In the current age, the CRM tool has emerged as the central focus point of varied businesses. The CRM is responsible for successfully compiling the contact details, communications; social media profile information and also valuable leads. These details are lived upon every day by the sales professional. In theoretical terms, the CRM plays the role of a colossal ‘brain’ or even an application that can be used for data purpose.
According to me, CRM can be considered as a holiday bay for data/information. It cannot work if it has not been sufficiently populated with the right sort of data. These days, everybody is using a CRM but the relevant question which arises is who owns it?
One of the major challenges is that nearly 46% of the CRM tools are not successfully rather failing and no sales department can work with this kind of figure.
What are the possible reasons for CRM failure?
CRM tools are essential for driving productivity across companies. They are not very cheap. Gartner has projected that the CRM domain has been worth $18 billion in the year 2012 and is likely to touch $36 billion by the year 2017.
Obviously, the adoption levels are going up and more business houses are coming to the forefront to save their data in the CRM tool. But, despite that the management of data is emerging as a tough job.
Let us take a close look at the five situations –
- Employees usually feel alienated when a new tool is introduced in a company. This often causes resentment and impact data entry process, as the benefit of CRM is not completely explained.
- When things do not function properly such as data or changes not getting saved or formatting of dates causes confusion.
- The imported contact records faces encoding errors and other mistakes that make them low on usability. This also means that records are often duplicated.
- Management consistently switching the business from one vendor to other with the aim to solve the problem.
All the above mentioned pointers lead to useless data. At all touch point, the CRM slowly becomes less efficient. It is being made polluted with the incorrect entries. And, also the worse the data becomes, the lesser number of people want to rely on it. A CRM tool should be able to offer support to client interactions and not meant for developing new kind of problems for the employees using it.
Data or information also undergoes decays, leading to the possibility of occur. According to projections, the data decay rate stands around 2% per month. This cannot be ignored and also a natural process. As the contacts change their jobs, alter their marital status, email address or even get promoted, the CRM starts to lose track of all these changes if not feed at the right time.
Taking a close look at the CRM failure rates, we have a complete range of statistics to work on. According to prediction, the CRM tool’s failure rate is near about 16%.
What is the effect?
The CRM tools have been developed with the aim to bring more effective communication with the clients and leads, which will help all the participants to finish the transactions within a short time span. It is believed that most of the technically sound CRM won’t be in a position to attain its targets if the details stored are not accurate.
Without the presence of accurate data, it does not become possible for the sales team to use the CRM tool for closing of deals. The marketing team cannot categorize its data/information in the accurate manner. The client becomes irritated when he/she receives numerous copies of the marketing messages with wrong data that should have been got rid of long ago. The IT department feels helpless for not being able to make changes in the data despite making several requests.
This is one way how CRM data becomes inconstant, jumbled up, sloppy in nature, invalid and also inaccurate. This data cannot be depended upon. It is time to save the CRM
- Ways to solve the problems within the CRM
The CRM tool needs to be viewed as useful software instead of a blockage. But at the same time, one needs to understand that it can be only be successfully implemented when the data quality is one of the priority factor that is taken care of.
The business should make investment in data quality software that is able to offer support to employees in their work and do not create new set of challenges. The usage of data quality tools needs to be proactive in nature as it can help in getting rid of the manual errors.
It is believed that the essential key is ownership. Offering the employees to voice their employee is considered as one of the ways a CRM can be saved from the hassle of useless data.
Considering the plan of action and also the people who will be able to lead this initiative is essential. The important key to the successful CRM data quality initiatives is the purchase at every level along with a vested interest in maintaining the cleanness of the data. It does not mean that you ask the IT department for the CRM clean up or asking the sales team to feed the correct details manually. It is time that businesses make changes in the very culture of the firm so that everybody understands that the data is meant for use, maintain and also clean.
- Selecting the right solution
The data quality tool needs to be developed in accordance to the software package in use. Most of the CRM vendors are offering specialized solutions. The key is choosing a particular software package that can be cleaned from time to time basis.
It is believed that huge data initiatives have not attained success due to the encoding problems. In most of the situations, it is advised that import and exports do not takes placed from one system to another. By maintaining data in the system, the data quality tools works in close coordination with the CRM tool, which extends and also helps in enriching the functionality by varied notches.
Taking a close look at the success stories
Gartner had claimed that the data quality helps enhance the productivity by up to 20%. With the passage of time, data quality emerged as a ‘limiting factor’ for ensuring the quality of the process.
But, it is believed that the data quality initiative can help turn things around considerably.
It is believed that a healthcare insurance firm can see the following scenarios –
- Rise in automatic decisions by 2% after the enhancement in data quality, which will in $1.5-million savings within a time span of 3 years.
- Possibility of returned mail can be lowered by 10%, which will help in saving worth $400,000 in 3 years.
- Reporting errors taking place due to the data quality issues could prove helpful in saving $525,000 during the same period.
After a CRM has been made clean, the clients can surely bag benefits from the improved communication along with a strong focus on their requirements. Engaging the workforce in ensuring that the CRM do not fail is important.
According to me, CRM can be considered as a holiday bay for data/information. It cannot work if it has not been sufficiently populated with the right sort of data. These days, everybody is using a CRM but the relevant question which arises is who owns it?
One of the major challenges is that nearly 46% of the CRM tools are not successfully rather failing and no sales department can work with this kind of figure.
What are the possible reasons for CRM failure?
CRM tools are essential for driving productivity across companies. They are not very cheap. Gartner has projected that the CRM domain has been worth $18 billion in the year 2012 and is likely to touch $36 billion by the year 2017.
Obviously, the adoption levels are going up and more business houses are coming to the forefront to save their data in the CRM tool. But, despite that the management of data is emerging as a tough job.
Let us take a close look at the five situations –
- Employees usually feel alienated when a new tool is introduced in a company. This often causes resentment and impact data entry process, as the benefit of CRM is not completely explained.
- When things do not function properly such as data or changes not getting saved or formatting of dates causes confusion.
- The imported contact records faces encoding errors and other mistakes that make them low on usability. This also means that records are often duplicated.
- Management consistently switching the business from one vendor to other with the aim to solve the problem.
All the above mentioned pointers lead to useless data. At all touch point, the CRM slowly becomes less efficient. It is being made polluted with the incorrect entries. And, also the worse the data becomes, the lesser number of people want to rely on it. A CRM tool should be able to offer support to client interactions and not meant for developing new kind of problems for the employees using it.
Data or information also undergoes decays, leading to the possibility of occur. According to projections, the data decay rate stands around 2% per month. This cannot be ignored and also a natural process. As the contacts change their jobs, alter their marital status, email address or even get promoted, the CRM starts to lose track of all these changes if not feed at the right time.
Taking a close look at the CRM failure rates, we have a complete range of statistics to work on. According to prediction, the CRM tool’s failure rate is near about 16%.
What is the effect?
The CRM tools have been developed with the aim to bring more effective communication with the clients and leads, which will help all the participants to finish the transactions within a short time span. It is believed that most of the technically sound CRM won’t be in a position to attain its targets if the details stored are not accurate.
Without the presence of accurate data, it does not become possible for the sales team to use the CRM tool for closing of deals. The marketing team cannot categorize its data/information in the accurate manner. The client becomes irritated when he/she receives numerous copies of the marketing messages with wrong data that should have been got rid of long ago. The IT department feels helpless for not being able to make changes in the data despite making several requests.
This is one way how CRM data becomes inconstant, jumbled up, sloppy in nature, invalid and also inaccurate. This data cannot be depended upon. It is time to save the CRM
- Ways to solve the problems within the CRM
The CRM tool needs to be viewed as useful software instead of a blockage. But at the same time, one needs to understand that it can be only be successfully implemented when the data quality is one of the priority factor that is taken care of.
The business should make investment in data quality software that is able to offer support to employees in their work and do not create new set of challenges. The usage of data quality tools needs to be proactive in nature as it can help in getting rid of the manual errors.
It is believed that the essential key is ownership. Offering the employees to voice their employee is considered as one of the ways a CRM can be saved from the hassle of useless data.
Considering the plan of action and also the people who will be able to lead this initiative is essential. The important key to the successful CRM data quality initiatives is the purchase at every level along with a vested interest in maintaining the cleanness of the data. It does not mean that you ask the IT department for the CRM clean up or asking the sales team to feed the correct details manually. It is time that businesses make changes in the very culture of the firm so that everybody understands that the data is meant for use, maintain and also clean.
- Selecting the right solution
The data quality tool needs to be developed in accordance to the software package in use. Most of the CRM vendors are offering specialized solutions. The key is choosing a particular software package that can be cleaned from time to time basis.
It is believed that huge data initiatives have not attained success due to the encoding problems. In most of the situations, it is advised that import and exports do not takes placed from one system to another. By maintaining data in the system, the data quality tools works in close coordination with the CRM tool, which extends and also helps in enriching the functionality by varied notches.
Taking a close look at the success stories
Gartner had claimed that the data quality helps enhance the productivity by up to 20%. With the passage of time, data quality emerged as a ‘limiting factor’ for ensuring the quality of the process.
But, it is believed that the data quality initiative can help turn things around considerably.
It is believed that a healthcare insurance firm can see the following scenarios –
- Rise in automatic decisions by 2% after the enhancement in data quality, which will in $1.5-million savings within a time span of 3 years.
- Possibility of returned mail can be lowered by 10%, which will help in saving worth $400,000 in 3 years.
- Reporting errors taking place due to the data quality issues could prove helpful in saving $525,000 during the same period.
After a CRM has been made clean, the clients can surely bag benefits from the improved communication along with a strong focus on their requirements. Engaging the workforce in ensuring that the CRM do not fail is important.