If you conduct a survey “For what purpose do you implement CRM”? The general answer is: To reduce operating costs, save employees working time and improve customer experience and earn more.
At the same time, according to rough estimates, 60% of companies do not live up to their expectations from the implementation of CRM. Why do CRM projects all over the world fail? How to avoid disappointment after implementing CRM in your company?
Professionals call the main cause of problems the desire to have everything at once combined with the unwillingness to spend time and energy on implementation. As well as trying to avoid all the necessary steps.
In this article, we will try to analyze the main mistakes that will negate all the benefits of CRM and tell you how to avoid them.
Risk types
The main types of risks in the implementation of CRM can be divided according to the following principle:
- Technological risks.
A company may encounter them when setting up or developing a system. These include the lack of features the company needs, poorly implemented settings, broken integrations, and so on. In general, everything that leads to incorrect operation of the system or the inability of the system to respond to your needs.
- Financial risks.
They are associated with monetary losses, shortfall in profits or lost profits. Similar problems arise as a result of a slow transition to the system, the inability of specialists to use the system, and so on.
- Organizational risks
Arise due to high expectations, psychological sabotage on the part of employees and management. The reason may also be the lack of clear instructions from the owner of the company to work only through the system, etc.
If by types of risks we roughly understood what problems can be expected if CRM is implemented incorrectly, then I would like to talk further about specific errors that lead to these problems and how to avoid them.
Mistakes
CRM is the magic pill
One of the main problems with CRM implementation is the belief that CRM is a magic pill. Once you implement it, you won’t have to work anymore. The entire team will go on vacation, and the owner of the company will continue to receive income. The CRM system can really take over some of the routine tasks, repetitive tasks, but it will not work instead of your employees.
Wrong system selection
Lack of understanding of CRM principles, misunderstanding of the company’s goals, poor analysis of the company’s business processes or just laziness lead to the wrong choice of CRM system.
Here are some common mistakes when choosing a CRM
- inappropriate functionality. Let’s imagine you chose a system because of a well-known name, a good reputation, or the advice of a respected person. At the same time, you did not take into account the list of functions you need. As a result, during the implementation, you received a lot of unnecessary functions and the absence of the ones you need. In this case, they will have to be purchased or developed separately.
- Misunderstanding of the final cost of implementation. Often services entice potential customers with some kind of free offer. For example — the basic version. But then you needed full functionality which turned out to be very expensive to implement. Or companies choose CRM according to the SaaS model, and for several years the rent has exceeded the price of a one-time implementation by several times.
These mistakes can be avoided by a clear formulation of the company’s goals, as well as a careful study of the systems on the market. Many developers of CRM systems offer free trial periods for which you can understand whether this system is suitable for your company.
Here are a few more aspects to consider when choosing a CRM:
- Scalability
- Ability to integrate with other services and systems
- Flexibility (possibility of improvements)
- Popularity in the market
You can also contact professional integrators who work with different systems, they will help you choose the right system for you.
Lack of a clear goal and strategy for the implementation of CRM
You were probably led to the decision to implement CRM by some problems to be solved and some goals to be achieved. It is very dangerous to implement CRM, formulating the goal something like this: “Everyone has it and we also need it.”
Before proceeding with the selection and implementation of the system, it is necessary to clearly articulate what result you expect from the implementation. Then make a list of features needed to achieve these goals, and a step-by-step plan to implement them.
This task is perfectly handled by the implementation roadmap and a clear Terms of Reference. An integrator can help you with this. Since the integrator knows the capabilities of the system, it will not be difficult for him to determine the necessary characteristics, its architecture and functions, and then translate all this into technical language in the Terms of Reference.
The system does not reflect your business processes
CRM doesn’t just store the contact details of your customers. It organizes information, automates the work of employees and helps them move through the business process. In fact, CRM should work like a navigator. If the processes in CRM do not match the real processes of the company, this will greatly complicate the work. Such a discrepancy almost completely reduces the effect of the introduction of CRM to nothing.
Business process analysis will help prevent this mistake. At this stage, it is worth attracting an experienced business consultant. At Metod Digital, we take care of this stage of work. We build a model of your business, describe and visualize business processes, and then optimize them before starting to build CRM.
Employees are not involved in the implementation
The participation of employees in the implementation gives several advantages at once.
First of all. Employees will be able to give valuable information on how the processes in the company really work and where there are problems now. The sales department, for example, may be dissatisfied with the speed of negotiating contracts, as customers leave because of the slow approval. And the marketing department may complain that the sales department can’t handle all the calls from the website, which is what customers complain about. This will help correct problems in business processes and accurately reflect processes in CRM.
Secondly. In the course of work, employees will prepare for the transition to the system. They will understand the principles of working in it and understand their benefits from using CRM. Employees should perceive the service as a useful tool for achieving business goals: increasing profits, reducing costs, automating processes, saving time. This will further help to avoid sabotage by the team.
Lack of training and regulations for employees
No matter how convenient and intuitive the system is, people will not be able to start working in it in one day on command.
Employees need training and clear work procedures. An integrator can also help you with this. Usually training webinars are held for the team. During the webinars, the operation of the system and its functions are demonstrated, and the benefits of working in the system are discussed. The integrator answers all questions that arise. One webinar may not be enough, it is necessary to conduct lessons for different departments. In addition, integrators often record various training videos that remain in CRM and are always available for viewing. Regulations for working with the system are also loaded into the CRM knowledge base, which the team will use in the future. User support is often provided by the integrator as well.
Lack of support from management.
This error looks unexpected in this list, but it does occur. Sometimes management itself begins to ignore the implemented system. Tasks are set in the old way, and all work and communication is carried out outside the system.
The head of the company should remember that he must first of all support the transition of his team to CRM, making any other way of working inconvenient.
Conclusion
In the article, we discussed the main mistakes that can nullify all implementation efforts.
The second, third and fourth mistake will make working in CRM inconvenient and useless, and then unnecessary.
The last three mistakes will lead to CRM sabotage by employees. Namely, sabotage is one of the main reasons for the failure of many implementations. Not always employees positively accept innovations. Nobody likes change, nobody wants to learn something new and nobody wants extra control over their work.
If you are planning your first CRM implementation, avoiding mistakes can be difficult. An experienced integrator will help you successfully pass the path. He will help you choose the right CRM, take on the role of a business consultant, work with the team, identify problems in business processes and optimize them. For example, in processes where work can be duplicated. Translate your goals into the language of techies, draw up an implementation plan, monitor the implementation and adherence to the budget. Upon completion of the implementation, the integrator will conduct training for employees and help them get started with the new system.