If you are planning to buy a CRM and are really skeptic about what it has to offer you, I have 9 CRM facts that may attract or repulse you from this technology.
Market:
So you are in the habit of watching out trends and adopting what is “in” to avoid risk. People with no appetite for risk tend to do complete analysis before making a purchase decision or adopting something that equals a novelty for them. Being on the safe end is good so if you are planning to buy a CRM and are really skeptic about what it has to offer you, the fact may interest you that according to Gartner’s forecasts CRM market will be worth $36.4 million worldwide by 2017. This gives you an idea of the success and rapid growth of the CRM technology so if you are still dangling between “to buy or not to buy”, this forecast may help you to lean towards one end.
CRM Penetration:
Wondering how many people are using CRM out there? A survey carried out by DiscoverOrg revealed that on-premise customer solutions have lost currency and 15% of the organizations have supplanted their old on-premise customer service applications with the SaaS solution. 24% of the organizations that do not afford or want to replace their old On-premise applications have adopted SaaS to augment their existing solutions.
Usage:
But there are always those traditionalists and skeptics who do not trust any new technology easily and prefer to keep working in their old ways. The same survey conducted by DiscoverOrg found out that such people made up 23.8% of the total population they chose for their research. Well, I was expecting a greater number but the world has really started to change rapidly I believe now.
Failure:
And now goes the most heartbreaking fact about CRM software that might affect your purchase decision. Yeah, that is the failure to meet clients’ expectations. It was discovered that between 25 to 60% of the CRM systems fail to make it to the benchmark and disappoint the clients. A number of factors could be involved in this failure to meet expectations but methinks its probably the clients’ unawareness that hampers the performance of the software hindering the way of its complete and effective implementation.
Potential benefit:
As it has been discussed earlier that CRM requires proper and effective implementation to provide what is expected from it but many users fail to understand this very clause and eventually start blaming CRM for not performing well. Till 2012 companies had still not discovered 80% of the potential of CRM uses therefore ended up saying good bye to this technology. Integration, collaboration and extension are the major areas where there is a lot of room for improvement.
Average return:
Marketing cannot be ROI. No matter what your consultant tells you, its virtually impossible to instantly draw profit from a marketing investment. The CRM software, however, makes sure that you get the return of your investment as quickly as possible and on an average it promises the return of $5.60 against each dollar spent.
Company size vs CRM usage:
It is obvious that companies use CRM according to the size, SOPs and preferences. A small bakery in the town cannot use CRM the way a large mobile phone service provider does. 91% of companies with more than 11 employees use a CRM system, compared with 50% of companies employing fewer than 10 people. It doesn’t mean that CRM is of no use for the companies of very small size, it still can help them get more customers and streamline the business processes leading to the growth of their business.
Mobile CRM:
We have got an app for everything now facebook, twitter, linkedin, youtube, email so how could CRM stay behind. Now the sales reps enjoy their amazing experience with access to CRM in the remotest areas. A fair 15% increase in the productivity has been observed after sales rep got their hands on mobile CRM.
Poor customer service:
Customer experience matters. It was observed that 78% of the consumers changed their purchase experience at the last moment due to poor customer service experience.