Customer relationship management, being customer centric and using data to understand your audience are critical to the success of your business. If your organisation considers CRM simply as a piece of technology, or the job of one person this list may be for you.
1. There is no real plan
Your CRM system may have been launched without a customer relationship strategy. Without a new plan nothing will have changed. It’s time to stop focusing on sending out communications and pull together a strategy which will utilise your CRM system to give your customers a better experience.
2. Your CRM strategy and your organisational goals aren’t supporting each other
Maybe you do have a CRM strategy, but does it support your business strategy? If not, you are pulling in different directions, which will not help either the business or the CRM strategy to achieve its goals.
3. Wrong CRM tools selected
Do you have the right technology? Speak with your providers and tell them what you need, it could be as simple as a reconfiguration. If not, it could be an expensive look at new technology, your provider will generally want to do all they can to help as they won’t want to lose you. If they can’t further investment might be cheaper than losing all your customers because you can’t meet their needs
4. CRM launched without customer input
Did anyone send a survey to your customers to discover where you may be failing to meet their expectations and what else you can do to add value to their lives? Without this you may well be in the dark to finding ways to offer a better experience for your customers.
5. CRM is left to the IT people
IT teams are critical to marketing in todays environment, however, its their job to understand technology, not people. Though CRM is often considered as a piece of technology, that is only part of the puzzle, the key word is relationship, and relationships require meaningful interaction. Technology cannot do this; the technology will only put out what you put in. As a marketer, it is your job to understand what your customers want, and for a CRM system to facilitate that.
6. CRM is considered a one-time project
Customer relationship management is a business philosophy, not a project run by a few people or a piece of technology. Look at your company culture, processes, systems and frameworks. Changing systems or doing an isolated piece of work will have little impact on how your customers experience your organisation.
7. CRM launched without clear SMART Objectives
If you don’t have clear alignment within your organisation of what is expected as a result of investing in a programme of CRM projects, or one project, it will not be perceived as effective. Write your SMART objectives and get buy in from the right people, no matter how large or small:
- New CRM systems
- Single customer view
- Customer centric marketing approach
- Customer research
- Building customer journeys
- Creating customer personas
8. No top-down leadership or employee buy-in
Build it and they will come, does not apply to change in a business environment. Everyone has their own experiences and reasons for carrying out their work the way they do. If you don’t get buy in or a ‘sponsor’ from your management team, and you don’t invest time in communicating the changes and benefits to staff and customers, adoption will be a struggle, and the project maybe pointless.
9. Nobody took a customer-centric view
CRM is all about the customer, supporter or member – this applies however you categorise our target market. If you are putting what the business wants before what the customer wants, they will look elsewhere. If you aren’t finding ways to give your customers value through your communications, they won’t give you their time.
If you found this interesting and want to learn more about customer relationship management or marketing strategy, get yourself qualified and maybe even a promotion, sign up for our Professional Diploma in Marketing in London.