Four Reasons Your CRM is Failing
Executives and management within companies love the idea of a customer relationship management tool. The problem is, many systems fail, and the full value is never fully realized by those who matter most. If a CRM is improperly set-up and managed, the likelihood of failure is very high. Multiple industry studies claim to see average failure rates between 47% and 63% for new CRM systems.
Many want the benefits a CRM has to offer, things like better contact management, more visibility over the team's behaviors as well as more organized and concise reports and dashboards. However, there is a trade-off to obtaining these benefits. That is the time, money, and workforce required to properly implement a new CRM or optimizing the current system you have. There are several reasons your CRM is failing (or is destined to fail); here are four of the main ones to look out for:
It's the wrong CRM for your business
At one point, I read that there are over 600 different CRM systems on the market; deciphering between all these can be overwhelming. There are multiple levels of subscription, each offering a variety of features or benefits at each level. The ability to customize the system to fit your business needs and processes is an important feature, and you need to know if you can do this in-house or if you will need a system administrator to ensure things are set-up and running correctly. Try to think about all your current needs as well as the future. While you may not have 5,000 contacts today, a year from now, that could be true; it's better to ensure you're not going to end up paying more in the long-run by choosing the wrong system.
It's not customized to your business processes
Most CRM systems come with standard modules (or objects) and fields. Some of the more commonly used modules are leads, and contacts, and company (or account) name and e-mail are fields that are widely used. However, much of what comes standard may not be relevant or could change to better fit your operations; an example here is if your CRM comes standard with a case module, but you never work off support tickets and thus have no use to track cases and solutions, hide them. Another overlooked field customization is pick-list fields, a common one that comes standard in many accounts modules is an industry field. Many come with all these standard options the system thinks you may want to use, but if those aren't relevant, adjust them to industries that make sense to you (Pro Tip: remove "other" as an option in ALL pick-list fields. It's providing any information).
User adoption is non-existent
User adoption is imperative to the success of your system. Above, I mentioned, "The problem is, many systems fail, and the full value is never fully realized by those who matter most." Those who matter most, in this case, are the executive or leadership team. If they don't embrace the software, it will trickle down to the managers and entry-level employees who are those that most need to be using the system if you want to ensure your reports and dashboards are accurate. Often, executives want to log in and see the desired information and move on with their day. This is only possible if the rest of your team is ensuring the data makes it to the correct location within the system. For instance, if you want to see how many customers you have in TX, but your team isn't correctly updating the address field, you're likely to miss someone.
The data is bad
How you define "bad data" can vary. One common form is outdated or old data, old clients or accounts that are mixed in with active ones, making it challenging for your team to know who to prioritize. Incorrect or misleading data can cause inefficiencies in your team's output if the phone number or e-mail addresses are listed incorrectly; this could be a contributing factor to failures in cold calling and e-mail attempts. Duplicated data is also a major problem that many teams aren't aware of until it too late. Let's say you have an outbound sales team cold calling new leads, unknowing to them, some of your existing customers are in the system as leads; they weren't converted from a lead to an account correctly. This not only causes an unpleasant customer experience but also demotivates your sales team since they're spending time on someone who isn't a qualified opportunity.
These are only a few reasons CRM projects fail. Keep in mind that it's likely not one or two issues, but a multitude of issues you're too busy to decipher and consider. Working with outside help to implement your system will ensure you're set up for long-term success. If you already have a CRM in place that needs improving, a CRM consultant can help there as well. Don't let your system become an "expensive Rolodex"; work with someone who can help ensure you get the most return on investment in the shortest possible time.