What are the Reasons CRM Adoption Fails and How to Implement

As the year is approaching its end, you must be eyeing your favourite clients to give a major boost to your revenue, just the way they did it the last year and the year before that.

What if the biggest slice of your revenue pie walks away from you this time? You may think that it’s unlikely, but as a smart entrepreneur, you need to check both sides of a coin.

George Bernard Shaw, a famous Playwright, once said, “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”

Rather than living with an illusion that you are doing everything right in your business, you need to analyse your existing customer service processes. And, as the year is approaching its’ end, this is the perfect time to evaluate and evolve!

6 Reasons Why CRM Strategy is Impacting Business Prospects Negatively:

1. Focusing on ‘What’ Instead of ‘How’

Your customer service team gets to interact with customers on a day-to-day basis. Most of the time, their focus is on the quick resolution of customer queries by addressing ‘what’ they want.

When the focus is only on ‘what’, they are less likely to forge a lasting relationship with customers. Today, customers don’t just want their concerns to be addressed, but also an assurance that the problems will not surface again in the future.

The latter can be addressed only when the focus of an organization and its customer service champs is on ‘How.’

2. Spamming Your Customers

In the digital era, brands are adopting different channels to connect with their customers – Emailers, social media posts, SMS, and so on. While making the most of marketing opportunities across different channels, brands often end up spamming their customers.

Rather, they should run targeted campaigns based on customer behaviour analysis. Recently, many retail stores have started using advanced tools to analyse customer behaviour and layout their merchandise accordingly.

Take for instance, intelligent video analytics tools which work in sync with facial recognition to gather customer responses. Based on your customers’ response to advertising, website content, etc., you can devise a targeted yet effective CRM strategy.

3. Getting Too Personal

Build a strong relationship with customers, but keep it professional. While you work with clients consistently, the relation is bound to grow stronger. But, it’s equally important for customer service and sales reps to keep this relationship clearly defined and professional.

If you don’t set boundaries right with clients, they are likely to demand discounts and flexible payment terms quite frequently. So, set the tone right since the beginning by signing an agreement with them. The agreement should mention payment terms and other details clearly to ensure harmony going forward.

Related Categories: CRM Software | Sales CRM Software | Sales Force Automation Software | Customer Experience Management Software

4. Customer Acquisition, and Nothing Much

Do you know? You are spending five times more on attracting a new customer, than retaining the existing ones. There is nothing wrong in creating plans to acquire new customers. But, if the idea is to generate higher ROI, you can achieve the same by getting your costumers to come back for more.

It’s important to identify your VIP customers, who are your brand advocates with the highest number of referrals among friends and acquaintances.

Along with friend referrals, the amount they spend personally on your products/ services can also help in discovering your VIP customers. It’s crucial to know those customers who can be the source of recurring revenue for your brand, and leave no stone unturned to retain them.

5. Failure to Commit Fully

Having a customer loyalty program just for plan’s sake is a mistake that many businesses commit. They end up promising something to customers at the time of acquisition, but fail to fulfil the same later.

A few slip-ups in the customer loyalty program can make the customer experience go from good to bad in no time. Take for instance Starbuck Rewards. When they changed their simple 12 Star program to a slightly more complicated 125 Star program, they ended up disappointing their loyal customers worldwide.

For effective CRM strategy, come up with realistic loyalty programs which ensure exceptional customer experiences.

6. Blaming the Customer

Blaming in itself is an emotionally loaded reaction, where people end up oversimplifying things without analysing their true cause. And, the emotional expression of blaming proves extremely harmful for a brand’s CRM strategy. Rather than condemning, customer service reps should put forth the facts to pacify the angst of customers and provide the best resolution.

Sometimes customers do act unreasonably, even when it’s their fault. You should avoid ugly arguments with customers and focus on fixing the issue anyway. A blunt remark can damage your company’s relationship with the customer.

Around 73 percent customers start associating with a brand if it has friendly customer service reps. So, avoid playing the blame game!

The goal of any brand should always be to provide outstanding customer service. And, you can make the right CRM strategy by putting an end to these common mistakes!