Customer relationship management (CRM) software is a suite of applications, usually cloud-based, that helps you manage information, interactions, and relationships with your customer base. The goal of a CRM is to help companies stay connected with their customers. This is along with an eye toward improving efficiency and customer retention.
CRM software has become a vital tool for growing businesses, where collecting, storing, and organizing customer data becomes ever more complex and important. A CRM helps representatives stay in touch, develop good customer relationships, and close more deals.
A CRM can also help alleviate problems like stagnating sales and lost leads. It can also help build customer profiles. They can be difficult to assemble without retaining and analyzing a lot of data.
So maybe, knowing all this, you’ve decided to invest in a CRM suite and upgrade the way your sales and customer support team does business. But there’s a problem. Your team isn’t getting on board with the CRM. Or they aren’t using its features as thoroughly as you might like. Here are a few reasons why that might be happening.
They Might Be Intimidated
Every business can get in a rut from time to time. Plus team members adjust to doing things a certain way. And if you’ve chosen to adopt a CRM because your business is growing a little faster than you can reasonably manage, employees might not want to take the time to learn the intricacies of the software on top of their normal work duties. As a result, they might use the CRM sparingly or not at all. Even if the methods you were using prior to the CRM were more time-consuming and less efficient, people tend to stick with what they know unless otherwise encouraged, prompted, or instructed.
This can be especially true if you’re in the early stages of adding data to the CRM. CRMs need a large amount of data before they start being useful. And manual data entry can be tedious, intimidating, or just annoying. One way around this issue is to implement CRM data automation to reduce or eliminate the boring manual aspects of data collection. This frees up time and brainpower so your team can focus on building customer relationships and closing deals.
They Don’t Yet Have the Right Training
One of the top reasons team members don’t make full use of their CRM suite: they may not know how. Some employees are more technically efficient than others, or they might be used to the conventions of a different CRM. Whatever the reason, some employees might simply lack the training to use the software effectively.
This lack of training can have multiple negative effects, above and beyond your team members not using it as much as you’d prefer. They could end up using it incorrectly, entering incorrect data, or failing to update it. If the CRM doesn’t seem useful because of this misaligned data, they might start to see the CRM as pointless busywork and start using it even less.
The solution is to hold some training webinars or hands-on learning sessions where they can get more experience with the software.
The Software Isn’t Matched to Your Company’s Needs
Not every CRM is created equal, and the software may not align with your established sales process. This is an issue that can go beyond a lack of familiarity or technical proficiency with the software. Salespeople might discover the pre-designed features and functions of the CRM don’t line up with the way they close deals. This might be a matter of the salesperson doing things in a very specific way that the CRM workflow doesn’t work with, combined with a lack of flexibility in the software itself. The solution here is to try to choose a CRM up front that is flexible and customizable enough to adapt to your company’s process, (with features like a customizable dashboard) as well as accommodate different employees and their work styles.
It Isn’t User-Friendly
As we mentioned above, not every CRM is created equal. Some software suites are simply more difficult to use than others. Your sales team could be having difficulty entering and organizing data,. Or they potentially struggle with getting useful data back from the software. As a result, they might make minimal use of the software. Or they might resort to another tried-and-true method of doing things, putting aside the CRM altogether.
Another important factor to remember is that remote work and on-the-go work have become more common than ever before. You can’t assume a team member will be sitting at their desk at the office all the time. A CRM needs to be remote-friendly and have strong collaboration tools, so they have the contact information and other data they need wherever they go.
As before, the solution is to do extensive research on CRM suites beforehand and choose something with enough adaptability and flexibility to let your employees do business even when they’re not in the office.
The Data Isn’t Useful
A CRM can only be as good as the data it stores and organizes. So, if the data is bad, outdated, inaccurate, or wrongly entered, the CRM is not only less useful. It could be actively harmful. This creates confusion and frustration, maybe even leading your team to use it even less than they are.
The solution to this is multi-faceted: make sure the data in your CRM is cleaned, standardized, and organized. Use duplication removal tools to get rid of redundant data and reduce clutter. Consider giving someone the task of managing the CRM, to make sure it’s up-to-date and cleanly implemented at all times.
This is another instance where additional training comes in handy. Communicate with your team and encourage them to ask questions about adopting the CRM software and using it effectively. By engaging in conversation with your team members about the change, you open up opportunities for them to learn and engage so the tool becomes just another part of their daily process.
