What Are The Pros & Cons To A CRM Software Program?

Positives and Negatives to A CRM system

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a system that helps manage, organize, and report on customer data in the sales funnel. A CRM system can store all of a salesperson’s potential clients in one space and can track their progress though the entire sales process. The software stores all of the companies cliental in the same place and creates a centralized organizational unit for all information relating to clients. CRM systems also can track all sorts of data and can create dashboards that allow salespeople to create buyer personas and target new clients based off of the information. CRMs still have some work to do but mostly are considered to be a positive aspect.

Pros

• Main function is to manage business relationships with customers to help grow the business as well as organize information in one central program
• CRMs manage relationships by tracking every single step in the sales funnel
• Helps managers and salespeople learn where they are excelling
• Shows where they can be better by comparing their individual numbers compared to the average throughout the company
• CRMs organize information into one central program which gets rid of lost data and limits miscommunication
• Managers can track and keep up with the data of their employees
• Can locate how many leads have been converted per employee on a daily, weekly or monthly basis
• Lost data will not be a problem 
• Employees leaving will not take away clients
• Data never lost only updated
• Data can be seen from a top down perspective or at even the smallest of microscopic levels
• Managers can use data to form charts, dashboards, and graphs to be able to track performance 
• Dashboards are able to create daily, weekly or monthly goals
• Charts can be used to track month over month progression
• Data can show when clients are more likely to buy or if it will be a slow month
• Individuals also have access to this tracking dashboards
• From a microscopic level, individuals can see look into numerous different numbers to effectively understand their clients
• Individuals can track their daily phone calls
• Number of leads that have been converted
• Where each client of theirs is in the sales funnel
• Look through and understand which buyers could be interested at certain times of the year.
• Capitalize on when certain clients are more like to answer the phone

Cons

• A CRM system is only efficient if it is properly used and setup in the correct way. Some issues with CRM installation include
• Cost
• CRM systems are incredibly costly and will not have a return on investment if installed incorrectly
• Usually payments are subscription costs per user per month and can range from $0-300 a month
• Startup costs for installation and training of the software
• Proper set-up
• Lack of proper setup and training can lead to lost time
• Lots of data points, if not understood correctly it can be used incorrectly or inefficiently
• Need a proper sales process after the set up
• If everyone is using a different strategy, then contact points can be different. Every term needs to mean the same thing
• Organizational chaos ensues without proper implementation and consistent processes 
• Data entry can be tiring and rigorous with numerous or duplicate leads
• Numerous leads or duplicate leads can lead to issues within team members if both are working the same person
• Numerous leads can also create non-accurate reports when trying to develop buyer personas

All in all, CRM systems are very beneficial to sales teams as long as they are implemented correctly. Salespeople get to store their information in one place and can also use other information from the past to help them drive home new clients for the future. CRM systems are designed to make the sales process easier for sales teams, easier for managers to hold their team members accountable and easier for everyone on the team as a whole to hold accountability and make everyone’s job easier.

This knowledge base article written by Dustin Dahm - https://www.linkedin.com/in/dustin-dahm-52536ba1/