Are you using your CRM to its full potential? If you’re making any of these blunders, you’re lowering the return you’re getting from your investment.
When you added a CRM to your business, you likely had high expectations for how it could help you.
You knew that your CRM would give you a greater understanding of the data you collected from your customers. You could automate tasks and improve efficiency in your business. Your CRM would become one of the most powerful sales and marketing tools that you had at your disposal.
Ultimately, it would help you create a better experience for your customers.
And maybe it has…
But are you getting the most out of your CRM? Are you using everything it has to offer to optimise your business and its interactions with your customers?
Unfortunately, many people only use the basic features of their CRM, without exploring its potential. This leads to them making some key mistakes that hamper their CRMs effectiveness.
In this article, we look at eight of the most common blunders that you need to avoid.
Mistake #1 – Using Dirty Data
The quality of the data in your CRM has a huge impact on its usefulness for your team.
For example, let’s say your CRM stores information about your customers for your sales team. A team member pulls up a customer record and sees a phone number and information about where that customer is in your funnel.
Then they call that number…and get a dead end. Either the number isn’t operational anymore or the customer gave a false number.
That incident just wasted a small amount of time for that team member. And if issues like this keep happening, your sales team will eventually grow to distrust your CRM. This means they use it less than they should.
Let’s consider another scenario.
For whatever reason, a prospect’s data gets duplicated in your CRM. This can happen when the prospect fills out several lead generation forms. But instead of consolidating that data into one record, you allow several records to sit in your CRM.
Your sales rep gets in touch with the prospect and updates one of the records. They’ve moved the prospect from the top of your funnel to the middle. This means the next interaction needs to focus on nurturing that prospect so they’re ready to hear your offer.
However, a different rep gets one of the duplicated records. This record doesn’t say anything about the progress the other rep has made with the prospect. So when this rep calls, they repeat the same information that the prospect received previously.
Now the prospect feels disengaged, because you’re delivering the wrong information to them at the wrong time. In the worst-case scenario, you’ve just lost a customer due to dirty data in your database.
You need to conduct regular checks on the data in your CRM. Eliminate anything that’s inaccurate and get rid of duplicate records. This ensures the CRM runs seamlessly for the people who need to use it.
Mistake #2 – No Ownership
This is a mistake that business owners commonly make when implementing a new CRM.
You decide to use a new CRM, but you don’t want to take responsibility for implementing it. So you pass the task onto somebody else, without giving them clear instructions. You don’t communicate why this CRM is so important or what it will achieve for the business.
Because they don’t have a clear focus, this other person doesn’t take ownership of the project either. They see it as an inconvenience that gets in the way of their other work. As a result, they delay implementation. They may even run into issues when they try to implement, because they don’t understand what the new CRM brings to the table.
Somebody has to take responsibility for the CRM.
This extends beyond the implementation phase, too. Think of using your CRM as a project that runs throughout the business. You need to have somebody who leads that project, reports on the CRM, and focuses on making improvements to how it’s used.
Mistake #3 – Focusing on Features Instead of Benefits for the Business
Head to any CRM’s website and you’ll see a lot of marketing talk about the many features it offers. This all sounds great on paper. But the reality is that your business likely doesn’t need every one of those features.
The mistake here comes from focusing on what the CRM can do instead of what it should do.
Ultimately, your CRM needs to benefit your business. The best way it can do that is by integrating with current processes to increase efficiency.
Speak to your people and find out what they need from a CRM. What business processes don’t work as well as they should? What challenges does your team face when it comes to accessing customer data? And most importantly, what do they think needs to happen to overcome those challenges?
The answers to these questions tell you what you need to look for in a CRM. Don’t get distracted by all of the bells and whistles. Instead, look for a platform that provides tangible outcomes for your business.
Mistake #4 – Forgetting About the Need to Scale
Not every CRM solution out there can scale alongside your business. You need to take this into account when making your choice.
When a company first starts out, a low-end CRM can likely do the job. You don’t have many records to maintain and you likely won’t have a large team relying on the CRM. However, as the company grows, your customer list and team grow with it. If your CRM can’t match your growth, you’re left with an unsuitable system that isn’t fit for purpose.
The point here is that you need to make your choice with the future in mind.
Ideally, your business will experience continued growth. Can the CRM you want to implement scale with that growth? And if it can’t, will you be able to move your data to a more robust CRM when the time comes?
Sometimes it’s best to invest extra in a CRM that can serve your future needs, not just your current ones.
Mistake #5 – Taking a Set and Forget Approach
You can’t take a set-and-forget approach to your CRM.
For example, let’s say you used your CRM to automate a few workflows. After some redrafting, you finally got the automation working. So you set it in place and leave it to do its thing. But in doing that, you’re operating on the assumption that the automation works perfectly.
Just because it works, doesn’t mean it’s properly optimised.
Like anything else in your business, that automation needs someone to track it and measure the results it gets. You need to test new ideas on it and tweak it until you have it working perfectly. Furthermore, you need to make adjustments based on changing market needs and updates to your CRM.
Ideally, you’ll meet with your team every few months to examine how you’re using your CRM. Discuss what you can do to get more out of it, instead of assuming that you don’t need to do anything more once something starts working.
Mistake #6 – Failing to Segment Customer Details for Marketing and Sales Campaigns
Your CRM is more than a dumping ground for customer data.
The point we’re making here is that most CRM platforms offer tools for segmenting your customers into groups. This is useful for your sales and marketing teams, who deal with prospects at all stages of the customer journey.
However, some business owners make the mistake of putting all their data into their CRM without making an effort to separate it. Without knowing which segment a prospect falls into, your team might make an offer to somebody who’s just entered your funnel. Or they might send a welcome message to somebody who’s engaged and ready to buy.
Segmentation ensures you send the right messages to the right people at the right time. Use it to create groups of customers within your CRM and improve the effectiveness of your marketing.
Mistake #7 – Not Mapping the Customer Journey Before Investing
Let’s say you have a brand new customer who’s just entered your system. They’ve downloaded your lead magnet and you’re ready to start communicating with them.
What journey does that new prospect go on?
If you can’t answer that question, you’re not ready for a CRM.
Every person who interacts with your business goes on a journey with you. Your job is to figure out what each step of that journey looks like. These steps move the prospect through your funnel until they’re ready to buy from you.
And once they do buy, there’s a whole other journey related to keeping that customer happy and on board.
You’ll use your CRM to take your prospects on those journeys. However, that can’t happen if you haven’t mapped everything out beforehand.
Mistake #8 – Failing to Get Team Buy-In on Your Chosen CRM
If your team doesn’t trust the CRM, they won’t use it. Instead, they’ll rely on the old processes – the ones you’re trying to make more efficient with your CRM.
That’s why it’s so important to get buy-in from your team and key stakeholders before you implement.
The key thing to remember here is that almost every member of your team will rely on this CRM for their work. This means that they all have valuable insight to provide that may influence your decisions.
Hold meetings with your people to discuss the CRM you’re considering. Talk about how it benefits the team and what outcomes you believe it can create. Most importantly, listen to any issues that your team raises and investigate those issues.
The goal is to come to a consensus decision that the new CRM is right for your business. When you have that buy-in, you have a team with a vested interest in making the CRM work.
Are You Making Any of These Mistakes?
If you are, it’s likely that you’re not getting everything you should from your CRM. These mistakes run the gamut, from issues that make your CRM less effective in practice to problems that can arise before you implement.
Avoid these issues and you’ll make a seamless transition to a CRM that serves your business.
Automation Agency can help.
Our Concierge Service provides assistance for some of the world’s leading CRMs. These include ActiveCampaign, InfusionSoft, Ontraport, and many more. We can help with everything, from implementation to creating automations that help you get more out of your CRM. Just send us a task and we’ll focus on how you can maximise the use of your CRM.
But what if you’re not a member of our Concierge Service? If that’s the case, take our Right Fit Quiz today to see if we can work together.
