One of my colleagues really wanted to have an iPhone 4S. Then it was just the top of the show. Having received the bonus, 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 didn’t understand what everyone found in these iPhones, a dialer and a dialer, it’s just scary to drop it, well, the photos are not bad. When talking about apps, features, photo stream, updates, and more, she said that she turned off access to the Internet because it was expensive and generally pampering. Thus, she turned the top-of-the-line smartphone into a ringing brick. “What a stupid one!”, We laughed, for sure, some readers thought about the same.
I haven't thought about it in such a long time - since I've been working with the implementation of enterprise software. Smoking Kazbek and saving on matches is practically the motto of small and medium-sized businesses in everything related to IT. As a result: inefficiency, implementation failure, money wasted, hatred for all software at once and contempt for successful projects.
In general, write down ways to fail the implementation of CRM, and indeed any software - in the end, the smart one 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, a strange statistic: firstly, such a fork of values, secondly, what kind of CRM and in what area, thirdly, vendor or partner? Basically, for our development team it is clear what the speech is most likely about and where such a range of numbers comes from. The statistics probably included partial implementations (when the software is used in a small part of the 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 may be several reasons for failures, and each business will formulate them as unique, but in fact there is a large but finite list of reasons for unsuccessful and unsatisfactory implementations of CRM systems. Our team has collected the most-most, and is ready to tell you about them. Do not fill your bumps - study others!
This is what companies that bought CRM look like and use it to a minimum or do not use it at all
Not sure - don't implement
Among others, perhaps the leader is the lack of focus on the goals of the company. Often companies are looking for a CRM system not for the sake of increasing sales, optimizing business processes, improving the quality of service, but only for the sake of “what it was”. This is an initially unsuccessful implementation: there is no understanding of how you will use the tool, which means that it will remain unclaimed.
What to do? Determine the goals of the company and the goals of implementing a CRM system. It is desirable that they correlate, in other words, have common ground. The process is quite simple: take a piece of paper, write the company's goals (preferably by departments or employees), take the second one - write down the goals of implementing CRM. From this moment on, you begin to form requirements for the CRM system, with which you can start working with vendors. It is especially important to define 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 select a CRM. Since the company was in Moscow, without thinking twice, they bought CRM based on the considerations "these are well known." The vendor's partners held an impressive presentation and cheerfully sold (signed a lease agreement on the SaaS model) 27 seats. It quickly became clear that CRM was not suitable for the type of activity, in addition, it “lames” on the mail client, and for the company this is ultra critical. After six months of torment and horse accounts for revision, the contract for the CRM system was terminated. The reason is banal: the company did not set goals, and the vendor's partner did not even think to ask about them - why, when you can just close the deal?
CRM is needed by someone for show
For 12 years of implementations we realized that it is extremely rare that the entire team, "for one thing" was ready to accept the CRM system and contribute to the fastest possible start of operation. This is a fantasy story. Much more often, the implementation of a CRM system is imposed from above: a directive is sent down, installation is carried out, training is carried out (at best!), work begins. All. No one was asked, no requests were taken into account, early adopters were not dealt with, later most were ignored.
In such a situation, the implementation can be successful thanks to the experience of top management and the efforts of the vendor, but the adoption of the system and the start of its productive work are postponed indefinitely, because questions, silent strikes, and even outright boycotts begin. Employees are not psychologically ready to accept the innovation, they are afraid of control and tightening the screws in the company. All why? Because the CRM system was implemented for show, and not for work - for example, in order for CIO or CTO to receive annual bonuses for automation. This is the corporate lobby.
What to do? Of course, in corporate reality, directives from above are not new, and sometimes it is even impractical to avoid such decisions. But in the case of the introduction of software that will be used by everyone, the situation is different: if the employees do not support the project, they, if not fail, are guaranteed to complicate it. Therefore, the implementation should be a collective decision: with justification, discussion, collection of requirements and high-quality step-by-step training. This does not exclude the problems of adopting a new program, but each unit will have an understanding of who and how will use .
An example from life. The CIO of a small but wealthy company decided they needed a CRM system. At 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, gave the top gifts (gadgets unseen in 2010), introduced CRM with ... an English-language interface in a year. Everything would be fine, but the average age of users was 38 years old, and these unfortunate saleswomen, logisticians, document specialists and supporters knew only “Made in China” from the English dictionary. The use of CRM was included in the KPI. Everyone started to lose the bonus as 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 - facts of a rollback were revealed. By the way, CRM was never implemented in that company, everyone used a different, vaguely reminiscent of CRM system. The company could not resist the takeover.
Lack of awareness and training
Even advanced users can get into a slight stupor when they first see the new interface. What can we say about users with a late adaptation period - for example, a salesperson used 1C to generate invoices and did not see any other software, and suddenly a new interface appears in front of him, sometimes completely different from 1C. Banal psychology is triggered - active resistance to everything new. Under these conditions, the worst thing you can do is to refuse vendor training or turn it into a formal lecture. An untrained employee, left to himself or to help with the program, is highly likely to abandon this disastrous business and return to 1C or Excel. He just feels more comfortable in them. CRM will lose all meaning.
What to do? about how to implement a CRM system with good training, but let's repeat once again the most basic, simple rules that solve most of the problems of adapting employees to new software (not only to a CRM system).
- Ask the vendor for all training materials: videos, documentation, instructions, regulations. If everything is in order with the vendor, all materials are available for free and even before implementation: for example, our documentation can be downloaded in the demo download section, and readers of this article can simply download , — we filmed instructions on the most complex and important "places" of RegionSoft CRM 7.0, such as KPI, currency accounting, installation. Everything is in the public domain, as well as our 78 articles.
- Don't skimp on education. A vendor, if he has been on the market for a long time and does not leave you at the mercy of some partner with non-core activities, knows exactly what to pay attention to first of all, which functions cause the biggest problems, so he will train you professionally. Do not be afraid that the vendor will stretch out the training in order to take more hourly pay - we also value our time, and it is often much more expensive than an hour of training 🙂
- Build internal expertise. During the operation of the CRM system, questions, new users, new needs will appear - and an employee who knows the CRM system inside and out will be able to quickly and competently resolve the issue.
- Do not forget about the technical support of the vendor - and preferably before "the mustache is gone." Yes, priority technical support is paid, but in the first year it is also a payment for your fast and productive work. By the way, be careful: for some vendors, the TP package is included in the software rental price, and you may not even know about it - read the contract!
The CRM system just doesn't work.
No, in no case do not think that you will buy CRM and it will not suddenly start. This does not happen with serious vendors. There are four main problems that can happen here.
- Slows down the Internet in your location. For example, the Internet connection speed is set too low, which does not allow the client to communicate 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 according to principles that are clear to him.
- Problems with DBMS. The database is the heart and brain of a CRM system, so the most stringent requirements must be imposed on its capabilities. The most frustrating thing is when, during the implementation of a CRM system, you find out that you have to pay extra for a DBMS, because the base capacity is not enough for your needs. Another example: the vendor holds 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 service, the same DBMS, plugins and add-ons to solve seemingly the most basic tasks. You don't get the functionality you need in your CRM system and are forced to look for additional funds to start full operation.
- Non-compliance of the CRM-system with the requirements of the company is the last in the list, but the most severe and common case. The company chooses a CRM system according to some of its own criteria, installs/implements it, and eventually gets a system that does not have the necessary capabilities: for example, planning, KPI, warehouse management, etc. Of course, it is very inconvenient to use it.
In general, it's hard to imagine a CRM system that works exactly the way some advertise. Our favorite promises among others are set up in an hour, start in 15 minutes, free with no limits, implementation in three days / half an hour / hour / 15 minutes, implementation without training, and a sales funnel that “leads the customer by itself”. Such advertising, which has nothing to do with reality, leads companies to consider the CRM system to be something unnecessary or endow it with some almost magical properties, and then become disappointed.
What to do? Surprise the vendor - ask him about the technical details of the CRM system. Don't be afraid to appear ignorant or confuse an email client with a 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: what kind of DBMS and how much it costs, what load it can withstand; what are the system requirements for CRM; is there a built-in mail client and business process editor; How are things with telephony and so on.
Examples from life. History 1. The company purchased a CRM system (rented it under the SaaS model), CRM itself was based on the Oracle DBMS, its cost was included in the cost of the system. First, interruptions began - the vendor moved the bases to the data center in Samara, since it is much cheaper there, but the provider turned out to be alien to compliance with the SLA. Then customers were offered to pay for the use of Oracle or buy on-premise versions and deploy them at home. Needless to say, the scale of the outflow of subscribers of this CRM.
History of 2. The company rents an office in a business center on the very outskirts of St. Petersburg, conducts complex sales with a warehouse and shipments throughout the CIS in huge Excel spreadsheets. They cannot use almost any cloud-based CRM, because The BC exclusively supplies Internet services, and you either have to endure dial-up speeds or buy a USB modem and count on not very good coverage of operators. The only way out for them is . But it’s better, of course, not to skimp on renting in a normal business center, because without the Internet, the possibilities of a desktop are also limited (for example, you can’t use an email client, IP telephony, etc.).
Approaching CRM solely as a technical solution
The first aspect of this approach is the expectation that the installed software will work wonders, make sales and make a profit. The program itself will not solve anything, it is designed to be a tool for a complex system of business processes and a strategy for customer relations. Relatively speaking, if your salespeople sit on Facebook or Ozon all day, the marketer draws another formal SWOT analysis and holds the XNUMXth meeting in a month, and the service department sends customers to the standby mode for a decision for a week or two, CRM by itself can’t do anything can, but on the contrary, it will become an extra asset and an unjustified investment. Because yes, it's just a program: a shell, a kernel, an interface. And if you do not find ways to improve the work of employees in this program, it will be idle.
A CRM system is essentially application software. And the hero of Fonvizin's "Undergrowth" in this case would have been right if he had said that once applied, it means that something needs to be applied. Namely, to apply to the overall 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 selection to start of operation) entirely on the shoulders of the IT department or system administrator. This is fraught with the fact that you will 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, make the 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, which we talked about above, should also be from active user groups, and not from among the employees of the IT department. So you can, among other things, avoid the pressure of IT people on users and the feeling of technical illiteracy by users, which is often very demotivating. “So what about the registry? Did you clean it? How not? Well, through cmd and regedit. Yes, this child knows!” - if people who are far from administration read the article, they are clearly familiar with the shivering from these words at the first incomprehensible PC freezes. I recommend in response to say: “Award? Are you not aware of the payroll structure and retained earnings for the quarter? EBITDA and EBIT have not yet been calculated, so we are waiting for the values calculated according to RAS.”
An example from life. Not about CRM, but very close. The company decided to abandon CRM, but the profile of activity assumed a large amount of information, which accumulated in the form of records in a self-written "type-billing". As needed, an IT service employee made uploads - created a report that an employee with access “twisted” for a date through a primitive GUI on three lines. For special reports, short technical specifications and orders were created in the “date-data-slice” format. Users themselves used the uploaded .csv files as they needed. But the change in leadership meant that the burden of determining the appropriateness of the reports fell not on the commercial director, but on the IT service. The guys didn’t understand business processes, the well-established system collapsed, and business users began to spend 50% of their working time on justified “weighty” technical specifications that IT coordinators would like. And the coordinators rather rudely demanded precise terminology and, for example, the line "sales and payments for March 2017" evolved into "non-zero values for the sales field with the presence of the payment parameter for the period 00:00:01 01.03.2017/23/59 - 59:31.03.2017:XNUMX XNUMX/XNUMX/XNUMX, including values from the long_payments table". Bottom line: merchants spent time compiling the TOR, IT people laughed at the attempts and the result and wrapped the TOR for revision, the timing of uploading data and preparing reports stretched for weeks. These are the bizarre forms that absolute technocracy can take in a company 🙂
There are no business processes, there is business chaos
This is just the top reason for CRM implementation failures. It's simple: if you don't have a vision for streamlined business processes in your company, you don't have a CRM strategy. Of course, in the end, 99% of companies have as their goal to generate income, but this task cannot 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 amount of the average check, increasing market share, etc. And for such goals, that is, for the customer relationship management (CRM) strategy, software should be sharpened - your CRM system. If you do not know what your strategy is and do not understand the processes, the implementation may result in a drain on the budget. But if you have a vision or you are ready to revise and optimize business processes, CRM will give the company resilience to external challenges, because you will have a strong foundation of a high-quality client base, analytics and routine automation.
What to do? Business process reengineering is where implementation should start. How to do this, we told in our and about . If there are difficulties, connect a vendor or at least a good consultant to this work (not to be confused with trainers and information 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 persons, remove everything unnecessary 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 after the start of operation of the system - moreover, in many ways it is even better.
Well, one more immutable rule: the business process has changed - immediately make changes to the CRM system.
CRM in a company with poor business processes. Really, nothing out of the ordinary?
Patchwork implementation of a CRM system: and so it will do!
Patchwork CRM implementation 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 some tweaking (for example, special reports, custom calculator configuration inside RegionSoft CRM, etc.), but for some reason you decide not to pay the vendor and not solve these tasks 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 the minimum”, for example, only 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 deliberately go to work with a disparate client base and the inefficient operation of the CRM system. Well, it's about how to buy an iPhone 10 and watch the time on it, and call and write with Nokia 3310.
These are two fairly common situations, of course there are others: unwillingness to transfer data, rare use, fragmented entry 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 also happens like this: the CRM-system begins to slip in perfectionism. The system is not put into operation 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 fully work in it and without understanding the features in real conditions. Best practices only come through user experience.
What to do? The best cure for patchwork implementation is progressive and continuous implementation: complex settings (for example, integration with a virtual PBX, business process modeling) should be carried out in parallel with the start of operation, entering data 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, and 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 master all the modules and functions at once. At the same time, CRM should not be mastered exclusively “on 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 more effective the more complete it is.
- it will be useful to you in any case.
.powerful RegionSoft CRM with production, warehouse, KPI, planners and convenient business processes — .
Bought and forgotten
CRM was simply bought (more often rented), but not implemented. This is a common story: many of us have paid subscriptions that we do not use, companies sometimes have a regularly paid, but not configured or simply poorly functioning corporate portal, Yandex.Direct, a blog on Habré, etc. Bills are paid, the service is not used. The same thing happens with the CRM system - it’s paid, and okay, we’re about to start, we’re about to have a meeting and distribute responsibilities, that’s it ... In fact, this is a kind of procrastination on a corporate scale.
What to do? First of all, figure out why this happened: is the CRM system inconvenient, slows down, does not provide the necessary opportunities? And already deal with these reasons, and then take measures to put the software into operation or replace it with a similar, but more suitable solution.
Fraer's greed ruined
Bargaining with a vendor is a great way to kill adoption and pay twice. The vendor will agree with your amount and go for the optimization of their processes, which will inevitably lead to a decrease in the quality of implementation. Let's open the secret: for small and medium-sized businesses, CRM is quite inexpensive, and saving an extra hundred thousand rubles can fail a cool implementation.
What to do? First of all, don't be fooled by promises of a free CRM system and CRM with a 70% discount. This is the first reason that gives rise to the desire to save money - well, why pay if it is free ?! It is important to understand that a CRM system does not always cost as much as it is written in the price list, . By paying for the implementation of a CRM system, you invest in your business, in its qualitative development. This, as well as corporate security (which, by the way, includes a CRM system), is not worth saving.
CRM is for sales only!
Looping 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 is to blame for it, in which absolutely everything is called CRM: from an electronic notebook to almost ERP. Previously, there was a division into SFA and CRM, and the latter was given the right role of a universal tool for automating all business processes related to customers, and not just sales.
If CRM is used exclusively as a sales funnel + a means of storing a customer 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 personnel actions, delve into business processes, growth will be delayed, but intense. By the way, the best option is to combine extensive use of the system with building up its potential and reaching 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, in our company we use for sales, marketing, advertising, technical support and, of course, development purposes. Our customers use it as a warehouse program and logistics and production management system, etc. Since the appropriate modules are provided - why not? In principle, there are very few pure sales CRMs left on the market, so use all the opportunities provided to you and you will quickly get used to the high productivity of an automated team.
I did not choose, but advised
Choosing a CRM based on some very strange criteria is a deplorable path to collapse. The choice of CRM "by someone else's mind" is very similar to the process of cheating at school: it seems to be mindlessly ripped off, but there is zero benefit, one sheer harm. Agree, it is very frivolous to do this to adults, and even in the most valuable and, in fact, vitally important - in your business or in your work.
In the previous post in the comments, a demonstration flared up about how a particular company approaches the choice of CRM. User Habr with enviable persistence attacked us with the question, where is our comparison with competitors, why is this marketing not ready to issue such a file. We expressed our position and even generally conceived a separate angry post on this topic, but for now we have cooled down and will outline 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 they rarely contain CRM systems that are suitable for Russian small and medium-sized businesses in terms of price and functionality.
- Someone else's opinion on social networks - probably does not need comments, but we managed to . If you are too lazy to follow the link, then in short: do you still believe in the pluralism of opinions in social networks?
- The positioning of competitors offered by the vendor is an unreliable source. Yes, at first glance, you will get an honest comparison without denigrating and exalting yourself, but in the marketing of vendors, smart guys sometimes come across and they know how to present such a “research” in the style of “everyone is equal, but we are more equal”.
What to do? Be guided by the requirements of your company for the CRM system, choose on your own, test demo versions, do not be fooled by advertising promises and brand, pay attention to the professionalism of the vendor. In general, key business decisions are made with your smart, cold and sober head.
By the end of this post, you and I have failed the implementation ten times, and it has not yet been discussed that often the cause of the fiasco is the indifference of managers and top managers, the corruption of department heads, the formal attitude to work, intra-corporate conflicts, the gouging of the vendor (more often - partners, whom he recruits anyhow, without assessing the expertise) and even the economic situation in the country.
So, since it's so scary, maybe not implement it? Of course not. On the contrary, arm yourself to the teeth with information and introduce in a way that your competitors can't. Speaking very simply, CRM should solve two problems: facilitate the work of managers and ensure transparency of operations for managers. These tasks benefit every employee of the organization, directly help to get even with the routine and start earning more. Yes, the implementation of CRM 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 for all software developed by RegionSoft Developer Studio, including our flagship RegionSoft CRM in all editions (CRM for small and medium businesses).
, in which, without advertising, we write not quite formal things about CRM and business.
Source: habr.com