According to Smart Insights 47% of all companies have CRM (Customer Relationships Management) software. This statistic shouldn’t be surprising, due to the fact that CRM offers an average return of $5,60 for every $1 spent [source].
CRM offers an average return of $5,60 for every $1 spent
More and more companies implement those solutions, whereas their ROI. However, between 25 and 60% of CRM projects fail to meet expectations, according to studies conducted over the past decade [source].
Between 25 and 60% of CRM projects fail to meet expectations, according to studies conducted over the past decade
What’s more, there is a huge number of companies which can’t see any value in the classic customer relationship management systems. From this article you will learn what are the common features of ordinary CRM systems. Additionally, I listed 9 signs that the common CRM system wasn’t made for you. The first sign is….
1. You are not only talking to people to sell them something
Nowadays, you can find a lot of CRM solutions on the market. The common CRM system focuses only on communication between potential clients and sales team. This solution does not take into consideration other forms of contact like communication with your providers, press, and other business partners. Because of the limitations of your system, those conversations needs to be handle from your mailbox and those difficulties. Your teammates do not have access to all details of an agreement, unless you will forward them each mail.
In a typical firm with 100-500 employees, an average of 7 people are involved in most buying decision.
According to the latest surveys, in a typical firm with 100-500 employees, an average of 7 people are involved in most buying decision” (source: Gartner Group). Often, while making the decision the responsible person needs to contact people not directly involved in the buying process – end-users. The low quality of the communication with those people can be caused by CRM limitations, which leads to lower sales results.
In InStream, in the company detailed view automatically shows who is linked with the particular company and with whom you have the strongest connection.
The innovative CRM software has to show you with whom from the particular company you have the strongest business relation, and gather all communication with all linked people in one place.
2. You need to collect nonstandard information about your contacts
Nearly 57% of B2B prospects and customers feel that their sales teams are not prepared for the first meeting. It is often caused by the lack of the CRM system or its limitations.
Nearly 57% of B2B prospects and customers feel that their sales teams are not prepared for the first meeting.
The ability to save any information about your contact in the CRM system might be priceless in the most surprising moments.
The custom fields in InStream allows you to add any information about your contact.
Well-designed CRM system should allow you to enter any information about your contact.
In InStream, you can add any information about your contact. You can also filter and search for particular companies and people based on any custom criteria.
3. You current CRM system do not provide you with information about your clients’ social media activity
The social media are the great opportunity for sales reps. Yet, systems designed a few years ago might haven’t taken into consideration this free source of potential customers. The innovative CRM solution should give you the ability to monitor all your contacts activity in social media.
While using InStream you can monitor all your contacts activity in social media. This gives you the ability to quickly respond to all relevant messages and questions. Learn more about social selling in InStream.
66% of social media users expect a response within a day.
According to the latest surveys, 66% of social media users expect a response within a day. (Source: Media Bistro). It means that the best sales people are always updated about clients’ social media profiles updates.
Another benefit from monitoring social media is getting an access to the larger number of information about people we want to contact. Instead of starting a conversation with “I have the special offer for you…” you can do it in a more personalized way; “I have seen on Facebook, that you are planning to come to the New York City to visit…., at this time I would also be there. I think it might be a good occasion to meet and discuss ….”
4. Your CRM system is not flexible enough
The latest studies suggest that 63% of people requesting information on your company today will not purchase for at least three months – and 20% will take more than 12 months to buy [Source: Marketing Donut].
The Grid View
In InStream, you can get the immediate overview of all your communication with business partners
The CRM system should not only show you in, the transparent manner, how your communication with a client goes, but also should show you all important information related to the clients’ industry or company.
Add new field in the relation list to adjust our platform to your needs.
To enable you to see and collect all important information about your clients, the CRM system has to provide you with the ability to add your customized fields and to sort and filter any data. Thanks to that, with just one click you would see all most promising customers, people with whom you have recently spoken and potential revenue from transactions. What’s more, your CRM system should autocomplete this information, so that you can focus on building relations with your clients.
5. You can only use 3 lists
Common CRM solutions provide their users with only 3 lists, on which the can store all communication with their customers. Most frequently those lists contain leads, prospects, and customers. It basically means that you can only enter contacts related to your sales funnel, but there is no space for other stakeholders. This is the major issue why companies are looking for software which has more options than classic CRM systems.
Thanks to ability to create custom lists, in InStream, you can store communication with any stakeholder.
The innovative CRM system should store all communication of the particular company and shouldn’t limit it, only to the communication within sales funnel.
6. You can’t send and receive emails from your mailbox
Still, most of the CRM solutions requires from their users to copy paste each sent and received email to the system. It is the time-consuming and ineffective task. The user-friendly system should integrate, in an easy way, with any mailbox. Furthermore, the user should have the ability to receive and send emails directly from the platform.
You can integrate your mailbox with InStream with just one click.
7. You do not have access to your data from anywhere
Software-as-a-service (SaaS) will dominate in the future and it is likely that over half of CRM deployments will be cloud-based SaaS, as revealed by Gartner. The cloud-based solution gives you access to the system after paying the subscription fee. What’s more, there is no need to install any new software on your computer. The same study suggests that through SaaS is the more preferable choice over installed CRM in terms of security, time, and cost [source].
Software-as-a-service (SaaS) will dominate in the future and it is likely that over half of CRM deployments will be cloud-based SaaS, as revealed by Gartner. The same study suggests that through SaaS is the more preferable choice over installed CRM in terms of security, time, and cost [source].
SaaS systems has also another privilege. You can access your data from any device connected to the Internet.
8. The calendar from your CRM system doesn’t integrate with Google Calendar
Some of the CRM systems have built-in calendars which do not sync with any external calendars. This force users to choose only one solution to save information about your upcoming event. The well-designed system takes into consideration, that the user might have use different calendar before and is willing to do so now. The CRM has to give you the ability to integrate your calendar with the system.
In InStream you are just one click away from Google Calendar integration.
9. Your current CRM system is overloaded with functionalities and it’s no longer easy-to-use.
72% of users would give up all the extra features just to get a CRM that’s easier to use. What’s more, 43% of users use less than 50% of functionalities which their CRM systems contain.
72% of users would give up all the extra features just to get a CRM that’s easier to use (source)
While designing any system the User Experience should stay at the center of the designer’s attention. The user should have the best possible experience with the system. To ensure that, many companies hire specialists who test systems before introducing ay changes. Furthermore, the more functions the CRM has, the more expensive the implementation is. With regard to the costs, in small companies is better to choose system which is easy to start with.
Dashboard – InStream shows the most important information on the welcome screen. Thanks to that, every day you are reminded about your most important tasks.
Organize your communication with clients
Choose the automation of the processes and focus on your work
