Mistakes To Avoid In CRM Design
Posted by Susan A. Enns under Sales Management Skills
Over the years, CRM programs have advanced from simple, easy to use systems to complex behemoths that no one uses or understands. To prevent this, your CRM program should avoid the three basic mistakes in CRM design:
- Tracking just your current customers only works if you have 100% market share and you never again need to attract new customers. Since that is highly unlikely, you must also track your potential customers, however do not have a separate system for each. This just wastes time and energy, when in reality, the only reason for a CRM program is to ensure that you are spending your sales resources on the company who is going to buy next, not just who has bought in the past.
- Don’t just track who is going to buy, also track when. A CRM program that doesn’t track this critical information is really just a glorified phone book! Your CRM program should include a mandatory field such as “Next Sales Contact Date”. This will then change the filing method of your alphabetical phone book to a gold mine organized by the date of the prospects next purchase.
- Every company that your organization ever contacts should be tracked, even if a company will probably never buy from you. Not only it is important for you to know where to go when, but it is also important for you to know where not to go.
The secret to an effective CRM program is based on how you manage your relationship with your new customers as well as your existing customers. It literally means the difference between building a successful business for the long term, or constantly fighting to keep you head above water because you always have to spend your time and resources attracting new customers.
Aim Higher!
Susan A. Enns, B2B Sales Connections
Susan, the one issue I have is having to duplicate the same information in different forms. For example, we use Excel for our customer database, and I use Outlook to track my next calls/appointments, etc. Then I have a sales forecast sheet to fill in for senior management. And we have file folders for “better than 50% probability” prospects. Cut and paste is fine in 50% of the times but it still requires me to input to all locations. If the phone rings, late for a meeting already, potty, etc interfere, it becomes a nightmare. I have used some CRM’s that allow you to capture info on a prospect, but when you turn them into a client, the background info doesn’t move with it. Very annoying.
Latching on to a good CRM is an exercise in patience and lots of research.
Completely agree Fred! A sales person’s time is extrememly valuable. Any time that is spent duplicating efforts is time wasted. More importantly, it’s time that could have been spent in front of a customer! When you work the numbers, if a sales rep has a $1 million quota, there time is worth $2,000 an hour!
I believe a better design is one where the sales person’s data entry is automated with the use of drop down lists and links to other fields. That way, the information is only entered once, saving time and reducing errors. I have created reporting systems like this using Excel in the past so I know that it is possible.
Thanks for your comments, Fred. They are greatly appreciated!