Accurately position yourself and actively establish your credibility.
Consider the problem from two angles: one is to think about industry competition and company operation from the perspective of senior managers, and the other is to think about data processing such as documents, reports and interfaces from a professional and meticulous perspective. When you fully demonstrate your professional standards and play your role in these issues, your reputation will naturally be established.
2. Build customer confidence
Every time you meet a customer, you should be fully prepared and show enough agility and enthusiasm.
Active communication with customers is very helpful to build confidence. At the same time, setting some simple goals at the beginning of the project and then completing them in time and efficiently can make customers trust you faster.
A very effective way to build confidence in the early stage of the project is to "make a quick decision"-to achieve certain results or provide super-value value.
3. Add value to customers.
Strive to exceed customers' expectations and add value to customers.
For example, when completing the project plan with the customer's project manager, help him understand the project more deeply by the way; Or, provide some industry reference materials during training.
4. Manage time effectively
Time is the commodity of the company and the property of the ERP implementation consultant. Time is also the scarcest resource in the world, so it must be managed effectively.
This requires two most important skills: ① determine the priority of work, and then work according to the established priority; (2) Allocate enough time for the current established work;
5. Stimulate customers to think
Read more and ask more questions to inspire customers to think for themselves. After talking for so long and writing such a long document, the customer turned a deaf ear and saw nothing. Why? It is difficult to "fill the duck" when customers don't notice the problem and use their brains to think. You can do better if you ask customers' opinions first and find out their views on this problem. Don't rush to tell him the "correct answer". When customers really start thinking, they will chase you for answers.
6. Encourage the expression of ideas.
When people start to meditate, you should consider the problem of feedback. How do I know my views on the problem? You know, not everyone is willing to share their views at the risk of being "stupid" and "unrealistic".
Still have to ask questions. Expand customers' thinking through open-ended questions that start with "what" and "how", and then lock the "no" answer with directional questions to test customers' understanding of the information guided by open-ended questions.
Attention, questions must be sincere, as long as you answer, you should be grateful. Once you inadvertently show contempt for the answer, it is equivalent to blocking the customer's mouth. Another noteworthy skill is that no matter what the answer is, your silence can encourage customers to continue to talk about this topic in depth.
7, grasp the suggestion way
When giving advice to customers, you must use appropriate methods, and don't let customers think that you are arrogant or nosy. Whether the method is appropriate or not will determine the effect (at least efficiency) of ERP project in this link. The following suggestions may help you:
"It is very valuable to get feedback from the other party before presenting relevant suggestions. In this case, you can express the proposal in a way that is not a promise: for example, "One proposal we decided is ... or," In another client's project, we put forward this proposal ... ". Discussing your ideas with others will also provide useful information that can help you sort out or modify your suggestions. "
Note that "in an organization, many people have the right to say" no ". Although some of them have no real power, they can stop the situation. So, remember, you have to convince not only those who can make things happen, but also those who can refuse suggestions. "
8. Speak with experience
In the process of ERP project implementation, there may be quite a few problems between the implementation consultant and the customer that cannot be "hit it off". Customers may have questions about timetable, personnel arrangement, training methods, coding system, etc. The best way to solve the puzzle is to speak with experience and let customers know what is the best way for conventional software and enterprises of this industry and scale.
Pay attention to the strength comparison between you and the customer: your suggestion has been proved by (many) facts, and the customer's idea is just an idea!
"You must know in your heart that ERP is a brand-new field for customers, and customers hope to get some protection when they face such expensive and risky plan implementation. Let customers know that your proposal has been well implemented in other customers' plans, which can increase the weight of the proposal. "
9. Actively promote good news
Have you ever heard that "good things don't go out, bad things spread thousands of miles"? Methods 9 and 10 are just to solve this problem.
Every successful news is not only responsible for "informing" and "celebrating". You must use it to strengthen everyone's confidence and make every good news become the driving force and horn of the next stage of the task. How to make good news spread thousands of miles? Of course, it can be communicated through formal meetings, stage progress checks, project briefings, etc. But when chatting with ERP project team members or other influential employees in the enterprise, you can also say "casually".
The implementation consultant should carefully plan the way of information transmission to ensure that satisfactory answers are given to similar questions such as "how is the progress" and "how is the effect" through various channels. At this point, the interests of the consultant and the client's project team are completely consistent. Customers also want colleagues to know, understand and believe that the project is progressing smoothly. I hope everyone thinks that what the project team has done is meaningful and fruitful.
10, actively respond to bad news
When something bad inevitably happens, the first thing the implementation consultant should do is to analyze the importance of the problem. If you can make up for it through your own efforts, you'd better not disturb customers. As the saying goes, "Go into the village quietly, don't shoot", so as not to undermine the confidence of ERP project supporters.
If the problem is not that simple, then "it is best to tell the customer before the problem becomes a crisis." The ideal situation is to meet the customer in person, and clearly state all relevant problems and propose your solutions. "
Generally speaking, no matter how customers complain, members of the ERP project team will try their best to reduce their influence on you and gain the trust of other colleagues.
So the hint of bad news is based on the judgment of importance. Small problems block the news and don't let it develop into bad news. Messages that should not be blocked should be fully communicated within the project team to minimize the impact.
1 1, solve the problem quickly.
Whether it is an implementation consultant or a customer, there are inevitably some deviations in the understanding of ERP, project schedule and resource scheduling, personal personality and work habits, mutual trust and work cooperation. After all, no one is perfect and things are not static.
Once there is a deviation between the project and the project team, it is necessary to actively deal with the problem, which is one of the key standards for testing experts and one of the key ways to deal with customer relations.
Some experts (mostly inexperienced consultants) don't want to admit that there are problems that they can't solve, but it's better to admit them before they deteriorate into a crisis and ask customers or others in the company for help.