automated workflows are running in perfect harmony. This is a significantly important step because if something is not quite right you want to catch it before you fully migrate your operations over.

Don’t forget to provide detailed training along with a bespoke step by step guide for each team member. In any CRM system the reports and data you get out, depends on what goes in…so you must ensure your staff team fully understands their responsibilities when it comes to updating projects and assignments on the new system.

Putting the Tools To Use

Every organisation is different, with their own set of internal processes, team structure and management. For us, a key benefit of our new CRM is its customisable platform. This really allowed us to tailor the system to fit our specific needs. Our Enterprise & Communities team have created custom applications that align with our own business processes, making it easier for our team members to use.

Citrix Podio has enabled us to design one system, eliminating the need for multiple tools and spreadsheets. The cloud-based system has allowed us to centralise project management, meaning we can keep all our projects in one place, making it easier for us to manage them and track their progress. We can assign tasks, set deadlines, and monitor the status of each project. Podio is equipped with robust security features, including SSL encryption and two-factor authentication. This ensures that our data is always safe and secure.

The automation features of Podio has enabled us to automate repetitive tasks, such as allocating assignments, recording time and creating reports. By automating these tasks, our team members save significant time enabling them to focus on the more complex activities in each assignment, which ultimately increases productivity. Additionally, automation reduces the likelihood of errors, which can lead to better performance and outcomes.

With real time analytics we can access real-time data on our performance, interactions with our clients, each other, and more. This data provides insights into our caseloads, allowing us to make informed decisions that improve our performance and outcomes for the organisations we work with.

A Productivity and Process Boost

The introduction of a new CRM system has supported our Enterprise & Communities Team to streamline its operations, improve communication, and boost productivity. Citrix Podio is a powerful project management and collaboration platform that has been easily customised to match our business needs. By introducing Podio we have enhanced our workflow and made our team members more productive.
If you would like to know more about the benefits of introducing a CRM system and workflow automation to your Social Enterprise you can get in touch with CEIS today. We can provide you with more information on how this has improved our operations and how we can provide fully funded support to help your organisation to incorporate a new CRM system & workflow automation.