How does a disjointed CRM affect your business?

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a valuable asset in any company’s efficiency and productivity. But, let us face it, CRM environment is not always easy to maintain effectively. In an ideal scenario, CRM should be organized and unified and equipped with integrated relevant customer data so that the business can provide singular experience to its customers. CRM is supposed to be a win-win situation where the customer is happy and the business is successful.
Unfortunately, this is not always the case. CRM environment tends to become disorganized and disconnected as the company and market evolves and if proper measures are not taken in time, the company will be in troubled waters. The three main areas that suffer greatly from a disjointed CRM are customer satisfaction, employee productivity and company performance.
Customer Rules
The customer community has evolved with time. Now, they are equipped with information resources available in various platforms through multiple communication channels. The customer is in control of choosing his/her medium of convenience and this power has remolded company sales and service.
With innumerable opportunities, customer behavior has evolved along with customer expectations. The way customers seek, select, buy, review and recommend products and services has never been static over the recent years. C2C interactions have made customers constantly vigilant of how successful a company is in satisfying their actual customers. Contemporary customers are enlightened and also have heightened expectations. Satisfying such a customer community can be a daunting task if the CRM of your business is no longer organized and unified.
One of the main elements of an efficient CRM is integration. If the CRM fails to compile and integrate information on customers across different communication channels, the business will be devoid of dynamic and comprehensive customer data and consequently end up being ineffective in satisfying customers. Dissatisfied customers are a major disadvantage. Dissatisfaction not only disappoints actual customers but also discourages potential customers putting the future of the business in jeopardy.
A company with an unsatisfied customer community has no existence. Not only will the reputation of the company go down but also its sales and relationship with partners.
Sad Faces
Customer satisfaction may be the success mantra of any business but bereft of desired employee productivity no company can ever survive, no matter how highly satisfied the customers were with its product or service. Employee productivity and retention is not only significant for a business to survive but also grow. A disjointed CRM can have adverse effect on both these factors.
CRM is essential for marketers and sales reps and its benefits are also reaped by customer support executives and business managers. The integrated customer information acquired by the CRM is tailored for different employees. None of this is possible without a unified CRM.
A disconnected CRM cannot offer unified customer information which means that employees at different desks will have to make out of whatever inadequate information they have to get a picture of the customer journey. This picture will never be complete let alone correct. Working with insufficient information and personally knitting together disjoint pieces of data to make sense of the customer behavior and expectations has many disadvantages. Firstly, it can be frustrating to the employee. Secondly, different employees will end up imagining different customer stories and all of them may be far from real. Thirdly, with inadequate data the employees cannot succeed in effectively satisfying customers which will create unfavorable responses from the customers. This in turn will reflect negatively in the morale of employees.
Banana Skin
CRM does not come free of cost. The installation cost of CRM hardware and software is somewhat apparent. Nonetheless, CRM requires orientation and training of employees, updating technology and developing and supporting resources. A disorganized CRM will turn out to be an economical banana skin. It not only affects customer experience and employee morale, it also becomes a burdensome outlay.
When the capital of the company feeds a futile and even deleterious system, the outcome is predictable. Disjointed CRM becomes a money-devouring unrewarding monster pulling down the overall company performance.
Rock Bottom
It is only a matter of time before your company hits rock bottom because of disjointed CRM. The first step in avoiding a disjointed CRM is creating and adopting only CRM solutions that best fit your business requirements. There are enough custom solutions in the market tailored for individual businesses. Moreover, incorporating CRM in your company is not a destination to reach. CRMs should be constantly evaluated for actual and potential bugs and inconsistencies. The efficiency and performance of the CRMs should be regularly monitored. All these guidelines may prevent the emergence of a disjointed CRM.
If you find yourself in a disjointed CRM despite taking all preventive measures, there is no need to panic. Constant monitoring and evaluation will definitely help you identify disjointed elements in your CRM at initial stages so that you can work on fixing the bugs and employing new strategies and workaround to solve your CRM issues. In case you have identified a disjointed CRM environment only in the later stages, you can consult CRM solutions and experts which focus on modifying your current CRMS to help you get back on your feet in no time.
Share your thoughts on the various steps that can ward you off from the ill effects of a disjointed CRM.
If you would like to know more about Suyati’s expertise in CRM, please send e-mail to services@suyati.com.