The most common CRM-related problems I’ve found for companies over the years revolve around sales processes. For example, most industrial sales organizations are giving nonqualified leads to the sales team with no follow-up process, resulting in wasted effort. Quote management, too, often takes place without a true process to guide it, inviting inconsistency and assuring that some potential sales will always slip through the cracks. And the list goes on.
These process gaps can occur whether your company uses old-school tracking methods like Excel or the latest customer relationship management (CRM) software platform. It’s true that the right platform can help you share the data generated by your sales, marketing and service processes, bridging these islands of data in powerful ways. But the processes themselves (and the data that underlie them) are what make CRM powerful – not the other way around.
With CRM, you get out of it what you put into it, and this is true even before you implement a new system. Before you spend another minute looking at the many CRM solutions that are out there, spend some time considering which processes you’re trying to improve. Only then can you explore how CRM can help you better implement and connect these processes.
Need help identifying your process gaps? I outline a step-by-step process to identify and act on those gaps in Chapter 2 of my new book “ROI from CRM.” Order your copy today.