The truth is that companies do need CRM systems.
An active sales team generates a flood of data. They can be out on the road talking to customers, meeting prospects and finding out valuable information – but all this information gets stored in handwritten notes, laptops, or inside the heads of salespeople.
Details can get lost, meetings are not followed up promptly and prioritising customers can be a matter of guesswork rather than an exercise based on fact. Worse still it can all be compounded if a key salesperson moves on. As Bill Gates, CEO of Microsoft, said “How you gather, manage, and use information will determine whether you win or lose”.
On top of this customers may be contacting businesses on a range of different platforms – phone, email and social media. Asking questions, following up on orders or complaining. Without a common platform for customer interactions, communications can be missed or lost in the flood of information – leading to an unsatisfactory response.
Even if this data is successfully collected, businesses face the challenge of making sense of it. It can be difficult to extract intelligence. Reports can be hard to create and waste valuable selling time. Managers can lose sight of what their team are up to in reality, which means that they can't offer the right support at the right time – while a lack of oversight can also result in a lack of accountability from the team.