If your business has been working with a CRM for a long period of time and hasn’t seen any changes, the likelihood is that there are aspects of it that could be improved. It is often said that user demands change over time as the business strategy develops in line with market trends and you often see rapid technological advances. In order to make the most of your CRM system you need to regularly review the way it's been used across your business and understand what it delivers in terms of value to the business.
A number of different external factors such as changing customer behaviour as well as increased competition can all highlight minor issues within your system capability and usage. Being able to address these issues early on can in the long term be more cost effective and stop them having a negative impact on the business.
To give you an example of this, you may find that the accuracy and quality of your data has dramatically been reduced. It could be the case where new users or different functions are using different data sets outside your CRM database. The main problem with this is the fact that any marketing campaigns launched based on data are not as effective as they could be. From this point, users will work outside the compounds of the CRM system to launch new campaigns so when the data is fed back into the system its incomplete which has a knock on effect across the business in terms of performance.
As well as this, if you are not taking advantage of the latest features and capabilities then your overall communications to your customers are compromised. This will mean that the people you are targeting will be getting much more relevant information and support from your competitors, which could drive them away from you.
In addition to this, other factors that you have more control over can outweigh planned benefits. For example, if you install an on-premise CRM for a business that has recently moved to a cloud-based strategy then this will cause future support headaches.
So how can you identify if your current Dynamics 365/CRM solution needs a refresh?
- Lack of trust in the quality of the CRM data from users
- A drop in the CRM system usage with only a handful of users, who are using a limited amount of features
- Your CRM solution is missing vital capabilities such as mobile & reporting so it's not living up to the user expectations
- Your business has recently adopted a cloud-based IT strategy, however your current CRM is on-premise, so support issues are becoming more common.
Next Steps
The first thing you need to do is to undertake a full review of the performance of your CRM. Here at Advantage, we can help you with this by providing with you with some tailored Dynamics 365/CRM consultancy to help identify your pain points. From here, we can then make recommendations as to what your business can do, whether it be upgrade your current CRM solution or receive additional Dynamics 365/CRM training. Contact our CRM experts today to get started on your journey.
