Everyone in the business software community will agree: having a CRM system in place is a must. On the web, it’s fairly easy to find thousands of articles devoted to praising the benefits of CRM systems in business management. However, on this post we want to do exactly the opposite: we are going to bust the most common CRM myths, by focusing on the problems associated with poor user experience, inappropriate use and bad interface design.
CRM software, a thriving market
Different studies agree that CRM software is currently the biggest software market in the world: 91% of companies with more than 11 employees use some type of CRM software for their internal procedures. Only in 2018, the CRM global market reached $48 billion in revenue and $11 billion only in the EU. By 2025, the global market is expected to reach more than $80 billion.
With 44% of businesses stating an intention to increase their IT budgets in 2020, companies are investing in new models for CRM solutions to better adapt to the new competitive environment. In 2019, the total expenditure on software as a service (SaaS) was predicted to reach approximately $42billion and to represent 75% of the total CRM software expense, supporting the rapid decline of on-premises deployments.
So, even if CRM models date from the last century, they are now more present than ever. The deployments are evolving to adapt to the ever changing needs of the companies and new functionalities are added.
CRM myths: data and sales
One of the most common promises made by CRM systems is their capacity to boost data-driven sales. And, despite that can be generally true, just having in place a CRM system does not guarantee an increase on closed deals. The functionality of the system and, mainly, the fact that it is used by the workforce, will be major determinants on the achievement of that promise.
Let’s check the main CRM myths that surround data management and sales performance:
Myth #1 CRM makes data management easier and more efficient
Having a CRM system in place is not a magical solution to all your data problems. In fact,
23% of salespeople cite manual data entry as the biggest challenge when using their existing CRM.
As an average, 75% of sales and marketing professionals devote 9 hours of their weekly working hours to CRM administration and data entry tasks. Despite this huge amount of time and resources being placed in data entry, 40% of salespeople admit to have given incorrect information to a prospect as a result of CRM data errors.
Using inaccurate CRM data when reaching a prospect is not only embarrassing, but it also has a direct impact on the company’s bottom line in 88% of the cases, with the average company losing 12% of its revenue for this reason.
Myth #2 CRM systems ensure a seamless alignment between data and sales
30% of salespeople say closing deals is getting harder and harder. That is not surprising, if we consider the increment in the number of competitior and the overload of marketing messages that prospects are exposed to daily. According to Hubspot, 17% of salespeople cite lack of integration with other tools as the biggest challenge using their existing CRM.
On top of that, if the data in our CRM is not correct, the sales process will become even more challenging. On average, 70% of CRM data “goes bad” or becomes obsolete every year. The faulty process in CRM data entry and management, will cost the average salesperson 20 lost sales each year, which translates to an average loss of 12.000€ per salesperson for the organization. Only in the US, dad data costs companies $3 Trillion per year.
Myth #3 CRM systems are widely adopted
If you have read our post about the future of CRM systems, you know that between 19% and 70% of CRM implementations failbecause people hate using them. In fact, on a recent study carried out by Hubspot, the platform found that 40% of users still use informal tools to store important customer data despite having a CRM in place, and 18% don’t even know what a CRM is.
According to a report by IBM, CRM adoption rates are as low as 24%, and, according to CSO Insights, less than 40% of CRM customers have end-user adoption rates above 90%. Considering this, it is not surprising that the data included in the CRM systems doesn’t totally support business processes.
Our take on CRM myths regarding data and sales
Despite all the facts and figures exposed above, we are not denying the potential utility that CRM systems can have. CRM systems, when correctly developed and implemented, are a huge support for all the business processes carried out in any given company. Not in vain they are a billionaire software industry.
For CRM systems to be in fact useful for any organization, they have to really live up to their claims and prove themselves useful to the end user. Simple interfaces, timely actions and real integration across tools and departments are some of the features that can turn a common CRM into a superstar.
That is our goal with SuperCards, a user-friendly software that provides the most common out-of-the-box use cases for data and sales management in a simple, intuitive way.
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