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The 7 Deadly Procrastinators of CRM & and how to deal with them!

cut-procrastination-big.pngHitting the ‘go’ button on a new CRM implementation is a big decision. It involves a significant investment of money and time, it will probably involve reorganising parts of your company, and it will have a deep and lasting effect on many people.

You know of course that the deep and lasting effect will be a positive one. You’ve spent time looking into the specific improvements CRM could make to your organisation, you’ve assessed vendors and identified the one that’s right for you, and you’ve done the ROI calculation. It all adds up. You want to do it. But for some reason you can’t quite bring yourself to hit that ‘go’ button.

You’ve entered the procrastination zone.

Don’t worry, you’re not alone there – far from it! Many of the businesses that start evaluating CRM projects don’t end up buying one, and whilst this is sometimes because they discover very good reasons not to proceed, as often it is because they drift into the procrastination zone.

It is hard work dragging yourself out of this zone. It is a seductively safe place where everything remains the same as it always has. Yet, it is also where you deliver none of the improvements that you know CRM could bring. Customer acquisition and retention rates remain static, inefficiencies persist, and the information that could improve processes remains hidden from view.

Here are seven of the most common reasons for procrastination. See which one of the Seven Deadly Procrastinators is holding you back from your CRM implementation, and see if the argument we make against it is enough to persuade you to take action and hit that ‘go’ button.

1. I haven’t got time to implement a CRM platform; I need to get out and see some sales prospects

asset-51.pngThis enthusiasm to get out and meet sales prospects is commendable, but are you meeting the right ones, the prospects most likely to convert into business? And are you going there armed with the right information?

The right CRM solution will make the time you spend on sales far more efficient. It brings sales and marketing into sync, and according to Marketo, organisations when sales and marketing are in sync become 67% better at closing deals.

2. How can you expect me to spend time putting a CRM platform in place? I need to spend my time with current customers, making sure they’re happy.

asset-5.pngSimilarly, according to MarketingProfs, organisations with tightly aligned sales and marketing functions enjoy 36% higher customer retention rates. This is because a CRM platform will give you a single, real-time view of your customer and make your interactions with them far more effective.

3. We can’t afford that level of investment! Look at all the other costs coming up.

asset-17.pngA key benefit of CRM is that it automates and streamlines a wide range of processes from sales reporting to quote raising, and much more in between. There is an initial cost of implementation but over a five-year period you can expect to see a clear return on this investment from a cost saving perspective alone. Add to that the increased customer retention and acquisition covered above and for many organisations it becomes clear that CRM is an investment they cannot afford not to make.

4. There’s just so much going on right now – we can’t afford a distraction like this.

asset-13.pngYou will need to focus some of your attention on your new CRM system. But in return you will quickly be able to bring together all of your important prospect and customer data in one clear, focused location. In many organisations that is information previously held on emails, spreadsheets, and in peoples’ brains all collected in one location that you can access anytime, anywhere. Bring in automation of business processes and you can see how CRM can boost productivity. Far from being a distraction, CRM is for most organisations the foundation of a streamlined, efficient, and successful operation.

5. We need to get our processes and systems in line before it makes sense to invest in something new like this.

asset-21.pngThe process of implementing a CRM platform encourages, often forces, organisations to revamp outdated processes and align systems that have been operating against each other. Without CRM they tend to simply rumble along as they always have done, and this can be expensive: according to IDC, the inability of B2B companies to align teams around the right processes and technologies has cost them upwards of 10% of revenue a year.

6. We’re all for it in sales, and I think we can persuade marketing to go for it, but finance and customer service have different priorities right now. In fact, they always have different priorities.

asset-54.pngA key benefit of CRM is that it helps reduce this sort of siloed thinking, which can be so detrimental to sales, customer service, and overall organisational management. In simple terms, CRM pulls everyone together on one unified platform.

Marketingprofs reports that companies that succeed in aligning just two of those functions – sales and marketing for example – generate 208% more revenue from marketing. Imagine what you could do if you aligned all of your organisation’s functions.

7. I just need a bit more time to properly make up my mind

asset-11.pngThis is what sits at the heart of all procrastination. We all want more time. More time to be certain we’re right, more time to weigh up options. And we can probably have this time. We can wait another day, another week, another year, before making up our mind and hitting the ‘go’ button.

But while we take our time, our competitors are making decisions and getting ahead of us. While we take our time, our own organisation carries on with the same inefficiencies and the same lost opportunities.

So, procrastinate no longer. Trust in your assessments, calculations and judgements. Seize the moment and hit that ‘go’ button.

How does our CRM meet your marketing needs?

  1. Maximise your lead generation
  2. Manage your data, segment and target accurately
  3. Manage your data, segment and target accurately
  4. Know the ROI of marketing activities so you can focus your budget on what really works
  5. Align to sales and drive timely follow-up

Want more marketing functionality?

In addition to CRM, Workbooks offer Marketing Automation capabilities, fully integrated with the core CRM platform, to help increase efficiency and impact, drive greater engagement, productivity and provide even greater insight.

Workbooks CRM provides significant competitive advantages to marketers, but you can take it one step further.

  • Email marketing & workflows
  • Web analytics & lead generation
  • Workbooks social media management
  • Workbooks popups
  • Workbooks surveys

CRM Marketing Features

Data management & targeting

Manage account and contact information. Segment your data and make your marketing relevant and timely.

Find Out More
Website analytics & lead capture

Automatically capture leads from your website via forms. Assign them to queues/campaigns and notify sales.

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Lead management & scoring

Use scoring to ensure sales spend their time on the opportunities most likely to convert. Automate lead assignment for fast follow-up. Set alerts when follow-up is not happening.

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Campaign management

Gain visibility of all elements of a campaign. Use templates to send targeted emails. Review performance and track key metrics for all campaigns.

Event management

Plan, organise and promote events. Enable delegates to self-register and automatically schedule and send communications.

Marketing metrics

Capture key information such as campaign ROI, lead volumes by source, lead conversion etc. Use reports & dashboards to ensure you have real-time information at your fingertips.

Track marketing activities

Manage day-to-day workload and keep on top of outstanding tasks to ensure project milestones are hit and campaigns are delivered on time.

Suppliers management

Manage suppliers’ activities and communications in one place. Upload commercial documents & track expiry dates.

PO / Budget management

Raise and easily track the status of purchase orders. Manage and audit sign-off. Manage your marketing expenditure effectively.

Having issues with data quality?

Workbooks can help solves this problem by providing a range of data deduplication and data quality tools which can be used directly inside the Workbooks CRM platform.: identify duplicate records en masse, using advance fuzzy matching algorithms, define merging rules when merge records in bulk and automate the process to ensure your data always remains clean.

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