Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software should be a key tool in any business’s operations. However, most businesses do not use their CRMs to their full potential. Many companies use less than 10% of the features in their current CRM software.
Failing to fully leverage the features of your CRM software can put your company at a disadvantage when it comes to maximizing your relationship with existing clients and soliciting new clients. There are several common reasons why companies don’t fully utilize their CRMs.
Failing to Customize the Software to Fit Your Business
CRMs are powerful systems when used properly, however, they are initially structured in a very basic manner to appeal to a broad spectrum of businesses. Since the fields are so
generic, there may be fields that do not apply to your specific industry. Even more likely, the system will be missing key fields that are relevant to your industry. Without customizing the software to add these additional fields, your business could be missing key pieces of data, making it difficult to conduct a comprehensive analysis of your customer relationships.
Customization could also include customizing the reasons for lost opportunities, so you can identify if there is a consistent pattern occurring within your business. Other things to consider are setting up a system for tagging contacts for easier search-ability and setting up custom pipelines, or sets of repeating tasks.
Rather than trying to force your business model into a standard CRM layout, it would be more beneficial to customize the CRM to fit the needs of your specific business. This will enable you to monitor the key metrics within your industry, along with evaluating your existing client and prospect relationships.
Does Your CRM Play Nice in the Sandbox?
While customization is crucial to fully utilizing the potential of CRM software, the technical aspect of customizing the software can be daunting. Don’t underestimate the importance of integrating your CRM with other business tools you use. CRMs do a lot for you, but if you don’t either replace or support the other software you’re using it can leave a big hole in your business operations. Consider, does your CRM integrate with QuickBooks, MailChimp, Evernote, your time tracking software, or your Google apps? Integration is a great way to maximize how you use your CRM.
Customization requires knowledge of the inner workings of the system. It’s best to use an experienced developer well versed in the language your software is built in to build a bridge between systems. Instead of doing it all yourself, find strategic partners who can help you navigate these complex software bridges. It will be money well spent when it’s done and implemented.
These challenges in customization sometimes cause businesses with the best intentions to fail to follow through. This is one of the primary reasons why companies fail to utilize their CRMs to their full potential.
Look Beyond the Basics
Before choosing a CRM, take some time to plan. Look at your business. Look at how your business works and what features are important to helping your business run smoothly. One big mistake people make is putting a bad process into a CRM. Automating a process doesn’t magically make it better. If it wasn’t working before, it won’t work once you automate it. Take the time to make your processes awesome, and then automate them through the CRM’s features.
In addition to helping businesses monitor the sales process, a fully optimized CRM system will offer features that will enhance multiple processes in their daily operations. These features may include:
- Remote and mobile access for ease of data entry on the go
- List management to easily segment your data into multiple groups
- Email campaign integration to effectively market to your prospects, new clients, and long-term clients
- The ability to track the time spent working on each client
- The ability to generate leads and set follow-up tasks to track the process of converting them from leads to new clients
- The ability to generate custom reports and analytics to help your business evaluate processes
Training and Implementation
Once you set up your business on a CRM, your next task is to train and implement the system with your team. Training is the key! Don’t make the mistake of throwing them a new piece of software to learn and expect them to divine how you want them to use it. A great leader creates an intentional system and then trains their staff on how to use the system the way it was meant to be used. We recommend creating a training video library your team can access anytime with questions on how to use your CRM.
When CRMs are customized to meet the needs of individual businesses, they can simplify workflow and provide insight into employee productivity. They can also help generate new leads and encourage relationship development with prospects and existing clients. However, employee time and knowledge constraints can hinder the implementation of the changes that need to be made.
Hiring a professional to set up your CRM software can eliminate the burden of customization from your staff while providing your business with the innumerable benefits of a fully utilized system. Our team at Business Made Simple can fully customize your CRM software, so your business processes flow effortlessly. We help you choose the CRM software that best fits the needs of your business, and then customize it to your unique business model. We can also design your system to automate your pipelines and set up analytics to track your KPIs. Contact us here to find out more about letting us handle your CRM setup.