Adopting a new CRM system is of course a bit frightening. There are many barriers to overcome, including price of adoption, the time it will take to train your sales team (and any other teams that would need to learn how to operate the software), poor design and difficulty of use, dirty data, and more. Due to these challenges, many organizations struggle to introduce systems successfully.
Yet there are some ways to overcome these challenges. Below, I present three common CRM adoption challenges and how to solve them successfully.
1.    Difficulty in Predicting Long-Term Changes
Challenge: It is not possible to accurately predict the future performance of your business or organization due to the unpredictable market forces in the world today. CRM systems are designed and driven by technology. Hence, advancement in technology leads to development of new systems that all more effective than previous models. Unfortunately, most organizations view CRM systems as business solutions. CRM systems are basically tools that facilitate business change. Such businesses are usually caught off guard due to lack of long term strategies and mechanism to align their operations with the CRM.
Solution: Understanding the CRM solution fully even before adopting it is one of the most plausible solutions to this problem. This will in turn help you to formulate and successfully implement long term strategies as well as streamline the adoption process. Additionally, the CRM implementation team needs to go to the ground and interact with other employees. This will help them identify various unforeseen challenges that may hamper the implementation process. Furthermore, interacting with employees will help them determine suitability of the system to the organization.
2.    Implementation Cost
Challenge: This is one of the most common problems facing small, medium and large business. The cost of buying and installing a CRM platform, not to mention the cost of training your employees on how to operate it (and the time lost as they are not working at fully speed and potential) is enough to make many companies hesitant to take on the risk.
Solution: First, it is important to consider the total cost of purchasing and implementing the system when preparing your annual or monthly budget. Compare and contrast the cost of using each system before making your final decision so as to choose one that is affordable and in line with your budget. For example, choose systems whose legends are clear and easy to understand to save money and time during the training process. Furthermore, there are SaaS software tools – WalkMe being an example – that shorten the training periods, as employees are able to receive direct performance support in the exact moment of need, as they work. So they train as they are working, helping your business not only reduce costs on training but also maintain business momentum.
3.     Employee Resistance to Change
Challenge: Not all employees will embrace the change of adopting a new CRM platform. This resistance may hurt the overall performance of your business. For example, some of the employees may feel that the system will expose some of their bad habits to the managerial team.
Solution: Enlightening the employees on the benefits of implementing the CRM system will help to significantly counter the passive resistance and increase employee-adoption rate. Strive to not only convince the team to embrace the change but also create and maintain their enthusiasm and desire to learn more about the system. Communication is key here.
Closing Tip: When choosing a CRM system, make sure that you not only consider the benefits but also the challenges that you might face during the adoption process. This will greatly help you choose a system that easy to adopt and effective in improving service delivery.
