Why CRM Implementations Fail and How to Avoid Them

Saphyte Team

4 min read

Updated: February 15th, 2021

When you’re running a business, all you ever want is to make your processes streamlined and effective. That is why businesses seek help from productivity and sales tools to further improve their sales cycle. One of the commonly sought-after platforms is the customer relationship management (CRM) system.

Implementing a CRM system for your business is a time-consuming process and expensive at one point. You have to consider finding the best CRM that fits your business, training your employees, and have to spend for the whole migration process. And seeing the implementation fail in the end can be frustrating and can greatly affect your whole business process.

Implementation failures are a common occurrence. Industry studies claim that failure rates for a new CRM software can go between 47% and 63%. The good news is that you can avoid being a part of the number of failed implementations.

You can avoid failed implementations by identifying them earlier in the process. Not quite sure what these problems are? Here are the reasons why CRM implementations fail and how you can avoid doing the same.

User Adaptation Difficulties

Low user-adoption rates are the main culprit why CRM project fails. This happens when your sales reps and other CRM tool users struggle in learning the essentials of the system. Or in some cases, the CRM you picked isn’t well integrated with your existing workflows and processes. In some other cases, the system is just basically confusing and more complicated than it needs to be.

You can avoid situations like this by bringing your sales team into testing processes, and enhancing their CRM training. You can go for free trials. Test out the software by implementing your contact management tools, marketing campaigns, and other customer interaction activities from the CRM software.

It’ll also be helpful for your sales if the software of your choosing is user-friendly and can easily store contact information with less effort.

Thinking that CRMs are “just” another technology solution

What your mind perceives, your vision follows. Do not change goals, rather change your perception. Some other businesses get overly excited about implementing CRM projects. However, you also need to remember that these systems are built to enable improved customer experiences.

The system only gives you accurate insights from your customer data, social media campaign metrics, and other marketing activities. In order to keep your numbers up, you need to have a solid perception of how you want to portray your products and services, and you need a flexible workflow process.

If your CRM is partnered with the right workflows, a solid brand, and operated by a well-trained sales team, there’s no way your implementation will still fail.

Poor Planning Leads to Poor Implementation

Implementing a CRM system into your sales cycle is no cakewalk. The whole duration consists of multi-stage processes. Within this process, you will need a refined general outline and clear workflows, other software systems, customer data curation, user testing, and countless employee training.

It’s not a process and trying to figure it out on the fly can be risky and costly for you. Every moment you invest in planning serves as a prevention for confusion and frustration later on, eventually preventing a CRM implementation failure.

Lack of Vision for the Future

One of the common mistakes’ businesses make when implementing a CRM is not setting specific goals and targets. Just like any other parts of your business, implementing a CRM consists of a clear vision of what’s ahead. It’s not an impulse buy, it’s a lifetime investment for easier management of your sales and marketing.  

CRM tools are designed to be flexible, scalable, and adaptable so that it can be used in a wide array of industries and other cases. Without a clear vision of what your CRM needs to accomplish, it can be easy to lose focus over your planning and implementation process. So, set a meeting with your sales team, let them be involved in the planning process, and see to it that they’re on the same boat as you.

Be more specific about your plans are for the CRM implementation. This might include how your employees can use it in their daily work, and how it can improve their KPIs. The clearer the vision, the more likely the implementation will be a success.

Choosing the Wrong vendor

Yes, your implementation can simply fail because you chose the wrong vendors to partner with. Some CRM vendors have a conventional and ready-made system and have an off-the-shelf CRM that is not suitable for your business’s unique needs.

If a conflict arises between your business processes and the vendor’s one-size-fits-all software, they prefer to have you change your business rather than modify their own code. A true CRM solution partner will always have your business as a priority. With that, their CRM should be scalable and flexible to your needs.

Choosing the Wrong Software

Choosing the right CRM partner is important to the success of your implementation. But so is picking out the right software. You can’t just go picking without weighing the pros and cons multiple times.

Choosing the cheapest CRM software licenses can be tempting. However, you need to realize that a software that can fit your company’s needs might be expensive at first, it’s better than just buying other options that can cost you more along the way.

Other businesses have made the opposite mistake. They spend a small fortune on an expensive system filled with plenty of features that they are never going to use. The cost is important, you also need to consider finding the right CRM software that suits your company’s needs better.

It’s not all about having more features and functions. Choose the right software that can take care of your basic needs such as sales management, customer management, and marketing management.  

CONCLUSION

Choosing the right CRM to start with your implementation is a risky decision to make. Like any other aspect of businesses, a CRM solution is an investment that should not be brushed off under the carpet. Saphyte CRM understands that investment and time are two things that should not be taken lightly.  

Saphyte is a Dubai developed cloud-based CRM software that helps you streamline your corporate, sales, and marketing activities from email marketing to other sales campaign activities, and put them into a single powerful software.

Saphyte is designed and built with sales and marketing modules to improve your business’s efficiency and productivity. The system also has other functions and tools that can help you build better customer experiences through impressive customer interaction activities and leads you to build customer satisfaction.

Saphyte’s CRM software can help you manage essential customer information for easier phone calls scrimmage, conduct meaningful marketing tactics and strategies, and identify business opportunities built for the long haul. Through its user-friendly system, your sales reps can easily go through the system without breaking a sweat.

Saphyte’s features are built for scalability and flexibility. You can create automated workflows within the system, gather leads easily, and tailor the system to your needs.  This will make growth and success come easily for your business in the future. Saphyte is primarily built to grow with you and your business.

Saphyte has pay-as-you-go subscription plans and is a SaaS cloud-based CRM. You don’t need to install the system on your local computer. All you need is a reliable Internet connection and a browser. Your data is secured too because they are automatically uploaded to a secured cloud storage server dedicated to your business.

Saphyte’s subscription plans are complete with a free demo and one-on-one product training. No set-up fees, no installation fees, no maintenance fees, no hidden or extra charges, and 24/7 expert customer support availability.

Let us help you avoid any CRM implementation failures. Contact us for a free demo or you can start your trial period now.

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