Now is the best time for a CRM project
Implementing a new CRM system brings incredible benefits. Those benefits predominantly focus on sales, marketing and customer service, but they impinge on every aspect of enabling your business to be efficient, productive and effective. From closing deals more quickly to effective cross-selling, it all hinges on your CRM software.
It’s painfully old research, but the sentiment remains 55% - 75% of CRM implementation projects fail. Ouch. All of a sudden, those enticing benefits can feel tantalisingly out of reach. You stop and realise the enormity of taking on a CRM project and wonder if, amongst actually running your business, you have the time to make yours part of the more positive statistics.
That’s why the best time for a CRM project is now. Whilst COVID-19 has put the brakes on businesses around the world, one thing many have that they don’t normally is time. Implementing a new CRM solution takes time: between 6 weeks and 4 months, and then some more for user training.
And the benefits for the post-coronavirus business landscape are even more enticing. With the right CRM system, successfully implemented, your business will be streets ahead of your competition, when competition is tougher than ever.
CRM isn’t plug and play
In our experience, CRM implementation fails because businesses hope it is plug-and-play. Businesses want the benefits but they don’t realise the work involved. CRM, and any system you use to make it possible, has to be a core part of strategy and a systemic part of the business. Anything that’s strategic and systemic takes time and resources. Without dedicating the time it needs, you end up with a low adoption rate or disjointed use.
The benefits of CRM are worth it. But change equals challenge. To get it right you need to dedicate time and resources. You need a project manager who can focus on this and this alone, plus some super-users who become the pros in your organisation. You can then harvest the benefits at the same scale as a combine harvester on rocket fuel. But normally these people are busy elsewhere.
However, we’re probably preaching to the converted. Any customer-orientated business knows that they need an effective and powerful CRM solution. But they simply don’t have the time and space to make it a reality.
The window of opportunity
We’d normally argue that summer is an excellent time for change. Customers tend to be less active, with holidays and time off. However, now we’re in an even greater lull due to COVID-19. Whilst that may well have left you with notable concerns, it also gives you a window of opportunity that you wouldn’t normally have.
Potentially, right now, you have the time and the resources to dedicate a project manager and a team of super-users to implement a new CRM system, so that you can emerge, post COVID, stronger than ever. Particularly, you emerge ready to convert leads and make sales with a greater focus and dexterity than your competition.
Benefiting from CRM after COVID-19
Unfortunately we can’t escape the reality that COVID-19 has radically changed the business landscape. As businesses adjust to a new normal, they will be facing greater pressures than many have in living memory. The only way to survive and thrive is to nurture customer relationships in a way your competition can’t. To do that, with success, requires CRM solution. And the time to get that in place is now.
