As a business owner, the most valuable thing for you is your customers. You need to keep them happy and satisfied to keep your business running smoothly. Satisfied customers mean you are providing the best customer experience to them and are going to get more orders in the future. It is one of the most critical things to improve your sales.
An effective order management system can help you win customers’ trust. However, to provide them with a personalized experience, you need to get help from the CRM department as well. Integrating the customer relation management system with the order management system can help you in providing personalized experiences to the customers. In this article, we will discuss how to integrate these two systems.
Steps to Integrate CRM and OMS Systems
The following is a stepwise guide to integrating the two systems. Let’s explore every step to get details about this process.
Step 1: Identify Objectives
You cannot move ahead without knowing the clear objectives. You can not start the whole process without having some clear objectives in your mind. The whole process is pretty time taking and challenging. Therefore, having clear objectives to set strategies accordingly. The main objective of this integration is to provide a personalized customer experience to all your customers.
Step 2: Choose The Method
Integration can be done in several ways. Middleware, APIs, or pre-build integration options are some top methods to achieve this integration. However, you cannot opt for all of them. You need to choose one of them. No, no! You don’t have to close your eyes and choose a random method. Instead, you need to make a wise choice by keeping the objectives, available data, and resources in your mind.
Step 3: Check Compatibility
Compatibility of both systems is required to start this integration. If both CRM and order management platforms are not compatible with each other, then you cannot integrate them. Therefore, you need to check that both systems are compatible with each other. This compatibility will make the basis for this integration.
Step 4: Data Mapping
You cannot pick any sort of data and start sharing between the two software systems. You need to map data to ensure that only the required data is transferred between the two software systems. Doing so will create a mapping document that outlines how each data field corresponds between the two systems.
Step 5: Data Flow
The next thing you have to do is to make your data flow between the two systems. Data flow is mandatory to ensure that useful data is transferred between CRM and order management systems. Apart from that, only the required data will be transferred. The main thing you need to focus on is that the transfer should never be through a single path. Equivalent data transfer must take place from both ends.
Step 6: Automation
Manual integration or simply data transfer can take a lot of your time and effort. Therefore, you need to automate the whole process. Automation will help in saving time. Apart from that, risks are reduced and you will get desired results as well.
Step 7: Implementing Security Measures
Security measures are one of the most critical things you need to keep in mind when integrating the two systems. During integration, your data will be vulnerable and the chances of data theft and cyber crimes will be higher. Therefore, you need to make sure that you need to implement security measures. High-grade security must be maintained to avoid any data theft.
Step 8: Testing
It is the last step you need to follow to complete this integration process. You have to test every single step to ensure that the whole process is completed seamlessly. Once the integration is completed, you need to ensure that the whole process is tested before you implement the integrated systems in your firm or organization.
Final Words
Integrating these two systems can help you provide a personalized customer experience to all your users. Demand forecasting can also help you in this regard. It ensures that you know customer requirements before starting this integration. As a result, you can set more clear objectives and get more benefits.