March 18, 2019 at 12:14How to fail the implementation of a CRM system?
One of my colleagues really wanted to have an iPhone 4S. Then it was just the top of the show. Having received the award, she refused the vacation and bought it - white, pleasantly weighty, the envy of the entire commercial service. After a while, she began to complain that, they say, she doesn’t understand what everyone found in these iPhones, the dialer and dialer, it's just scary to drop it, and the photos are not bad. Speaking about applications, features, a photo stream, updates and other things, she said that she turned off access to the Internet, because it is expensive and generally pampering. Thus, she turned the top-end smartphone in its time into a ringing brick. “What a silly one!” We laughed, probably some readers thought the same way.
I don’t think so for a long time - since I have been working with the implementation of corporate software. Smoking Kazbek and saving on matches is almost the motto of small and medium-sized businesses in everything related to IT. As a result: inefficiency, failure of implementation, waste of money, hatred of all software at once, and contempt for successful projects.
In general, write down the ways to fail the implementation of CRM, and indeed of any software - in the end, the smart learns from the mistakes of others.
There are statistics that from 20% to 60% of CRM projects fail or do not live up to expectations. To be honest, weird statistics: firstly, such a plug of values is not great, secondly, what kind of CRM and in which area, thirdly, vendor or partner? Basically, for our RegionSoft CRM development teamit is clear what this is most likely about and where the scale of numbers comes from. The statistics most likely included partial implementations (when software is used in a small part of functions and does not please the company at all), subjectively unsuccessful implementations (the company does not like everything, but it continues to use the system for which it paid), etc. In fact, there can be several reasons for failures, and each business will formulate them as unique, but in fact one can single out a large but finite list of reasons for unsuccessful and unsatisfactory implementation of CRM systems. Our team has gathered the very best, and is ready to tell you about them. Do not fill your cones - study strangers!
This is how companies that bought CRM look and use it to a minimum or do not use it at all
Among others, perhaps, the lack of focus on the goals of the company is leading. Often, companies are looking for a CRM-system not for the sake of increasing sales, optimizing business processes, increasing the quality of service, but only for the sake of "that it is." This is an initially unsuccessful implementation: there is no understanding how you will use the tool, which means that it will remain unclaimed.
What to do?Define the goals of the company and the goals of implementing the CRM system. It is desirable that they correlate, in other words, have common ground. The process is quite simple: take a leaflet, write the goals of the company (preferably by departments or employees), take the second - write the goals for implementing CRM. From this moment, your CRM system requirements begin to form, with which you can start working with vendors. It is especially important to set goals if your company is engaged in specific activities: advertising, publishing, medical services, transportation, and so on.
Over 12 years of RegionSoft CRM implementations, we realized that it rarely happens that the whole team is “for one” ready to accept a CRM system and contribute to the quickest start of operation. This is a fantasy story. More often, the implementation of a CRM system is imposed from above: a directive is dropped, installation is made, training is carried out (at best!), Work begins. All. They didn’t ask anyone, they didn’t take into account anyone’s requests, they didn’t work with early followers, and later they ignored the majority.
In such a situation, the introduction can be successful thanks to the experience of top management and the efforts of the vendor, but the adoption of the system and the beginning of its productive work is postponed indefinitely, because questions begin, quiet strikes and even frank boycotts. Employees are not psychologically ready to accept the innovation, they are afraid of controlling and tightening the nuts in the company. Why? Because the CRM system was introduced for a tick, and not for work - for example, so that CIO or CTO received annual bonuses for automation. Such is the corporate lobby.
What to do?Of course, in corporate reality, directives from above are not news, and sometimes it is even impractical to avoid such decisions. But in the case of the introduction of software that everyone will use, the situation is different: if employees do not support the project, they if it does not fail, then it is guaranteed to complicate. Therefore, implementation should be a collective decision: with justification, discussion, collection of requirements and quality phased training. This does not exclude the problems of adopting a new program, but each unit will have an understanding of who will use the CRM system and how .
Even advanced users can fall into an easy stupor when they first see the new interface. What can I say about users with a late adaptation period - for example, the seller used 1C to generate accounts and did not see other software in his eyes, and suddenly a new interface appears in front of him, sometimes 1C is completely different. Trite psychology is working - active resistance to everything new. Under these conditions, the worst thing that can be done is to refuse vendor training or turn it into a formal lecture. An untrained employee, left to himself or to help on the program, is highly likely to abandon this bad business and return to 1C or Excel. He is simply familiar and comfortable in them. CRM will lose all meaning.
What to do? We already told about how to implement a CRM-system with good training, but we repeat once again the most basic, simple rules that solve most of the problems of adapting employees to new software (not just CRM-system).
No, in no case do not think that you buy CRM and it does not suddenly start. With serious vendors this does not happen. Four major troubles can happen here.
In general, it’s hard to imagine a CRM system that works just like some are advertised. Our favorite promises among others are setting up in an hour, starting in 15 minutes, free without restrictions, implementing in three days / half an hour / hour / 15 minutes, implementing without training and a sales funnel that "conducts the client itself." Such advertising, which has nothing to do with reality, leads to the fact that companies consider the CRM system to be something unnecessary or endow it with some kind of almost magical properties, and then are disappointed.
What to do?Surprise the vendor - ask him about the technical details of the CRM system. Do not be afraid to appear uninformed or confuse the mail client with the mail server. You do not have to understand these details (unless, of course, you have a CIO or CTO - this is rare for small and medium-sized businesses), but the vendor is obliged to tell you and explain all the technical nuances: which DBMS and how much it costs, what load it can withstand; What are the CRM system requirements? Is there a built-in email client and business process editor? how are things with telephony and so on.
The first aspect of this approach is the expectation that the installed software will do a miracle, make sales and make a profit. The program itself will not solve anything, it is designed to be an instrument of a complex system of business processes and customer relationship strategies. Relatively speaking, if your salespeople spend all day on Facebook or on Ozon, the marketer draws another formal SWOT analysis and holds the hundredth meeting in a month, and the service sends customers a standby time for a decision for a week or two, CRM alone can’t do anything can, but on the contrary, become an excess asset and an unjustified investment. Because yes - this is just a program: shell, kernel, interface. And if you do not find ways to organize the work of employees in this program, it will be idle.
A CRM system is inherently an application software. And the hero of the “Undergrowth” Fonvizin in this case would be right if he said that if applied, then something needs to be applied. Namely, to make common corporate efforts to develop sales and work with clients. If you want another example, CRM is a catalyst for accelerating complex reactions and interactions within a business.
The second aspect of a purely technical approach is to shift the issue of implementing a CRM system (from choice to start of operation) entirely to the shoulders of the IT department or system administrator. This is fraught with the fact that you get the most technically sophisticated system with ideal settings, which again will be idle, because it does not meet the requirements of the commercial service, marketers, support, logisticians - that is, the main users.
What to do?As we have already said, to make implementation a collective process, create a working group and teach employees to work productively with the selected CRM system. By the way, the internal expert that we talked about above should also be from active user groups, not from the IT department. So you can also avoid the pressure of IT specialists on users and users feeling technical illiteracy, which often strongly demotivates. “So what about the registry?” Cleaned? How not? Well, through cmd and regedit. Yes, this child knows! ”- if the article is read by people who are far from administering, they obviously are familiar with cringing from these words at the first incomprehensible PC freezes. I recommend in response to say: “Award? Aren't you aware of the structure of the payroll and retained earnings for the quarter? EBITDA and EBIT have not yet been calculated
This is simply the top reason for the failure of the implementation of the CRM system. It's simple: if you don’t have a vision of streamlined business processes in the company, you don’t have a CRM strategy. Of course, in the end, 99% of companies have the goal of generating income, but this task can in no way be the goal of the business process and the implementation of CRM. This is the result of fulfilling some goals that are relevant for the company: increasing the life cycle of customers, increasing the number of sales, increasing the average check amount, increasing market share, etc. And for such purposes, that is, under the strategy of customer relationship management (CRM) software should be sharpened - your CRM system. If you don’t know what your strategy is and you don’t have an understanding of the processes, implementation can result in a budget drain. But if there is a vision or you are ready to review and optimize business processes,
What to do? Business process reengineering is where implementation should begin. How to do this, we talked about in our article about business processes and implementation . If you have difficulties, involve a vendor or at least a good consultant in this work (not to be confused with coaches and info gypsies!). But I am convinced that the best way for a company is to independently understand business processes, draw diagrams, assign stages, deadlines and responsible ones, remove all unnecessary ones and only then learn from the vendor to automate them in the interface of the selected CRM system. By the way, this can be done already after the start of operation of the system - moreover, in many ways this is even better.
Well and one more immutable rule: the business process has changed - immediately make changes to the CRM system.
CRM in a company with unresolved business processes. Really, nothing unusual?
The patchwork implementation of a CRM system is another big mistake. It can take many forms - let's look at a few examples with different participants.
These are two fairly common situations, of course there are others: reluctance to transfer data, rare use, fragmented introduction of information, etc. Moreover, this behavior does not depend on the convenience of the system, its interface, speed and other parameters - the human factor prevails here.
It happens like this: CRM-system begins to stall in perfectionism. The system does not start up until users configure and learn absolutely all the functions, work with the system is delayed for a long time. This situation is fraught with the fact that the work will not start, since it is difficult to make an ideal CRM system without starting to work in it fully and without understanding the features in real conditions. Best practices come only through experience.
What to do?The best cure for patchwork implementation is a continuous and continuous implementation: complex settings (for example, integration with a virtual PBX, modeling of business processes) should be carried out simultaneously with the start of operation, data entry and filling the CRM system with working entities. This, firstly, will allow you to see the early effect, secondly, it will reduce the payback period, thirdly, it will greatly facilitate the perception of the CRM system by employees, since the changes will be gradual and they will not have to learn all the modules and functions at once. At the same time, CRM should not be mastered exclusively "at the top", you need to use the maximum functionality, find application for all modules. At first glance, some of the possibilities may seem superfluous, but with a more detailed approach it becomes clear that business automation is multifaceted and it is all the more effective,
CRM was just bought (more often - rented), but not implemented. This is a common story: many of us have paid subscriptions, which we do not use, in companies there is a regularly paid, but not set up or just poorly functioning corporate portal, Yandex.Direct, a blog on Habré, etc. Bills are paid, the service is not is used. It’s exactly the same with the CRM system - it’s paid, and okay, we’re about to begin, there’s about to be a meeting and we will share responsibilities, just about ... In fact, this is a kind of procrastination on a corporate scale.
What to do?First of all, to understand why this happened: CRM-system is inconvenient, slows down, does not provide the necessary features? And already fight precisely with these reasons, and then take measures to bring the software into operation or to replace it with a similar, but more suitable solution.
Trading with a vendor is a great way to kill an implant and pay twice. The vendor will agree with your amount and go to optimize its processes, which will inevitably lead to a decrease in the quality of implementation. Let us tell you a secret: for small and medium-sized businesses, CRM is quite inexpensive, and saving hundreds of thousands of rubles can fail a cool implementation.
What to do? First of all, do not make promises about a free CRM system and CRM with a 70% discount. This is the first reason that creates the desire to save - well, why pay if it happens for free ?! It is important to understand that a CRM system does not always cost as much as is written in the price list, usually implementation is more expensive. Paying for the implementation of a CRM system, you invest in your business, in its quality development. On this, as well as on corporate security (which, incidentally, includes a CRM-system), it is not worth saving.
Cycling CRM only on sales automation and using the system as a to-do list and a call list is another common mistake. And the market on which CRM is called absolutely everything is guilty of it: from an electronic notebook to almost ERP. Previously, there was a division into SFA and CRM, and the latter was assigned the correct role of a universal tool for automating all business processes related to customers, not just sales.
If CRM is used exclusively as a sales funnel + a means of storing a client base, it will turn out like this: it seems that activity is growing and even revenue is growing, but the growth is extensive. And if you pay attention to the quality of staff’s actions, delve into business processes, the growth will be delayed, but intense. By the way, the best option is to combine the extensive use of the system with building up its potential and accessing progress (the very gradual implementation that we wrote about above).
What to do? Use the CRM system to its fullest, and not just for sales. For example, we at the company use RegionSoft CRMfor the purposes of sales, marketing, advertising, technical support and, of course, development. Our customers use it as a warehouse program and logistics and production management system, etc. Once the appropriate modules are provided - why not? In principle, there are very few pure CRMs left for sales on the market, so use all the opportunities provided to you and you will quickly get used to the high productivity of the automated team.
Choosing a CRM based on some very strange criteria is a pitiable path to failure. Choosing a CRM “by someone else’s mind” is very similar to the process of cheating at school: it seems to have ripped off thoughtlessly, and the benefits are zero, one sheer harm. You must admit that it is very frivolous for adults to do this, and even in the most valuable and actually vital - in your business or in your work.
In a previous post in the comments, a demonstrative discussion broke out about how in a single company they approach the choice of CRM. The user of Habr with enviable persistence attacked us with a question, where is our comparison with competitors, why is RegionSoft marketingnot ready to issue such a file. We expressed our position and even even conceived a separate angry post on this topic, but so far we have paused and set out the most erroneous starting points for choosing a CRM system.
What to do? Be guided by the requirements of your company to the CRM system, choose independently, test demos, do not fall for advertising promises and a brand, pay attention to the professionalism of the vendor. In general, the key decisions for businesses to make with their smart, cold and sober head.
By the end of this post, you and I failed to implement it about ten times, and it was still not a question of the fact that the cause of the fiasco is often the indifference of the heads and top managers, the corrupt heads of departments, a formal attitude to work, internal corporate conflicts, gouging of a vendor (more often - partners, whom he is gaining anyhow how, without an assessment of expertise) and even the economic situation in the country.
So, if it’s so scary, maybe not to introduce it? Of course not. On the contrary, arm yourself to the teeth with information and implement CRM in a way that your competitors will not be able to do. Speaking very simply, CRM should solve two problems: to facilitate the work of managers and to ensure transparency of operational activities for managers. These tasks benefit each employee of the organization, directly help to get even with the routine and start earning more. Yes, CRM implementation is not “15 minutes”, it is a painstaking and thorough process, but this is exactly the case when the game is worth the candle.
Our channel in Telegram , in which without advertising we write not quite formal things about CRM and business.
I don’t think so for a long time - since I have been working with the implementation of corporate software. Smoking Kazbek and saving on matches is almost the motto of small and medium-sized businesses in everything related to IT. As a result: inefficiency, failure of implementation, waste of money, hatred of all software at once, and contempt for successful projects.
In general, write down the ways to fail the implementation of CRM, and indeed of any software - in the end, the smart learns from the mistakes of others.
There are statistics that from 20% to 60% of CRM projects fail or do not live up to expectations. To be honest, weird statistics: firstly, such a plug of values is not great, secondly, what kind of CRM and in which area, thirdly, vendor or partner? Basically, for our RegionSoft CRM development teamit is clear what this is most likely about and where the scale of numbers comes from. The statistics most likely included partial implementations (when software is used in a small part of functions and does not please the company at all), subjectively unsuccessful implementations (the company does not like everything, but it continues to use the system for which it paid), etc. In fact, there can be several reasons for failures, and each business will formulate them as unique, but in fact one can single out a large but finite list of reasons for unsuccessful and unsatisfactory implementation of CRM systems. Our team has gathered the very best, and is ready to tell you about them. Do not fill your cones - study strangers!
Not sure - do not implement
Among others, perhaps, the lack of focus on the goals of the company is leading. Often, companies are looking for a CRM-system not for the sake of increasing sales, optimizing business processes, increasing the quality of service, but only for the sake of "that it is." This is an initially unsuccessful implementation: there is no understanding how you will use the tool, which means that it will remain unclaimed.
What to do?Define the goals of the company and the goals of implementing the CRM system. It is desirable that they correlate, in other words, have common ground. The process is quite simple: take a leaflet, write the goals of the company (preferably by departments or employees), take the second - write the goals for implementing CRM. From this moment, your CRM system requirements begin to form, with which you can start working with vendors. It is especially important to set goals if your company is engaged in specific activities: advertising, publishing, medical services, transportation, and so on.An example from life. The company was engaged in several activities and finally began to pick up a CRM. Since the company was in Moscow, without thinking twice, they bought CRM on the basis of “these are at the hearing” considerations. The vendor’s partners made an impressive presentation and vigorously sold (signed a SaaS rental agreement) 27 seats. It quickly became clear that CRM was not suitable for the line of business, in addition, it was limping on the mail client, and this is ultra critical for the company. After six months of torment and horse accounts for revision, the contract for the CRM system was terminated. The reason is simple: the company did not set goals, and the vendor’s partner did not think about asking them - why, when can you just close the deal?
Someone needs CRM for show
Over 12 years of RegionSoft CRM implementations, we realized that it rarely happens that the whole team is “for one” ready to accept a CRM system and contribute to the quickest start of operation. This is a fantasy story. More often, the implementation of a CRM system is imposed from above: a directive is dropped, installation is made, training is carried out (at best!), Work begins. All. They didn’t ask anyone, they didn’t take into account anyone’s requests, they didn’t work with early followers, and later they ignored the majority.
In such a situation, the introduction can be successful thanks to the experience of top management and the efforts of the vendor, but the adoption of the system and the beginning of its productive work is postponed indefinitely, because questions begin, quiet strikes and even frank boycotts. Employees are not psychologically ready to accept the innovation, they are afraid of controlling and tightening the nuts in the company. Why? Because the CRM system was introduced for a tick, and not for work - for example, so that CIO or CTO received annual bonuses for automation. Such is the corporate lobby.
What to do?Of course, in corporate reality, directives from above are not news, and sometimes it is even impractical to avoid such decisions. But in the case of the introduction of software that everyone will use, the situation is different: if employees do not support the project, they if it does not fail, then it is guaranteed to complicate. Therefore, implementation should be a collective decision: with justification, discussion, collection of requirements and quality phased training. This does not exclude the problems of adopting a new program, but each unit will have an understanding of who will use the CRM system and how .An example from life. The CIO of a small but wealthy company decided that they needed a CRM system. First I went to SAP, then it did not grow together and he found a very expensive and at that time little-known imported CRM without a representative office in Russia. The guys came from Canada, presented tops of gifts (gadgets unseen for 2010), implemented CRM with ... an English-language interface over the year. Everything would be fine, but the average age of the users was 38 years old, and these unfortunate salespeople, logisticians, document managers and supporters from the English dictionary knew only “Made in China”. The use of CRM is included in the KPI. Everyone began to lose the bonus, because the training was very formal "poke there, poke here, create a request." CRM was abandoned, employees were indignant. After another year of layoffs and boycotts, the security service initiated an internal investigation, the CIO was fired without a “golden parachute,” but with a kick - the facts of a rollback were revealed. By the way, CRM was never implemented in that company; everyone used a different system, which was remotely reminiscent of CRM. The company could not resist the takeover.
Lack of awareness and training
Even advanced users can fall into an easy stupor when they first see the new interface. What can I say about users with a late adaptation period - for example, the seller used 1C to generate accounts and did not see other software in his eyes, and suddenly a new interface appears in front of him, sometimes 1C is completely different. Trite psychology is working - active resistance to everything new. Under these conditions, the worst thing that can be done is to refuse vendor training or turn it into a formal lecture. An untrained employee, left to himself or to help on the program, is highly likely to abandon this bad business and return to 1C or Excel. He is simply familiar and comfortable in them. CRM will lose all meaning.
What to do? We already told about how to implement a CRM-system with good training, but we repeat once again the most basic, simple rules that solve most of the problems of adapting employees to new software (not just CRM-system).- Ask the vendor for all training materials: videos, documentation, instructions, regulations. If the vendor is okay, all the materials are available free of charge and even before implementation: for example, our documentation can be downloaded in the download section of the demo version, and readers of this article can be so easily downloaded via a direct link , and all videos are available on Youtube - we shot instructions for the most difficult and important "places" RegionSoft CRM 7.0, such as KPI, currency accounting, installation. Everything is in the public domain, as well as our 78 articles.
- Do not save on training. Vendor, if he has been on the market for a long time and does not give you away to any partner with non-core activities, he knows exactly what to pay attention to first of all, what functions cause the biggest problems, therefore he will train professionally. Do not be afraid that the vendor will stretch the training to take more hourly pay - we also value our time, and it is often much more expensive than an hour of training :-)
- Configure internal expertise. During the operation of the CRM system, questions will appear, new users, new needs - and an employee who knows the CRM system along and across will be able to quickly and competently resolve the issue.
- Do not forget about the technical support of the vendor - moreover, it is advisable that the “truncated” is gone. Yes, priority technical support is paid, but in the first year it’s a fee including for your fast and productive work. By the way, be careful: for some vendors, the TP package is included in the rental price of the software, and you may not even know about it - read the contract!
CRM system is simply inoperative
No, in no case do not think that you buy CRM and it does not suddenly start. With serious vendors this does not happen. Four major troubles can happen here.
- Slows down the Internet in your location. For example, the Internet connection speed is set too low, which prevents the client from exchanging data with the server. Another option is a long ping to the data center in the case of a web application if the vendor has chosen hosting based on one that he understands.
- Problems with the DBMS. The database is the heart and brain of the CRM system, so the most stringent requirements must be imposed on its capabilities. The most unpleasant thing is when during the implementation of the CRM system you find out that you additionally need to pay for the DBMS, because the basic capacity is not enough for your needs. Another example: the vendor conducts a demonstration for you, everything flies, but after the start of operation, the system starts to slow down terribly, because You were shown software on an optimized demo base and advanced hardware, and not in real combat conditions.
- The need to buy something else: an email client, a mailing list service, the same DBMS, plug-ins and add-ons for solving seemingly the most basic tasks. You do not get the necessary functionality in your CRM-system and are forced to seek additional funds to start operation to the fullest.
- Non-compliance of the CRM-system with the requirements of the company is the last on the list, but the most difficult and common case. The company selects a CRM system according to some of its criteria, install / implement it, and as a result get a system in which there are no necessary capabilities: for example, planning, KPI, warehouse management, etc. Of course, using it is very inconvenient.
In general, it’s hard to imagine a CRM system that works just like some are advertised. Our favorite promises among others are setting up in an hour, starting in 15 minutes, free without restrictions, implementing in three days / half an hour / hour / 15 minutes, implementing without training and a sales funnel that "conducts the client itself." Such advertising, which has nothing to do with reality, leads to the fact that companies consider the CRM system to be something unnecessary or endow it with some kind of almost magical properties, and then are disappointed.
What to do?Surprise the vendor - ask him about the technical details of the CRM system. Do not be afraid to appear uninformed or confuse the mail client with the mail server. You do not have to understand these details (unless, of course, you have a CIO or CTO - this is rare for small and medium-sized businesses), but the vendor is obliged to tell you and explain all the technical nuances: which DBMS and how much it costs, what load it can withstand; What are the CRM system requirements? Is there a built-in email client and business process editor? how are things with telephony and so on.Examples from life. History 1. The company acquired a CRM-system (rented according to the SaaS model), CRM itself was based on Oracle DBMS, its cost was included in the cost of the system. First, interruptions began - the vendor moved the bases to the data center to Samara, because it is much cheaper there, but the provider was alien to observing the SLA. Then, customers were offered to pay for using Oracle or to buy on-premise versions and deploy them. Needless to say, the scale of the outflow of subscribers of this CRM.
History 2.The company rents an office in a business center on the outskirts of St. Petersburg, conducts complex sales with warehouse and shipments throughout the CIS in huge Excel tables. They can not use almost any cloud CRM, because The BC delivers Internet services exclusively, and you have to either tolerate dial-up speeds or buy a USB modem and rely on not-so-good coverage of operators. The only way out for them is a desktop CRM system . But it’s better, of course, not to skimp on renting in a normal business center, because without the Internet, desktop capabilities are also limited (for example, you can’t use an email client, IP-telephony, etc.).
CRM approach exclusively as a technical solution
The first aspect of this approach is the expectation that the installed software will do a miracle, make sales and make a profit. The program itself will not solve anything, it is designed to be an instrument of a complex system of business processes and customer relationship strategies. Relatively speaking, if your salespeople spend all day on Facebook or on Ozon, the marketer draws another formal SWOT analysis and holds the hundredth meeting in a month, and the service sends customers a standby time for a decision for a week or two, CRM alone can’t do anything can, but on the contrary, become an excess asset and an unjustified investment. Because yes - this is just a program: shell, kernel, interface. And if you do not find ways to organize the work of employees in this program, it will be idle.
A CRM system is inherently an application software. And the hero of the “Undergrowth” Fonvizin in this case would be right if he said that if applied, then something needs to be applied. Namely, to make common corporate efforts to develop sales and work with clients. If you want another example, CRM is a catalyst for accelerating complex reactions and interactions within a business.
The second aspect of a purely technical approach is to shift the issue of implementing a CRM system (from choice to start of operation) entirely to the shoulders of the IT department or system administrator. This is fraught with the fact that you get the most technically sophisticated system with ideal settings, which again will be idle, because it does not meet the requirements of the commercial service, marketers, support, logisticians - that is, the main users.
What to do?As we have already said, to make implementation a collective process, create a working group and teach employees to work productively with the selected CRM system. By the way, the internal expert that we talked about above should also be from active user groups, not from the IT department. So you can also avoid the pressure of IT specialists on users and users feeling technical illiteracy, which often strongly demotivates. “So what about the registry?” Cleaned? How not? Well, through cmd and regedit. Yes, this child knows! ”- if the article is read by people who are far from administering, they obviously are familiar with cringing from these words at the first incomprehensible PC freezes. I recommend in response to say: “Award? Aren't you aware of the structure of the payroll and retained earnings for the quarter? EBITDA and EBIT have not yet been calculatedAn example from life.Not about CRM, but very close. The company decided to abandon CRM, but the profile of the activity involved a large amount of information, which was accumulated in the form of records in a self-written “type-billing”. As necessary, the IT service employee did the uploads - created a report that the employee with access “twisted” for the date through a primitive GUI into three lines. Short reports were created for special reports and orders in the format “date - data - slice”. Users themselves used the downloaded .csv files as they needed. But the change of leadership has led to the fact that the burden of determining the appropriateness of reports fell not on the commercial director, but on the IT service. The guys didn’t understand business processes, the debugged system crashed, and business users began to spend 50% of their working time on justified “substantial” TK, which would be liked by the IT coordinator. And coordinators rather roughly demanded exact terminology and, for example, the line “sales and payments for March 2017 "turned into" non-zero values for the sales field with the presence of the payment parameter for the period 00:00:01 03/01/2017 - 23:59:59 03/31/2017, including values from the long_payments table ". Bottom line: commerce spent time compiling TORs, IT specialists neighing attempts and results and wrapped TKs for revision, the timeframes for uploading data and preparing reports were extended for weeks. These are bizarre forms that an absolute technocracy in a company can take :-)
There are no business processes, there is business chaos
This is simply the top reason for the failure of the implementation of the CRM system. It's simple: if you don’t have a vision of streamlined business processes in the company, you don’t have a CRM strategy. Of course, in the end, 99% of companies have the goal of generating income, but this task can in no way be the goal of the business process and the implementation of CRM. This is the result of fulfilling some goals that are relevant for the company: increasing the life cycle of customers, increasing the number of sales, increasing the average check amount, increasing market share, etc. And for such purposes, that is, under the strategy of customer relationship management (CRM) software should be sharpened - your CRM system. If you don’t know what your strategy is and you don’t have an understanding of the processes, implementation can result in a budget drain. But if there is a vision or you are ready to review and optimize business processes,
What to do? Business process reengineering is where implementation should begin. How to do this, we talked about in our article about business processes and implementation . If you have difficulties, involve a vendor or at least a good consultant in this work (not to be confused with coaches and info gypsies!). But I am convinced that the best way for a company is to independently understand business processes, draw diagrams, assign stages, deadlines and responsible ones, remove all unnecessary ones and only then learn from the vendor to automate them in the interface of the selected CRM system. By the way, this can be done already after the start of operation of the system - moreover, in many ways this is even better.Well and one more immutable rule: the business process has changed - immediately make changes to the CRM system.
Patchwork implementation of CRM-system: and so it goes!
The patchwork implementation of a CRM system is another big mistake. It can take many forms - let's look at a few examples with different participants.
- You have implemented a CRM system, and you need refinement (for example, special reports, a custom calculator configuration within RegionSoft CRM, etc.), but for some reason you decide not to pay the vendor and not solve these problems yourself. Thus, the company is deprived of the opportunity to work as it is necessary or is looking for additional tools, overpaying for additional software.
- You bought a CRM-system, but decided not to deal with the settings, and work "at minimum", for example, just enter customer data. At the same time, you have telephony, mail, reports, business processes, schedulers, but you do not use any of this, preferring to use old applications. Thus, you consciously go to work with a disparate client base and inefficient operation of the CRM system. Well, it's about how to buy an iPhone 10 and watch time on it, and call and write with the Nokia 3310.
These are two fairly common situations, of course there are others: reluctance to transfer data, rare use, fragmented introduction of information, etc. Moreover, this behavior does not depend on the convenience of the system, its interface, speed and other parameters - the human factor prevails here.
It happens like this: CRM-system begins to stall in perfectionism. The system does not start up until users configure and learn absolutely all the functions, work with the system is delayed for a long time. This situation is fraught with the fact that the work will not start, since it is difficult to make an ideal CRM system without starting to work in it fully and without understanding the features in real conditions. Best practices come only through experience.
What to do?The best cure for patchwork implementation is a continuous and continuous implementation: complex settings (for example, integration with a virtual PBX, modeling of business processes) should be carried out simultaneously with the start of operation, data entry and filling the CRM system with working entities. This, firstly, will allow you to see the early effect, secondly, it will reduce the payback period, thirdly, it will greatly facilitate the perception of the CRM system by employees, since the changes will be gradual and they will not have to learn all the modules and functions at once. At the same time, CRM should not be mastered exclusively "at the top", you need to use the maximum functionality, find application for all modules. At first glance, some of the possibilities may seem superfluous, but with a more detailed approach it becomes clear that business automation is multifaceted and it is all the more effective,Download the file with the implementation concept - it will come in handy for you anyway.
Download the file with instructions for implementation .
See how to buy a powerful RegionSoft CRM with production, warehouse, KPI, planners and convenient business processes - with a 15% discount until the end of March .
Bought and forgot
CRM was just bought (more often - rented), but not implemented. This is a common story: many of us have paid subscriptions, which we do not use, in companies there is a regularly paid, but not set up or just poorly functioning corporate portal, Yandex.Direct, a blog on Habré, etc. Bills are paid, the service is not is used. It’s exactly the same with the CRM system - it’s paid, and okay, we’re about to begin, there’s about to be a meeting and we will share responsibilities, just about ... In fact, this is a kind of procrastination on a corporate scale.
What to do?First of all, to understand why this happened: CRM-system is inconvenient, slows down, does not provide the necessary features? And already fight precisely with these reasons, and then take measures to bring the software into operation or to replace it with a similar, but more suitable solution.Fraer's greed ruined
Trading with a vendor is a great way to kill an implant and pay twice. The vendor will agree with your amount and go to optimize its processes, which will inevitably lead to a decrease in the quality of implementation. Let us tell you a secret: for small and medium-sized businesses, CRM is quite inexpensive, and saving hundreds of thousands of rubles can fail a cool implementation.
What to do? First of all, do not make promises about a free CRM system and CRM with a 70% discount. This is the first reason that creates the desire to save - well, why pay if it happens for free ?! It is important to understand that a CRM system does not always cost as much as is written in the price list, usually implementation is more expensive. Paying for the implementation of a CRM system, you invest in your business, in its quality development. On this, as well as on corporate security (which, incidentally, includes a CRM-system), it is not worth saving.CRM is for sales only!
Cycling CRM only on sales automation and using the system as a to-do list and a call list is another common mistake. And the market on which CRM is called absolutely everything is guilty of it: from an electronic notebook to almost ERP. Previously, there was a division into SFA and CRM, and the latter was assigned the correct role of a universal tool for automating all business processes related to customers, not just sales.
If CRM is used exclusively as a sales funnel + a means of storing a client base, it will turn out like this: it seems that activity is growing and even revenue is growing, but the growth is extensive. And if you pay attention to the quality of staff’s actions, delve into business processes, the growth will be delayed, but intense. By the way, the best option is to combine the extensive use of the system with building up its potential and accessing progress (the very gradual implementation that we wrote about above).
What to do? Use the CRM system to its fullest, and not just for sales. For example, we at the company use RegionSoft CRMfor the purposes of sales, marketing, advertising, technical support and, of course, development. Our customers use it as a warehouse program and logistics and production management system, etc. Once the appropriate modules are provided - why not? In principle, there are very few pure CRMs left for sales on the market, so use all the opportunities provided to you and you will quickly get used to the high productivity of the automated team.I didn’t choose it myself, but advised
Choosing a CRM based on some very strange criteria is a pitiable path to failure. Choosing a CRM “by someone else’s mind” is very similar to the process of cheating at school: it seems to have ripped off thoughtlessly, and the benefits are zero, one sheer harm. You must admit that it is very frivolous for adults to do this, and even in the most valuable and actually vital - in your business or in your work.
In a previous post in the comments, a demonstrative discussion broke out about how in a single company they approach the choice of CRM. The user of Habr with enviable persistence attacked us with a question, where is our comparison with competitors, why is RegionSoft marketingnot ready to issue such a file. We expressed our position and even even conceived a separate angry post on this topic, but so far we have paused and set out the most erroneous starting points for choosing a CRM system.
- Ratings, tops, lists are complete bullshit, because everything is subjective in them, reviews are often fake, and top places are successfully bought.
- Analytical reports are good expert tops (Gartner, Forrester), but CRM systems that are suitable for the price and functionality of Russian small and medium-sized businesses are rarely found in them.
- Someone else's opinion on social networks - probably, does not need comments, but we managed to delve into these multifaceted opinions . If you click on the link to be lazy, then briefly: do you still believe pluralism of opinions on social networks?
- The competitor positioning proposed by the vendor is an unreliable source. Yes, at first glance you will get an honest comparison without denigrating and exalting yourself, but
sometimesstupid guys sit in the marketing of vendors and they can imagine such a “study” in the style of “everyone is equal, but we are equal.”
What to do? Be guided by the requirements of your company to the CRM system, choose independently, test demos, do not fall for advertising promises and a brand, pay attention to the professionalism of the vendor. In general, the key decisions for businesses to make with their smart, cold and sober head. By the end of this post, you and I failed to implement it about ten times, and it was still not a question of the fact that the cause of the fiasco is often the indifference of the heads and top managers, the corrupt heads of departments, a formal attitude to work, internal corporate conflicts, gouging of a vendor (more often - partners, whom he is gaining anyhow how, without an assessment of expertise) and even the economic situation in the country.
So, if it’s so scary, maybe not to introduce it? Of course not. On the contrary, arm yourself to the teeth with information and implement CRM in a way that your competitors will not be able to do. Speaking very simply, CRM should solve two problems: to facilitate the work of managers and to ensure transparency of operational activities for managers. These tasks benefit each employee of the organization, directly help to get even with the routine and start earning more. Yes, CRM implementation is not “15 minutes”, it is a painstaking and thorough process, but this is exactly the case when the game is worth the candle.
We have the action “Spring. Spread your wings! ”- discounts on all RegionSoft Developer Studio's own software, including our flagship RegionSoft CRM in all editions (CRM for small and medium-sized businesses).
Our channel in Telegram , in which without advertising we write not quite formal things about CRM and business.