In 2019, it was observed that 87% of businesses use a cloud-based CRM solution compared to 12% in 2008. This has been attributed primarily because of mobile user adoption rates. Employees are now more connected with their company goals better than ever before. While the adoption rate steadily increases, it has been noticed that 20% Of CRM applications fail their customer satisfaction scores. This is because most Customer Relationship Management tools lack focus on setting up niche specific or segmented entry points for businesses. The end goal for most businesses to adopt a CRM solution is to be able to bridge a gap between customers and the value they bring to a business. This relationship is variable and is formed on the basis of the business conducted.
Goal Strategies
Businesses that adopt CRM solutions often adapt a strategy of using existing features or techniques and thereafter align their goals. CRM service providers need to change their focus from offering a generic solution and instead take an effort in customizing the experience for stakeholders based on their original business goals. CRM intelligence that is able to start with assessing goals at its initial stages will help businesses achieve their targets.
Organizations willing to invest in a CRM have definite goals and need to be able to see them progress in clear and measurable metrics. Goals such as increasing profitability, sales or ARPU vary with businesses and their quarterly or annual plans. A CRM that can cater to these metrics by granting a much more laser-focused guide will see better adoption rates. When a CRM strategy directly supports the company’s business priorities, it makes CRM something the company can’t live without – which makes it both successful and sustainable.
User Commitment & Adoption
As is the case with any software solution, there has to be a level of absorption that peaks commitment. The question that any new CRM solution needs to ask, is if all stakeholders at every level in management or operations are able to see progress in their pre-defined goals. Management has to be visibly and vocally committed to the CRM effort. In addition to management, employees who will actually use the CRM system have to be engaged and committed to it as well. One solution here is to be able to offer gamification of the goals that organizations set up.
A new CRM system brings along with its new processes, automation, information, roles, responsibilities, and control. Oftentimes, an actual or perceived loss of control is also garnered. Some of the change management features and functions used in CRM software implementations include readiness assessments, communications properties, business, and technical analysis, learning and training tools, intermediation measures and value realization insights. These steps basically provide guarantees that aversion to change will not delay or derail business goals.
Design Thinking
A CRM that does not allow users to define variable goals is a pointless project. It becomes ironic that a relationship tool is unable to build a relationship with its user and expects it from a customer. CRM projects are most successful when project objectives are designed to satisfy company, customer and user goals. Design Thinking is the best tool to identify the CRM software’s highest impact and it’s most important success criteria.
5 Reasons Why CRM Systems Fail at the Organisation Level
- The company adopting the solution does not do enough to prepare their users. This often results in a lack of interest since stakeholders do not see value in its contribution. Leaders need to be educated about the goals that the company defines and treat this as an assured solution aid in achieving targets.
- Businesses tend to forget the main objective or learning how to transform goals into measurable insights. A solution here is to be able to offer the creation of departmentalized goals that are in line with the objectives of the company.
- Current CRM systems are not designed to be gamified. This takes away the aspect of rewarding completion. Stakeholders that are aware of B2B or B2C relationship goals should be able to create result-oriented visuals that represent success and failure rates for their objectives.
- Iterations for features, techniques, strategies, and objectives need to be routinely checked and updated. Leaders that rely on CRM systems need to be able to share this information with the departmentalized teams responsible for the goals they are assigned. These should change while pacing business charts.
- Enterprises that adopt new technologies into their digital streams tend to get intimidated with the process. This results in fabricating unorganized chaos during planning and execution of tasks. It has been proven that trying to do everything at once does not ensure that anything gets done well. A CRM that learns how to fragment the implementation and integration of goals into a stepwise process will prove to be more efficient and much more manageable.
Value Addition to Help Users Adopt a CRM Solution through Webinars
Conducting a standard webinar that highlights features of the system may not be an ideal strategy to implement. Instead, marketing strategies should revolve around customizing content that appeals to users of specific niches and localized departments. This would help reach out to targeted segments of the audience and offer them a customized webinar approach that works for their specific business needs.
Additionally, conducting a one day webinar for 45 minutes would be less impactful rather than seeing up to two sessions of 20 minutes each. This gives users the time to think about questions they may want to ask their team leads or managers that are not attending the first webinar session. The first session should help form a connection with the user to help convince them that the next sitting holds more value if they were to bring someone more to the table. This would assist the attendee of the second session to use the testimonial of the user from the first session to make a more authentic and trustworthy decision. Peer-to-peer (P2P) marketing is a method that involves customers engaging other customers/colleagues through recommendations. Nielsen’s 2015 Global Trust in Advertising report found that friends, family, and peers are the most trusted sources of recommendations, with 83% of respondents completely or “to an extent” trust their peers’ suggestions. This is in line with other Nielsen reports, which have shown up to 92% trust in peers, far more than any other group they interact with.
Data Points to Consider with the Webinar
- Users will only commit to one webinar a week unless the follow up process is personalised where they are expected to attend again with the help of a technical lead, manager or strategy maker.
- Across industries, the average attendance rate that you can expect with webinars is at 30%.This can be incremented by creating optics as a custom webinar solution for users of specific industries.
Webinar Topics to Cover
- Education and knowledge-sharing lead the path for webinar discussions. Sharing insights and an overview of the features of the CRM solution and how it utilizes these features is what the first webinar session should follow. QnA sessions after the webinar are always appreciated but instead of being reactive and waiting for attendees to reach out, the presenter should be able to gather more information from the attendee by asking them on a personal level of who they would like to invite to their next meeting or how to set up a callback immediately.
- The second session should focus on tech implementations and a deeper dive into the features of the service that may appear to seem tailored for the business. Sharing information on how goals are accomplished, relations are maintained and what to measure next should be the objective here. Remember that this is your last chance to impress your attendee and if they are attending with a peer, it can be highly beneficial to approach this as a team effort. This means that the second attendee needs to feel that they have been called because this is a serious decision and their counsel weighs in support. Always share related stories of how similar niche competitors are performing well using a CRM.