Dealing with a CRM failure is the last thing any company wants to deal with. The truth is that CRM implementations go awry for a variety of reasons. Businesses frequently lack a thorough understanding of what CRM can accomplish and what it requires to function effectively.

If you make the mistake of thinking it’s some kind of magical solution, you could be setting yourself up for a CRM disaster. Failure can be avoided. You can avoid being disappointed if you first learn what a CRM does and look at the mistakes others have made before moving forward.

Most of these issues can be fixed long before they jeopardize the entire CRM effort if they are detected early. Let’s take a look at the top reasons why CRMs don’t perform well, as well as how to improve them.

Top (avoidable) reasons why CRMs fail:

Putting the consumer at the bottom of the priority list

When a CRM is built without your customers’ needs in mind, for example, by focusing entirely on raising sales KPIs, many of the software’s best features are rendered useless. The customer is at the center of a well-designed CRM system.

Having no vision

Not setting clear-cut goals and targets is a very common mistake companies make when embarking on a CRM initiative. CRM software is built to be versatile and flexible, allowing it to be utilized in a variety of sectors and scenarios. It’s easy to lose focus during the design and implementation process if you don’t have a clear vision of what you want your CRM to do.

The more precise your plans are for how the CRM will function, such as how employees will utilize it in their day-to-today tasks and how it will improve your KPIs, the more likely it will be a success.

Having no design plan for evolution

A successful company grows and develops throughout time, offering new products and services to its clients. A strong CRM should be built with this extension in mind, allowing for refinement, enlargement, and other future requirements. This gives people a way to report bugs and make suggestions for changes that should be made in the next version of the CRM.

Lack of assistance

If you don’t have a CRM champion (i.e. An Administrator, Consultant, or Developer), getting a high level of assistance from your CRM vendor would become critical. As your company develops and changes, your employees will have questions regarding the system, and your software will inevitably require adjustments and tweaks. Your CRM partners must be ready to assist you at all times, not just during deployment.

Using unsuitable software

Choosing the right partner, as well as the correct software, is critical to your success. Others will make the opposite mistake, investing a small sum in a machine with a slew of features they will never use. When choosing the best CRM software for your business, cost is important, but it shouldn’t be your top priority.

There are no measurable goals

There’s no way to tell if a CRM is a success without the correct KPIs. Clear, measurable objectives that can be easily tracked, analyzed, and evaluated are required for your CRM project.

This enables you to make changes to the CRM, workflows, and even training well before the CRM is in danger of failing.

Employees do not have faith in the data

The CRM isn’t always to blame for a CRM’s failure. The CRM’s data sources are sometimes to blame. Incomplete or poorly inputted client data is an excellent illustration of this, and it might make staff wary of the information in the CRM. 

It’s easy to see why a salesperson might be hesitant to rely on the CRM to make sales calls if the CRM has incorrect names or phone numbers associated with prospect data. You should retrain employees using best practices.

Members of the team are unsure about their responsibilities

You must provide enough user training and documentation to back it up. When this support is unavailable, the CRM quickly loses its effectiveness. Each team member must completely comprehend their individual use case in order to get the most out of the CRM.

CRM is regarded as a one-time investment

An excellent CRM does not come from a single, flawless installation. Continuous improvements, changes, and expansions, on the other hand, lead to success. Because your business is continually changing, the CRM will never be “perfect.” If your CRM isn’t working properly, it may need to be updated so that it can expand.

A good implementation partner, on the other hand, will not quit the project once the CRM is up and running. Instead, they will communicate with you on a regular basis, providing you with the ideas and help you require to keep the CRM running well.

Attempting the procedure on your own and lack of user acceptance

If effectively implemented, a CRM system can dramatically increase your company’s efficiency. Partner with a professional in customer relationship management software to make sure that your staff is engaged and that you are getting the most out of your investment.

The majority of customer relationship management project failures are due to low user acceptance rates. When your employees and other CRM users intentionally resist understanding the basics of the system, this happens. Perhaps the CRM isn’t adequately linked with existing workflows and processes, or the system is simply too complicated.

Most of the time, this problem can be avoided by including end users in the design and testing of the user experience and by making CRM training better.

Believing CRM is only a technological solution

It’s easy for businesses to get caught up in the technology underlying their CRM initiatives, but it’s critical to remember that these software solutions should always be aimed at improving customer connections. Technology alone will not be able to improve those interactions. CRM technology can be used to its fullest when it is integrated with the right workflows, handled by well-trained employees, and carefully maintained.

Inadequate planning and lack of training

It is not an easy undertaking to set up a CRM system. It’s a multi-stage process that involves developing defined workflows, software systems, data curation, user testing, and employee training from a general outline. Trying to figure things out on the fly isn’t a good idea in this case.

Every minute you spend planning makes it easier to avoid confusion and stress in the future, which in turn makes it easier to avoid CRM failure. It’s critical that you adequately train your team, regardless of how you choose to deploy your CRM software. Even for those who are very tech-savvy, CRM software can have a high learning curve. 

Cutting training time may appear to be a good method to save money on a project, but it frequently leads to low user engagement and an increased risk of CRM failure. Don’t scrimp on training if you want your team to get the most out of the CRM software.

Having no executive buy-in

Everyone involved in the process must be on board in order for your CRM system to be successful. While your sales and marketing teams may understand the importance of a CRM, its benefits to other departments may not be as evident. This is true even for executives, who may be more concerned with the cost of a new CRM than with its benefits.

It’s not enough for C-suite executives to agree to try out a CRM; they must be completely committed to it. The more people comprehend the CRM’s importance to the business, the more invested they will become in its long-term success.

Poor vendor selection and a failure to include end consumers in the process

Is it possible that your CRM may fail because you chose the incorrect partners? Yes! Some vendors adopt a one-size-fits-all approach to their job, offering a generic CRM that isn’t tailored to the client’s specific requirements. If a disagreement occurs between their client’s business operations and their one-size-fits-all software, they would rather alter the business than adjust their own code. A real CRM partner will always create a solution that is customized to your needs.

Create your CRM with the needs of the people who will utilize it the most in mind. A procedure that makes sense to a CRM vendor’s coder or UX designer may be perplexingly unintuitive or painfully sluggish to the salesman, support desk representative, or data entry worker who must use the system every day. These end users are frequently the ones who determine whether a CRM project succeeds or fails.

If the system is badly planned and implemented, users will either avoid using it or, worse still, use it in a way that makes the process less efficient than not having one at all. These hassles and costs can frequently be avoided entirely by including these end users in the planning and user-testing stages.

Bad CRM data

Your CRM software works because it gives you insight into the information you collect about your customers. Data that is faulty, outdated, or just inaccurate cannot be made useful by the CRM. Your data must be as clean and thorough as possible in order to yield significant results.

Before you start your CRM project, make sure your data and the ways you get it are in the best shape possible.

Business and technical teams do not collaborate

Every department in your organization is critical to the company’s overall success. These departments, on the other hand, have their own objectives, considerations, and opinions about how to approach any given issue. When working on a project that spans numerous departments, such as a new CRM, one of the most difficult obstacles to overcome is getting different teams to agree on a mutually beneficial solution.

This frequently entails dismantling departmental barriers, liberating data from specific department silos, and establishing standard protocols for obtaining and utilizing customer data. To ensure that everyone benefits from CRM software, your business and tech teams may need to collaborate in new ways.

Take Away

Apart from the aforementioned considerations, you must also ensure that the data in the system is accurate and that the new CRM system interfaces seamlessly with your existing systems. Consider email, document sharing, marketing software, and sales automation. All of these must be considered, not only to ensure a successful migration but also to avoid the cost and effort of replacing software that is already doing well.

Make sure to delete duplicates, inaccurate, or incomplete information when integrating data or sources of data. You will obtain the best quality by simply putting clean and relevant information in.

Martin Gessner

Martin Gessner is the Founder of Focus on Force.

He has spent over 10 years working in various Salesforce roles including business analyst, project manager, consultant and solutions architect. Along the way he has earned twelve certifications, published "The Salesforce Career Playbook", and helps Salesforce professionals learn more about Salesforce, develop their career and prepare for certifications.