What do you think is the most challenging aspect of implementing customer relationship management in a company?

CRM failures is not something new for any business, almost 60% of the CRM implementations fails and some of them are entirely due to poor planning and execution by businesses.

Many businesses believe that just by investing in a CRM will grow their business, CRM helps you in many ways but to make it work as per your business needs requires clear planning and execution.

Some of the reasons why CRM implementation fails

1. Lack of Clear Expectation Lack of Clear Expectation: Most of the CRM users have unclear expectations and knowledge of what a CRM can do for them and thus they cannot use the CRM in a way that there is a balance of manual and automated work. They end up defining an unclear purpose of the implementation and thus do not have a solid background to guide their strategies, this leads to a perception of investment in CRM as an unworthy decision and thus the implementation fails.

2. CRM is a Magic Bean Many businesses expect that implementing CRM is like growing a magic bean, it will automatically handle all your problems. That’s not true, businesses need to constantly maintain an organized structure of their problems. A CRM can up to a limit give insights, analysis, or suggestions but most of the work that is related to the proper execution of a CRM should be done in order.

3. All at Once Sometimes, installing everything at once can result in being ambiguous about using them. The usage and interface of CRMs are different for different providers and thus the employees should first be handy with the basic usage of a CRM. Businesses should implement CRM services that are at the highest priorities and give proper training and sessions to their employees so that they can be familiar with what a CRM can and cannot do for their respective work. Furthermore, additional services can be implemented.

CRM Challenges

CRM strategies and implementation can deliver great benefits - but only if companies do it right.

Customer-centricity is the key to success in any business today. Building lasting customer relationships is a strategic advantage. While these facts seem simple, businesses around the world have struggled with them. The key element of this crisis is the need to get a 360-degree view of customers, leading to massive investments in CRM solutions. If done right, these investments can help businesses increase their sales effectiveness, drive customer satisfaction, streamline business processes, identify & resolve bottlenecks; all contributing directly to increased bottom-line revenues.

CRM is one of the single most popular business initiatives for companies around the world. Today, three out of every four companies is using, implementing, or planning a CRM Solution. The question, therefore, is not whether to do CRM or not, but how to do it right.

Key CRM Challenges

Companies around the world have leveraged CRM strategies to gain a competitive advantage. As more and more companies rush to implement CRM, precautions must be taken to do it right. It is approximated that 50-70% of CRM implementations fail, depending on the Industry vertical - it is essential to identify the key challenges, address risks and build a strategy that can make your CRM successful.

CRM talks about strategy, but at the end of the day, someone has to lead the way and implement it. Listed below are some practical tips to consider when building effective CRM strategies and implementation plans.

1. Cost One of the most defined challenges of a CRM implementation is its cost. It can be a costly implementation if you are not sure about what you want to achieve by a CRM implementation, there are many CRM providers who will try to sell you their most costly offering and customizing them as per your business needs. You might get trapped in the futuristic efficient opportunities these providers might show you for your business. You need to be focused on what are your pain areas and how a CRM solution can solve your problems. Once you are clear about your objectives, you can purchase offerings that suits your needs best rather than suiting the provider's ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue) need.

2. Type of Deployment During COVID times it is clear that cloud based CRM is the best way to implement a CRM but the situation might change in years and you need to plan the type of deployment as per your future needs rather than the current scenario. There can be on-premise and cloud-based deployment and both of the deployments have their pros and cons, from cost to data security, each of the deployments should be thoroughly checked as per your financial and strategical planning.

3. Employee Training As discussed earlier, training your employees is the most important and challenging part of a CRM implementation, since they would be the end user of the CRM, they should be aware of all the functionalities a CRM can provide with respect to their job roles and responsibilities. A CRM is to ease an individual’s work and time and this should be practically implemented by the employees. There should be enough training sessions and checks to verify that the employees are comfortable with the CRM usage.

4. Right Partner The results of CRM success go up considerably with the right solution partner. While strategy consultants are good, it is the solution partner who will make it work. Ideally, select a partner who can do both - strategy & implementation. It is important that your partner shares the risks of your implementation. Pay only for success. While global knowledge bases are impressive, local issues can often negate these learnings. Work with a vendor who understands local work cultures, technology limitations, cultural sensitivities and is willing to listen.

Conclusion

A CRM can bring numerous advantages to an organization. Though there are several challenges while implementing a CRM, proper planning and execution certainly make the implementation worthy of time, work, and investment, and improves the productivity and efficiency of a business. CRMNEXT's CRM for Insurance industry and Banking CRM solutions has helped numerous companies achieve their business goals.

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