Example Sugar Implementations..How do you use Sugar?

[johnlovessugar]

I am in the process of redesigning our usage of Sugar (professional). I'd love to hear any current implementation schemes...or in other words, how do you use Sugar?

Our current implementation only uses a fraction of what Sugar can do. We import leads via a web to lead capture form, and also import our own leads. All we do then is convert them to contacts if they buy our products. This doesn't seem like the best avenue to utilize the strengths of what sugar can do. On our contacts module, we have created several custom fields for our products, and then we just check off check boxes for the products that person ordered. This does not allow us to run real sales reports. We do not utilize the opportunities module, the accounts module (where I personally think the leads should be converted to)...nor do we use the Products module, etc. Frankly I'm not sure how to use the Products module.

Any input on this matter? How do you use Sugar? Or, can you give examples?

[susiewilliams]

Hi JohnLovesSugar (great name!),

A question I would ask you in turn is this: how does your sales group "sell"? What is the process they use to find new prospects, convince them to buy your products, and book the orders? Do your sales reps ever call on current customers to see if they would like to purchase additional products (aka- the Upsell)?

What do your marketing people do to attract people to your products, and do they need to measure or automate certain aspects of that process? It sounds like they are using a piece of that automation (the web to lead form) but perhaps they also want to track trade show leads, or purchased lists, or other programs they have put in place.

How about Support? How are products supported, and how do support personnel know what has been purchased by the customer, whether their contracts are still valid (for example, whether a customer is in or out of the support or warranty period), and what the sales rep said during the sale so the Support person doesn't contradict the Sales guy?

The key to getting more value out of your (or any CRM) system, in my opinion, is to look around at your current processes, find which ones make sense to automate or augment with the CRM tool, change those processes that aren't working for you, and keep measuring your results to fine tune the system. As your business grows, things that worked great last year suddenly don't make sense this year.

If you feel comfortable posting some specifics of your business, the Sugar community generally isn't shy about suggesting ideas you can implement. If you don't want to do that, I'd recommend a CRM Implementation book that delves into not the specifics of how to do code but the generalities of how to design an implementation. Amazon.com is crawling with books on the subject!