An effective CRM is the backbone of a productive sales team. Without data, they can rely on and tools they can trust, they’ll be hamstrung and limited. Unlock the true potential of your team with a better CRM, and you won’t likely be disappointed. But how do you know it’s time to switch? Here are some of the best reasons to switch to a new CRM.
1. Outdated Features Holding You Back
Like any other kind of software, CRMs age. New competitors are constantly launching, and they bring new features and new expectations to the industry. Don’t let the sunk costs of your existing CRM keep you from transitioning. Remember the saying, “sunk costs are sunk”: you cannot reclaim the time and energy you’ve already spent. Continuing to use a bad CRM isn’t “efficient” just because it took time and effort to set up.
You can tell your CRM is missing features if it’s not meeting your organizational needs. If there’s data you’d like to be tracking, apps you like to be integrating, or reports you’d like to create, there is a CRM that can do it all for you. Your revenue might suffer waiting for those features to appear in your existing CRM. If you need new CRM features, go and get them.
2. Remote and Mobile Connectivity
In older CRMs, the single most frequently missing feature is a good mobile app. Plenty of smaller CRMs work just fine on desktops, but don’t have a mobile app that lets you get any real work done. Some CRMs say they have mobile apps, but provide little more than a synced address book or a to-do list.
Modern CRMs include fully featured mobile apps that can support substantive work from your smartphone. Because Zoho CRM is web-based, the full version of your CRM can be accessed from any browser, on any device. That level of mobile flexibility and utility is what you should expect from a good CRM.
3. Integration With Your Other Software Tools
Integration with third-party apps is a huge part of what modern CRMs do. They act as a hub for business data, collecting content and analysis from many sources and correlating them with the appropriate CRM records. Any CRM without those features is crippled by comparison.
A beneficial CRM needs to be comprehensively integrated with the rest of your business intelligence. Without total integration, your team will always second guess the CRM: after all, no matter what the CRM shows them, it’s not the complete picture. So how can they be expected to rely on a tool that isn’t reliable? With full integration with your accounting, social media, website analytics, and email fulfillment tools, your team can trust their CRM to provide updated, reliable data they can use to land prospects and close deals.
4. Poor User Experience (Ugly, Difficult, Annoying)
The user interface might not seem like an important part of the app. After all, does “prettiness” help make an app more useful? You might be surprised: a good user interface is the foundation of a useful app.
The user interface is the only way a user interacts with software. It’s the entire user experience of the application, from buttons to error messages to cursors. A well-designed user interface improves user efficiency noticeably and increases user satisfaction with the software. With a better UI, your team will make more money and be happier doing it. It’s not about looks, but functionality. They don’t need to put up with ugly, complicated, or annoying tools. Your team can be expected to do good work with tools that work against them.
5. Low Organizational Compliance
If your sales team is reluctant to use your CRM, what good is it to you, really? A bad CRM drives users away from the software, while a good CRM draws them in. That positive feedback loop gradually improves the value of your CRM, until the data inside it becomes one of your most valuable business assets. But you can’t get to the top of the mountain if no one is willing to climb. Give your team a CRM that makes their jobs easier, and they’ll reward you with better job performance.
Zoho CRM is built for speed and reliability, accessible from anywhere, and integrated with nearly every popular business app. We can help you transition from a mediocre CRM to an excellent one, improving your team’s morale and growing revenue.
