In this post, let us consider the three ways we got CRM user management wrong.
Continue reading to know more about the topic.
What We Got Wrong About CRM User Management
It’s a sad fact but the truth is we have been getting CRM user management wrong for a long time.
A lot has changed in how we manage users in CRM. It’s no longer as simple as just creating users and groups and handing them out to your users.
The reality is that you have to think about what your users are going to be doing in your CRM.
Are they going to be using the system every day? Are they mostly reporting on data rather than manipulating it?
We Are Still Group Centric
The first way we got user management wrong is that we are still group-centric with our thinking rather than user-centric.
The problem with being group-centric is that there is no real way to define who has access to what data outside of groups.
As a result, you end up with a lot of groups and a lot of users in your system.
Reality Bites: There Are Users Not Group Members
The second way we got user management wrong is that we are still clinging to the idea that every user needs to be part of a group.
It used to be that all users were part of a group. And the only time they weren’t was when they were new users and they didn’t have access to any data.
Now though, we have users that are not group members. These are the users who are not working in the system daily or maybe they’re just reporting on data rather than manipulating it.
In order to cater to these users, you need to take away the concept of groups and give them a set of permissions that they can control on their own.
Users Are Not Your Only Audience
The third way is that we were focused on only having users in our CRM.
We saw ourselves as the only people who would be using our CRM and so didn’t bother about any other audiences for our CRM data.
We now know though, that other people need access to our CRM data.
You might want your marketing team to have access to your lead list. Or you might want your salespeople to see the opportunities assigned to them.
You may also have people who write reports or do analysis on your CRM data and they need access as well.
Final Thoughts
The truth is that we got CRM user management wrong.
It was just a matter of time before CRM evolved past the confines of groups and into a more agile, flexible tool.
We now know that users are not always going to be users and we know that it’s up to us to decide what data they have access to.
We don’t need to design our CRM system around the notion of groups. We should be designing it around the needs of our users.
It’s time we change that.
