Hi all, I am Stian Vale and one of this year’s 11 management trainees! I recently finished my second project as a Management Trainee, and I wanted to share some of my experiences in this post. The aim of the project was to establish a starting point for implementing a new CRM-platform in one of the companies in Visma. What is CRM, you say? Well, you’re about to find out:
What is CRM?
CRM is an acronym for Customer Relationship Management. A CRM-software has functionality for managing existing and potential customers. This includes handling support requests, managing leads and building marketing campaigns. Consequently, a CRM-system affects several departments in a company; Sales, Marketing and Support.
In the business unit where I did this project, several CRM-systems were used and information sharing between departments was bad. This brought along the need for a CRM-platform that unifies Support, Sales and Marketing. This gives us a 360 view of the customer and enables us to increase customer satisfaction.
Focus on Support
Implementing a CRM-platform for a company is a huge project. Typically, it is done department by department. For my project, I focused on the Support department as this was the first to be on-boarded to the new system.
Specifically, I proposed a new case flow with ideas of how it could be implemented into the new CRM-platform. In the Support department, a case flow is the path a support case takes from the start to end; from when a customer encounters a problem until their case is solved. A well-defined case flow is a key prerequisite for implementing a service desk. The case flow I proposed was based on existing practice, but with several suggestions for change according to learned best practices from other companies.
It was really exciting to work on this project, as I learned a lot about software and people. A big part of the job was to talk with the different teams at the Support department and map out how they work. I observed their day-to-day activities and identified their requirements for a CRM-platform. It was challenging to create a unified case flow based on inputs from several teams with different behaviours, but we managed to find common grounds!
Onwards
For my next project, I am working with the team at Optimization Technologies. They provide cutting-edge solutions within optimization like route optimization for home nurses, timetabling for schools and allocation of kids to kindergartens. The scope of my project is to identify, categorize and evaluate potential optimization projects for the future! I am really looking forward to taking on this project!
Thanks for reading, and feel free to reach out if you have any questions!
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