Starting a business is all about hope, isn’t it? You dream of success and growth. The last thing on your mind is “business failure,” but unfortunately, it’s a harsh reality in today’s competitive world. We’ve all heard stories of promising startups or established companies that just couldn’t keep up, often closing down for reasons that weren’t obvious at first glance. Sometimes, mistakes are made without us even realizing it. Did we ever stop to figure out what went wrong, or did we just blame the strategies we tried?
That’s where tools like Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software come in. Many companies rely on CRMs to manage those all-important customer interactions, build stronger connections and boost their bottom line. A good CRM helps you keep track of sales activities and customer interactions. That organization is key.
Despite how common CRMs are, there’s still debate about their effectiveness. One reason is that a surprisingly high number of CRM implementations fail. That’s according to Joanne Correia from Gartner, who noted that CRM would be central to digital efforts in the years to come. Cloud-based CRMs are certainly popular—about 40% of the market. Yet, that high failure rate puts many businesses off.
A study by Merkle Group Inc. found that a concerning 63% of CRM initiatives fail. That study surveyed over 350 senior executives in the U.S. about their experiences. What was interesting was that medium and larger companies were about 50% more likely to use CRM effectively for growth compared to smaller businesses.
So why do these projects fail so often? The study highlighted a few key reasons. Not truly understanding what customers expect (or need) from you was a major issue (53%). Poor management and oversight of the CRM process came in second (43%). If leadership isn’t fully behind the CRM initiative, it often falters (38%). And viewing CRM as just another piece of software, rather than a core business strategy, was another major issue (38%).
Across different industries, various studies point to CRM failure rates anywhere between 47% and 63%. For a CRM to truly succeed, especially for sales, it needs to be part of a well-established sales process. Those two go hand-in-hand. Sales are crucial, and improving how you manage them is key. Sales teams are juggling countless tasks: managing leads, following up, administrative work, generating reports-and more.
Read our blog – Why Every Business, No Matter the Size, Should Use CRM Software
Giving your sales team the right tool, like a well-implemented online CRM, combined with good training, can make a huge difference. That helps them stay organized and efficient. It also gives management a clear view of sales activities, pipeline health and how individual efforts contribute to the company’s overall success.
What it really comes down to is this: while CRM offers great potential, success requires a clear strategy, understanding your customers, strong management support and integrating it properly into your sales process.
Read our blog – 5 Reasons you need to keep your CRM upto date
You might be doing well with the help of an online CRM software, or if you are planning to make use of an online CRM software in your business, it is necessary to know about the mistakes which may ruin the CRM and your sales process.
1. Loaded pipelines
A CRM application provides a sales pipeline which is an extensive visual display of the opportunities at different stages of your sales process. It helps you to keep track of every deal as and when it moves through the sales pipeline.
But if your online CRM is loaded with pipelines, it can be a challenging task to collect the relevant data and get an overall outlook of the sales. You can differentiate the leads by their sources if there are too many pipelines. Custom fields will help you to differentiate leads instead of creating a new pipeline.
2. Involvement of excessive steps in each pipeline
Basically in a sales cycle, the main agenda of sales person is to rely on the stages which promotes close of deals. During the sales cycle there are a series of phases which occur during the selling of product or service. The main stages of sales process are-
- Leads
- Appointment
- Qualification
- Presentation
- Objectives
- Sale
- Referrals
These stages are the basic stages of a sales process but the prospect customers do not act the same as that of your qualified customers. Knowing which sales stage is required in your sales CRM pipeline for the customer is the initial step to move. Few customers may require 3 stages i.e, first interest, meeting and agreement. Thus, do not exceed more than 7 basic steps of the pipeline as it may result in dilution of the process and you may not get effective information from the stages of the pipeline.
3. Failing to utilize custom fields
It’s important to get the advantages of custom fields, as they play a vital role in distinguishing and classification leads. The custom field attributes provide valuable insights into resource allocation, providing a clear understanding of where your attempts should be directed. By gathering a comprehensive illustration of your target groups, regions, and other associated aspects, you can analyze your entire sales performance and figure areas for improvement or further paying attention.
Understanding your productiveness in particular target groups allows you to make informed decisions about resource allocation. If you find that gaining the latest clients is a rare occurrence, it signifies that you may not have recognised the appropriate market yet. In such cases, reanalysing your strategy and paying attention more on profitable regions becomes beneficial.
Monitoring information such as industries, company size, and lead sources provide a specific overview of your sales performance—highlighting aspects of success and areas that may require improvement. This data-driven strategy enables you to strategically allocate resources and, when required, cut losses connected with unsuccessful client segments.
4. Oversight of Converted or Unconverted Leads
In the domain of leads, there are typically three key categories: hot leads, cold leads, and warm leads. Although, when you neglect to monitor the number of converted or unconverted leads, you tend to risk spending excessive time interpreting the dynamics of your sales management. Sustaining clarity in your sales pipeline is beneficial. By performing so, your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system can function seamlessly, enabling increased productivity and capability without the complications of confusion or incomplete detailings.
5. Poor analysations
Your cloud CRM software holds all the essential information in a single platform to make things easy for you. But if you are not analyzing the data available on your online CRM software, then you are surely missing out on something!
When the lead enters the online CRM there may be useful information regarding the interest, company size, goals etc of the sales leads. Through the marketing automation, leads can provide information about themselves which can be further used for the sales process. With improvement in the data that can be acquired on the lead, the marketing as well as sales team can make better decisions with the leads in the online CRM system.
The cloud CRM software provides the real inside of complex raw data captured and reproduced for decision making at a single dashboard. The presentations of requisite data in the form of graphical charts, metric analytics and more crisp MIS reports ensures saving of your time and will also help you to measure your business competence in meeting the demands of your customers.
6. You don’t care about won or lost activities
There are 3 types of leads: one becomes your clients, one is who does not want to become your client or you lost contact with them. The other is open leads whom you should have assigned with an accountable person and when the moment should be done. The more you ignore the won or lost buttons, the more time you lose on finding out what’s going on in your sales. CRM will help you only when your pipelines are clear.
Read our blog – Sell Smarter, Better and Faster with Online CRM Software
Tips to follow before and after implementing CRM software
Be well aware of the importance of implementing an online CRM software for your business. You must be acquainted with the pros and cons of the online CRM software before investing into one.
Read our blog – Why You Should Invest In CRM Software
- Know the fact that a CRM application is not “One size fits all”. You will require different functionalities depending upon your industry and size. So before you choose the best cloud CRM software know your requirements.
- You should research as much as you can, read reviews, take trials, communicate with customer service team and then select the software which is meeting all your requirements.
- Do not judge an online CRM software with its face value. Check out its features and test it out! The expert will take you through the usage of the software where you can clear all your doubts regarding its usage. Once you feel that you are satisfied with its functionality, you can get along with the further procedures.
- The necessary processes required for integration are process training and well planned operations.
- Make use of the amazing functionalities offered in an online CRM software, do not consider the system meant just for sales. The trusted vendor of a cloud CRM, SalesBabu CRM software provides multiple functionalities (SalesBabu CRM trends) like – emails,SMS campaigns and PR initiatives, Things to do, Me today, Till date, Team today, Dashboards, What’s new, Birthday dates, Quick create and many more to list, ‘SPEEDOMETER’ and ‘PROBABILITY’ which predicts the effective sales realization automatically, reminders, pending activity visibility, maintain notes and remarks, 360 degree view of contact base and mobile CRM etc…
- Some people love working with new software and new tools. It will be exciting for them to work in a new environment. The employees who have more doubts about the change, make sure that they are provided with proper resources and enough time to get prepared for the new CRM.
- It is essential that your employees use the new CRM in the way that it is intended to be used, not only by the vendor’s standards but also by the business standards. During the training make sure that all the employees are clearly thought about including the new company data, registering the sales and also other important guidelines. All the employees should be able to easily find out how, when and where something needs to be done within the new CRM system
Read our blog – 7 “Must-Do” steps before you buy online CRM software
Conclusion
As much as you believe that an online CRM software is one of the best business tools or a business strategy or a valuable asset to the business that helps to enhance your business, you cannot neglect the fact that a poor maintained CRM software can also ruin your sales process. Know what are your requirements are, plan according to your goals and prioritize the user explorance. But, if you are still not working on the mistakes, you may result in ruining your sales process though you implemented a CRM. Make sure that you choose the right CRM to explore its magic!! If you wish to know more about the right CRM software, visit our website https://www.salesbabu.com/ and request for a free demo.
