Management does not utilise the CRM consistently
Staff have an inherent personality disposition that is not suited for CRM usage
There is nothing more exciting than to see a business use CRM successfully. Over the years we have seen many successes and sadly we have seen many more failures in using CRM. We have done hundreds of CRM implementations and we have seen almost every kind of issue that can occur within a CRM implementation.
Unlike most software implementations, CRM implementations are very prone to failure because it’s more culture than software. A CRM is a mirror to your business process and business culture, with the software simply the coding of it. Unlike procedural software like an accounting system a CRM is prone to failure because of this misunderstanding by management.
A CRM utilized properly can become the driving engine of success and growth for a business, this is very well known and why almost every successful business now tries to utilize them as much as possible.
However like all negative outcomes, failures are often not discussed. Sometimes our biggest failures are the opportunities we didn’t act upon. Which is why it’s so important to talk about them. Understanding why things fail is sometimes more important than understanding what works.
What is the definition for failure or success when implementing a CRM? We would like to just focus on the poor adoption of the CRM within companies for now. We assume that the CRM was implemented properly and all staff received adequate and proper training. We also assume the businesses are in a growth sector, and the competition is both competent and professional.
One major reason for CRM failure we would like to focus on is management not utilizing the CRM them selves. We have seen this many times, where management become pre-occupied to utilize it. Management do not set the example to the staff, and when they don’t use it properly, this trickles through the entire company very quickly. Management need to be aware of this if they desire to overcome CRM failure.
The second reason we would like to focus on is certain staff have inherit personality trait or disposition that are not suited for CRM usage. While this seems controversial, we have seen this many times.
Our research found a solution for the failure and lead to the following conclusions, for an SME with few salespeople, it takes only few hours per week to sort the issue. And every time we added our person for about 4 hours per week to perform CRM coaching a dramatic turnaround in result happened, over 50% of business turned from failure to success in lifting revenue and utilising of CRM.
From the 52 businesses we worked with on this issue, 23 businesses showed significant turnaround in result, 7 businesses showed modest improvement, 15 businesses showed a small improvement 5 businesses showed no improvement 2 businesses went backwards.
Like anything, it requires time, effort, skills and patience. However the rewards are well documented and obvious to all.
We have seen many businesses that could have squeezed so much more revenue by proper utilization of their CRM than what they achieved, and their advertising could have achieved many more qualifying leads with a much greater closing rate had they utilized their CRM effectively.
Follow these links to find out more about how Lumen can support your Zoho CRM journey with our Zoho CRM Coaching and Zoho CRM Training capability.
We work with businesses of all sizes to solves a wide range of problems. If you are wondering how we can help you use technology to help your business perform better, please get in touch with us.
17 Cockburn Street, Grey Lynn, Auckland 1021, New Zealand
