8 Most Common CRM Mistakes & How to Avoid Them
Jess served on the founding team of a successful B2B startup and has used a wide range of sales and marketing tools over the course of her 15-year career. She uses her industry knowledge to deliver the best answers to your questions about sales tools and sales management.
Jill is a writer at Fit Small Business specializing on Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software.
This article is part of a larger series on CRM.
Customer relationship management (CRM) systems help businesses grow by streamlining sales processes. However, the right CRM system must be in place to ensure a successful deployment. Various factors contribute to CRM software’s effectiveness, including the right features, proper implementation, and correct third-party integrations. In this article, learn how to avoid CRM mistakes that are potentially costly and could complicate your sales processes.
To help you get the most out of your CRM, we share eight common mistakes businesses make related to their customer relationship management systems and how you can avoid them.
1. Subscribing to a CRM With More Features Than You Need
One common mistake in choosing a CRM system is being attracted to a long list of features without knowing if your business requires them. In fact, 43% of users utilize only half of the features in their CRM. Remember, you don’t necessarily have to choose the most advanced and feature-rich CRM. Instead, determine the one most suited for you based on your business needs and requirements. Ensure that it is aligned with your budget and priorities.
How to Avoid This Mistake
In the phase of researching which CRM system to use, make a list of potential features you’ll need. Get the inputs of your target end-users (e.g., sales, service, and marketing teams), asking about the workflow pain points they want to solve.
Check our article on choosing a CRM and download our free template where you can list potential features and get inputs from your team.
Create a shopping list where your team can provide their input on whether they need a specific feature or not.
Download Your Free Guide to Choosing a CRM
2. Not Clearly Explaining the Benefits of the CRM to Your Team
One of the biggest barriers to CRM adoption is the lack of understanding among end-users. When your team doesn’t understand the use of a new tool being introduced to them and how it can help make their work easier, the willingness to learn will be consequently low.
Did you know? Thirty-four percent of small businesses cited resistance to change as one of the reasons why they don’t use a CRM. The common cause for this is a lack of understanding of how it can help them with their sales process and daily tasks.
How to Avoid This Mistake
Involve your team in the decision-making process of choosing CRM software so they understand why your business requires it early on. When they are involved in the selection process, they will appreciate why the tool is being introduced and how it can make their lives easier—rather than adding work to their plates.
Here are some of the ways you can get your team on board:
- Have them review potential vendors’ features
- Involve them in the trial phase
Remember to avoid simply introducing the CRM once it has already been implemented and asking your team to use it without a proper introduction. This will only lead to potential resistance and a low adoption rate. Check out our guide on how to increase CRM adoption and gain buy-in from your team on using a CRM system.
3. Failing to Train Your Team on How to Use the CRM Properly
Choosing the right CRM is only half the battle when it comes to successfully using one. A robust CRM tool means nothing if no one knows how to use it. Hence, correctly implementing and training your end-users on how to use it is essential. Doing so helps your team understand the need and benefits of using the system and encourages them to integrate it into their daily tasks. This step will help you avoid having a low adoption rate.
Unfortunately, businesses have a long way to go when it comes to CRM adoption. In fact, an adoption rate of only 26% is seen across various industries. A low adoption rate could be detrimental to your business as research shows that a CRM adoption rate of less than 75% leads to decreased sales team performance.
How to Avoid This Mistake
The best way to avoid this mistake is by having a proper training program in place so your end-users have a chance to explore the system before officially adopting it in their day-to-day activities. Check out our guide on how to train your team to use CRM. Discover practical training tips involving planning, utilizing resources, determining best practices, and creating training modules to make the most out of your investment.
4. Not Maximizing the Use of Mobile CRM
The main benefit of accessing CRM via mobile devices is that you can do it anytime, anywhere. It keeps you on top of your tasks without the need to be in front of your computer all the time. Not maximizing your CRM’s mobile app slows down your response time to customers and increases the chance you will miss important customer updates.
Unsurprisingly, around 65% of salespeople who use mobile CRM meet their sales quotas compared to 22% who don’t. Research also found out that 50% of teams who use mobile CRMs improved their overall productivity.
How to Avoid This Mistake
Choose a CRM system with an excellent mobile CRM app and ensure your sales team downloads and uses it. Check out our guide on the best mobile CRM apps, where we review available software that can benefit users who are always on the go.
Zoho CRM’s mobile app has an excellent user interface, making it easy for agents to stay on top of their tasks wherever they are. (Source: Zoho CRM)
5. Not Maintaining Clean, Accurate Customer Data
Customer data is the lifeblood of your CRM. As such, making sure you properly migrate and maintain correct and updated customer data into your CRM system is of utmost importance. Despite this, many businesses still fall into the trap of maintaining “bad data,” which results in inaccurate sales forecasts and outdated customer information.
According to IBM, bad data costs companies in the U.S. a staggering $3 trillion every year. Bad data doesn’t only refer to wrong or inaccurate data—it also includes missing, outdated, and incomplete data.
How to Avoid This Mistake
Create standard practices on data entry for your team to follow. For example, identify mandatory fields that must be filled out when creating a new customer profile to lessen duplications. These could include their full name, company, contact details, including landline and mobile, address, and social media profiles.
Pipedrive lets users identify mandatory fields when filling up information in the system to avoid missing important details. (Source: Pipedrive)
Apart from this, schedule monthly maintenance checks to clean up your system. Doing so helps your team spot duplicates and missing information, which can be addressed immediately when done on a regular basis.
6. Not Integrating Other Business Tools or Software
One of the greatest benefits of using business tools and multiple software is their ability to integrate with one another. Failing to do so decreases productivity levels as it forces users to use multiple systems and toggle between various business tools. As a result, this increases the chances of data duplications and scattered business information. In fact, 17% of salespeople said that the lack of integrations with other business tools is one of their biggest challenges in using their CRM tool.
How to Avoid This Mistake
Before purchasing a CRM, make a list of all your existing business tools and see if they are compatible with one another. CRM providers usually have a list of native and third-party integrations available to use with their system. If you have an existing CRM and are planning to subscribe to other business tools, such as email marketing or social media management, you can do the same by checking first if your CRM integrates with them.
If your CRM doesn’t directly integrate with a certain business tool, find out if you can integrate them via Zapier. Zapier is an online automation tool that connects apps and services. Two or more apps can be connected to automate repetitive tasks without coding or relying on developers to build the integration.
Some CRMs, like HubSpot, have a vast ecosystem of integrations, making it easy for users to connect and sync information between multiple business tools. (Source: HubSpot)
7. Selecting a CRM That Doesn’t Match Your Level of Technical Experience
One of the most important considerations in choosing a CRM is subscribing to one that matches your team’s technical experience and background. Unfortunately, some businesses overlook this aspect as a result of wanting to subscribe to an advanced system with a long list of features.
Data shows that 86% of users consider user-friendliness the most crucial factor when choosing a new system, and 72% of users prefer a CRM tool that’s easy to use over one with more features.
How to Avoid This Mistake
Ease of use could be subjective, as the definition of “easy” greatly varies from one user to another. However, two things that can save you from subscribing to a system too technical for you are the following:
- Maximizing free trials
- Requesting live demos
These steps expose you to the actual environment of the CRM you’re planning to use. You should consider the extensiveness of customer support and training materials available.
If your team is new to using CRM and requires one that is simple and user-friendly, we’ve done the research for you. Check out our article on the best simple CRM systems to discover the most suitable for your business needs.
With a simple and clean interface, Really Simple Systems is among our top picks for the best simple CRM. It also provides detailed instructions helpful to new users. (Source: Really Simple Systems)
8. Not Considering Implementation Costs
Many CRMs can be used right out of the box. However, there are also a handful of options, especially those needing a lot of customizations, that require additional implementation costs on top of the monthly subscription fees.
Implementation of some CRMs requires business owners to shell out around $1,200 to $5,000 in fees. It is also not unusual for businesses to underestimate costs. An initial $20,000 implementation fee estimate could end up being two to three times more expensive before the process gets completed.
How to Avoid This Mistake
Conduct in-depth research when selecting your CRM and determine if you should allocate an additional budget for implementation fees. Be inquisitive in the process of choosing your CRM, and don’t hesitate to ask questions from the providers’ sales teams. Below are a couple of items that could potentially add up to your implementation costs:
- System migration: When switching to a new CRM software, find out if additional expenses are necessary to migrate your existing data to the new one. Some providers, like HubSpot, charge as high as $1,800 for data migration.
- Level of customization: CRM systems, especially sophisticated ones like Salesforce, require a high level of customization to fit your business needs. While it is not available on its website, it is estimated that Salesforce’s implementation charges can range from $10,000 to $50,000.
Bottom Line
CRM mistakes are costly. They don’t only involve financial impacts but also the loss of valuable time and key customer data. Fortunately, careful research on various aspects, such as knowing the right features, proper implementation, and integrating the correct third-party apps, can save you from falling into common CRM traps. Carefully consider the CRM mistakes outlined in this article and how to avoid them to protect your business from potential hiccups down the road.
