A smartly implemented CRM helps streamline your sales pipeline, improve efficiency, boost your customer satisfaction ratings & build a long-lasting relationship with your customers… eventually resulting in more sales. Having a CRM also makes sure, you figure out who your valuable customers are & you have enough data to acquire more such customers over time.
However, implementing a CRM hasn’t always turned out to be game-changing for all businesses.
A lot of factors need to be taken into account before you take the plunge. With a wrong CRM system or making a mistake in deploying it will make it even more worse.
Here Are Some Mistakes That May Result In CRM Failure:
“In a recent research by Gartner, it was found that organisations have a belief that with poor data quality can result in losses averaging to $15 million each year”.
Therefore it is important that the organisation should avoid any kind of CRM errors that include all the important details about your customer and other important details.
However, here are some common CRM errors that needs to be avoid:
1. No Leadership
Senior management should always be the trendsetters in using a CRM & show others the way. It’s their job to set the strategies right, coach their teams & get the best out of the CRM. Passing a new CRM system over directly to the middle management without any supervision is a recipe for disaster.
2. Lack of Goals
Clearly defined goals are the foundations of choosing & implementing a CRM. Without goals, it’s tough for you to get the desired outcomes from your CRM project. It’s always recommended to list down all your goals before you start looking out for a CRM. Clarity is key!
3. Choosing A CRM Only For Its Price
Many business managers ignore the fact that if you choose a CRM tool that’s in your budget but compromises on features, it may feel like a bargain but later goes on to result in mismanagement of clients’ data, lost deals/contacts/opportunities, incomplete projects & thus loss of revenue.
Yes, price is important but not at the cost of your business growth.
4. Lack of Resources
Contrary to popular belief, when a CRM fails… it has got less to do with the application but more with how it’s implemented & managed by the people using it. It’s always wise to have a project manager who understands the business flow, its needs & can test the implementation at any stage. It should be his duty to raise alarm bells before the process goes off track at any point of time.
5. Impractical Timelines
Not everybody is equally good at adapting to changes. Once you begin with the CRM implementation process, assess where your team stands, analyze & only then set timelines. Setting targets for your team even before they’re comfortable with the app can be suicidal. It may very well lead to frustration amongst the team members.
6. Ignoring User Adoption
Involve your team members as early in the CRM adoption process as you can. Take their feedback, suggestions & work on it. Also, proper interactive training is absolutely necessary to move your teams from spreadsheets to a crm solution.
One of the most common reasons for CRM failures is poor adoption rate by the users. And involving them in the implementation process is the best way to make sure your CRM deployment goes on to become a hit.
7. No Scalability
Implementation of crm system is not a one-off thing. As your business grows… the CRM has to grow with you. Make sure the CRM you choose has the capabilities to grow your changing needs. With time, the biggest CRM has to become your only platform for the sales, marketing, and support team to collaborate.
8. Fix Your Existing Flaws
A CRM delivers maximum value only when the processes around it are well planned & executed. Hence, it’s absolutely important to understand the business process, figure out the bottlenecks, shortfalls & address the same before coming onboard of the common CRM systems of your choice.
There’s no room for mistakes when it comes to CRM implementation. After all, it’s the key to your business success.
9. Large No Of Required Input:
When your sales and marketing employees input the contact information about the leads and customers, you need to make sure they are following the right Customer Relationship management Techniques.
Your employees can go back and add all the important details and notes if they have missed any. With too many input fields will put your employee stuck in filling up the details and missing out the important information.
This will result in missing out on new deals or interaction with the prospective customers.
Conclusion:
CRM Errors can cost you more. It not only involves financial impacts but can also lose your valuable time and many important customers’ data. Hence you need to do careful research on the various aspects of the CRM systems before falling into the common CRM traps.
Looking for an easy-to-use but powerful CRM to handle your customers? Try the 30 days free trial of Wakeupsales CRM right away.
Having second thoughts on using a CRM? Let our CRM experts show you how easy it is… Schedule a Call